HDTV capabilities [Archive] - SageTV Community

RBTConsultants

03-01-2003, 04:47 PM

There are actually several solutions available for playback of the HD transport streams recorded by cards such as AccessDTV, Hipix, Hidtv and MyHD. Using the playback software that comes with the cards is one option.

Also, WinDVD is known to do it. I use zoomplayer with Sonic filters and have used Cyberlink decoders. There is a tool called DVHSTool which will also playback using these decoders.

Essentially, these decoders with a dmux (elecard) can be implemented in any directshow player.

The biggest issue with AccessdTV is the capture software. It records in small chunks with weird names. This forces an interim processing step where you need to combine the small files into a large file for playback. The PVR software is also very lame. I have heard that the PVR software for the other cards is equally problematic, with no integrated EPGs and unreliable scheduled recordings.

So, if you could solve the capture problem first, that would be fantastic.

Addressing playback later would also be fruitful. Playback of the streams can be done reliably and the decoders work fine, but we have had a hard time getting reliable seek capabilities such as FF, REW, etc. Some streams from some broadcast networks work fine with this, some don't. I suspect this lies somewhere in the mysteries of MPEG Sequence headers and directshow capabilities of the file source filters and demux filters. The card makers playback software seems to be able to handle this, but they all only playback to their own cards, which makes it impossible to playback something while something else is recording. Also, Accessdtv does not provide any seek capabilities for files that are not recorded by the card in the propietary naming standard.

A couple of other things to note: AccessDTV is the only card that is hardware capable of independent recording and playback. This is evidenced in their ability to do timeshifting with live pause, etc. However, they have never implemented this in software beyond timeshifting. All the cards use the Janus tuner, but AccessDTV implemented some additional hardware on their card.

AccessDTV developers had a strong spurt of development at the end of last year but have since disappeared from view so any support you could give to the card would bring a LOT of AccessDTV users. Maybe you could contact iTech about partnering with them to support the card.

This has all been discussed in great detail in the HTPC forum at HTTP:\\www.avsforum.com if you'd like to learn more.

Please let me know how I can help.

Thanks,

Bob

edmc

03-01-2003, 10:25 PM

I would much prefer an HDTV Tuner Card more akin to the Analog Tuner Cards you currently support. The problem with AccessDTV, HiPix, MyHD, etc... is that they all require the "playback" thru the Tuner Card. This has many drawbacks which I think you alluded to in your post about preferring an HDTV Tuner Card which used Software Playback.

To that end, I am very encouraged by the DVICO Fusion HDTV II set for release over the next month or two. Check out AVSForum for several discussions of this, and other Korean competitor's cards. One very promising follow-on announced by DVICO is the Fusion HDTV III card which will have QAM support for HD-over-Cable Tuning. Finally, not having to (poorly) duplicate the capabilities of a Display Adapter (e.g. ATI Radeon 9700, GeForce4, etc...), such HDTV Tuner-only cards will come in at under $200...

DVICO's URL is http://www.dvico.com/products_mul_hd.html

chadman

03-02-2003, 05:15 AM

I have used my MYHD card with Sage and it seemed to work well. I was not able to record or playback in HD but could use the card. I am looking forward to useing Sage to record in HD and hope they get there soon.

Chad

RBTConsultants

03-02-2003, 10:02 AM

I agree that a "tuner only" HD card makes the most sense, and that there is no really good reason for an HD card to include expensive Video Display capabilities when we can use AGP cards to do it and software/DXVA to play it back. I would like to see a really good, full featured playback solution for captured ATSC streams.

However, none of these cards are available in the US market today so we still wait. And Dvico's software playback software still needs work from the demos I have seen.

And no one has addressed a good capture/scheduling/PVR front end for any HD card yet like Sage seems to be.

So, if it is expedient it sounds like the best approach would be first addressing the front end/scheduling/recording/capture first for available HD cards and outputting a standard file format. Then either use the HD Cards's playback or other available solutions and address a really good playback app next. This could then be a standard solution that could be used regardless of the HD capture card and it's ability to playback or not.

My $.02

Bob

Narflex

03-02-2003, 12:14 PM

You don't know how happy it makes me to hear this:

I agree that a "tuner only" HD card makes the most sense, and that there is no really good reason for an HD card to include expensive Video Display capabilities when we can use AGP cards to do it and software/DXVA to play it back.

If I do it the way you recommend; that's the EASY way in my book. I was worried everyone would want to use the MPEG decoder on the HDTV cards....which is the HARD way for me to do it because I have to do an interface to their proprietary hardware.

HDTV's looking really good for the near future. :) Please don't ask about timing; there's no details to give on it.

RBTConsultants

03-02-2003, 09:04 PM

Jeffrey -

I believe there would be great excitement for this. Go to the HTPC forum in www.avsforum and search on the fusion dvico card and other threads on playback of HDTV files and see how many people are interested in this. No one I have heard from cares a wit whether the playback is by the HD card or the AGP card as long as it plays back. Personally, I happily play back HD at 540p or 720p due to a problem with the older Radeon's not playing back at 1080i today in the video overlay. Newer Radeons have a component output dongle that supports 1080i and DX9/VMR is also an option.

Thanks for your support and your new products. I have been testing the Sage Recorder with my PVR250 card and I am impressed with the app. I particularly like recording in the background tonight while watching a DVD, something I have been able to with AccessDTV and HD but not with a regular NTSC tuner card.

I will be looking at SageTV soon to replace my own Tivos, as well as for a small business venture building/selling HTPCs.

Thanks again.

Bob

dkardatzke

03-06-2003, 08:21 AM

As we look at the possibility of integrating HDTV cards with SageTV, we are trying to determine what card to start with for testing. Can someone point us to any discussions on AVS forum or elsewhere that provide an in-depth comparison of the cards? I came across a good post a few days ago on AVS but I can't seem to find it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Dan

edmc

03-06-2003, 02:01 PM

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=209915
- 1st Thread on DVICO's FusionHDTV Card(s)
- There are others and other cards discussed in this Thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178484
- One of many threads discussing the AVS Developer supported HiPix

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=232360
- One of many threads on the MyHD card

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=234661
- One of several threads comparing various HDTV cards
- I would search around AVS's HTPC Forum for more if necessary

RBTConsultants

03-07-2003, 02:56 PM

Note that AccessDTV cards are not discussed much anymore, but that is because of the lack of support. If we could get support with new software, the users would come out of the woodwork.

Thanks,

Bob

mn3kgtvr4

03-07-2003, 03:22 PM

I'll second the request for Accessdtv support. It's a great card in need of great software.

djg

03-07-2003, 08:23 PM

Let me also request AccessDTV support for all the reasons mentioned above. I've had great success using WinDVD 4 to play back the files so software playback is fine by me.

Thanks,

Dave

Eiffel

03-08-2003, 09:37 AM

Here's another thread comparing the four HDTV cards currently available in the US.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=207262

I would certainly like to see support for the AccessDTV card (by the way, there are some publicly available scripts for scheduling records with this card, using the non-encrypted version of titantv. these can be found on the AccessDTV yahoo group).

Eiffel

mstrange

03-08-2003, 08:47 PM

I'll add another vote for the AccessDTV card. I have it and am pleased with the card!

Mike

Narflex

03-09-2003, 04:45 PM

Do any of these cards have DirectShow filters for doing recording (this is not a requirement)?

The basic API that's needed for me to interact with one of these cards is this:
1 - set tuning properties
2 - Start writing to a shared file (preferably where I can specify the name)
3 - stop writing to the file

If they support DirectShow for recording, then integration should be no problem. If they don't. I'd need to have access to an API that allows me to do the 3 things above.

Thanks for the help. So far it looks like there's a lot of AccessDTV supporters out there.

RBTConsultants

03-15-2003, 12:21 AM

I did some looking and there are directshow filters for AccessDTV. There appear to be filters for a tuner and a capture. These are labled as "janus" filters. I was unsuccessful fiddling around trying to get them to connect to anything or each other in Graphedit. I don't know if someone with Directshow programming knowledge could make use of these, I have no experience. I believe that AccessDTV has been adamant about not making any API available.

Bob

edmc

03-18-2003, 05:06 PM

Dan/Jeff,

We've recently gotten some excellent news on the DVICO FusionHDTV Tuner Card. It appears that the current/beta version (a.k.a. "Fusion I") is going to be liquidated shortly (see the AVS Forum thread previously referenced for the details) to be followed shortly thereafter by the "Fusion II" card which incorporates a better Tuner chip and more inputs (the Fusion I only had a single RF Input).

I'm hoping you can target this card for your HD Tuner support you are adding to Sage. It certainly better follows the model you have for your app :-)

Personally, living in the shadow of the Bay Area's East Bay Hills, I'm forced to hold out for the next version of the card, the Fusion III. No date on that card yet, but it was suggested to not be long after the Fusion II. The Fusion III will incorporate QAM demodulation required for getting HD off of Comcast Cable soon (<6 months) to be available in my area. The wait goes on :-(

Mark Lamutt

03-18-2003, 06:20 PM

I tried to get in on the beta test of the Fusion II card, but they didn't select me. :( Oh well...I also think that this might be the card to support first for HD applications. After reading everything about it, it sounds like it might be a better fit with Sage than the other HD cards out there currently. Of course, I'd love to have Sage support for my 2 hipix cards, but I'm definitely not holding my breath on that one. :)

audio

03-20-2003, 01:55 PM

I'd like to vote for support of the DVICO Fusion cards as well. As I've ordered a Fusion HDTV I, I'd like to see SageTV support for all versions, not just starting with version II.

Narflex

03-20-2003, 02:36 PM

I did send them an email about being in the beta test a little while back, but never heard anything from them.

Are there any HDTV cards where you can do recordings with GraphEdit?

KenSpi

03-27-2003, 10:09 AM

Maybe a little late to jump in, but I'd like to see MyHD compatability. This is a current card, and distribution is local to So. Cal. (Digital Connection in H.B.) Development of the software continues, as is shown by recent beta releases.

P.S. I heard about your software on KROQ this morning.

benjanet

03-27-2003, 08:47 PM

Hey, I just wanted to add my view here.

The Hardware decoder based HDTV cards are going to become a thing of the past soon. History tends to repeat itself.

At one point DVDs required hardware based decoders. We had a separate audio/video hookup on these little PCI cards. Soon enough, video cards could accelerate MP@ML decoding, and greatly improved the performance of a system watching DVDs.

Using a hardware based HDTV card, forces your computer to become a storage slave for your card, all its allowed to to is read and write transport streams. Remember the ancient 3DFX cards, and DVD cards, that used the VGA passthrough cable? Same principal, newer decoders.

Software based decoding, such as the DVICO card, is not really all software decoding. It relies heavly on the abilities of your video card. The CPU requirements almost double if you don't have a supported card.

With software decoding, and a good video card, you can have all your video output from your HTCP from one connection, weather its DVI, VGA, composite or S. Up until I found Sage Recorder, I was forced to use an AV selector swich just to watch different things on my HTPC.

Switch A, was the S output on my radeon card (and sound card output), which ran in "theater mode" for watching DVD, MPEG2, AVI, DIVX, anything that can use the overlay surface.

Switch B, was the S output (and its own audio) of my Hauppauge PVR350, which I used to watch, record, and timeshift TV. The hauppauge card can use the overlay surface and come out on the ATI card, but uses a very poor software only MPEG2 decoder (performs poorly on system).

And now there is even the sigma designs X card. Hardware based MPEG everything (but not MP@HL). Great, put those nice chips on a video card instead, where they are more usefull.

I feel that the DVICO card is the future of HD viewing, and I am going to buy a Fusion III the instant its avalible.

Sage should get together with Fusion, and make a great EPG/tuner app (make sure it can play DVDs and files easily too). Throw in DX9 overlay menus, and its finally the HTPC "killer app"

Ben

Narflex

03-28-2003, 11:07 AM

I did send them an email asking to beta test, but they never responded. Maybe other people want to send requests to them for this to get them to listen....

edmc

03-28-2003, 05:48 PM

Alas, DVICO may be like other Tuner Card makers, and think that they can provide the SageTV service themselves... :-( I hope not.

Incidently, I and many others over on AVS Forum also emailed to be on the Beta and received no response. I guess they only chose about 9 people and didn't bother to notify the others that were not selected. No matter, the board is now shipping from Cinefx and DigitalConnections (as of this week).

Unfortunately, I need to wait for the FusionHDTV III and it's QAM support - as well as Comcast to start broadcasting Local OTA stations on their cable in Pleasanton...

edmc

03-29-2003, 01:34 PM

Although the postings are a bit ambiguous, I've finally discerned one glaring deficiency. The DVICO FusionHDTV apparently has NTSC (don't know about PAL) tuning as well. I don't know how the Video is encoded (looks like it uses a Bt878 to MPEG encode it I guess). But one limitation of these Bt8x8 chips has always been on the Audio side. Sure enough, there is apparently no Audio encoding on the card. See URL:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=2042432#post2042432

In short, the card requires a Line-In connection to your SoundCard. Kind of makes using multiple tuners or using this tuner and the Audio of the PC for different purposes. Kind of flys in the face of the nice separation model the Hauppauge 250/350 and ProVideo 250T/Pro tuner cards provide and Sage leverages so well.

I guess I'd just use the HD (i.e. Digital) tuning capabilities of this card and stick with my Hauppauge PVR 250 for SD (i.e. Analog) tuning...

I still vote for this card as it provides the (S/W + DxVA) playback capability distinct from Tuner Card H/W dependencies (unlike any of the other available cards discussed on AVS Forum).

Some encouraging news in that thread, however. It looks like other (all Korean) seem to be releasing similar products. Can't find the post which listed them, but it's somewhere in that flood of 400+ posts :-)

metz123

04-23-2003, 05:30 PM

Throw in another request for MyHD card support.

Mark Lamutt

05-08-2003, 08:06 AM

Do the MyHD, HiDTV or Fusion cards have a network interface or port available to link to? The Hipix does, and we're currently testing some interesting things with it and the Hipix.

We're looking for information similar to this blurb from the hipix documentation:

The HiPix application can now repond to network commands via
the included Hipix network client application and TCP/IP.

When the HiPix application is launched, it will open a TCP socket (port 9000)
and listen. When the HiPix application receives a connection request from the
client application, it will respond with a "Connected" message...

Thanks!

edmc

05-08-2003, 09:21 AM

It has come to my attention that some folks using the FusionHDTV I/II have stated that although the Bt878 has the necessary A->D function for the Analog Tuner on the Card, that this function is not enabled by the S/W. Hence, those cards *DO* need the stupid loopback audio cable to record the Analog stations... [Edit: I suppose alternate S/W could be used to control the Analog Tuning function on the card(s) as it is just a stock Bt878...]

Which raises the question: If a Tuner Card actually has two tuners on it (as the FusionHDTV I/II and MyHD cards do), will SageTV be able to selectively disable one or the other? In my case, I am very happy with tuning analog via my 2 PVR-250s. I would only need HD (OTA and soon over-Cable!) tuned via the 8VSB/QAM64/256 tuner on these HD Tuner Cards...

Narflex

05-16-2003, 11:27 AM

HiPix has a very high probability of being the card that we first support for HDTV. SageTV is already able to control the HiPix card for recording in the latest build (with some tweaking and custom proxy I wrote). :cool:

gsr

05-24-2003, 04:02 PM

AccessDTV development will be starting again in the near future. A few of us have been in negotiations with AccessDTV in regards to the user community taking on development of the software, including the driver and the main application. We will be in a position to commence work on the project in the very near future.

If Frey Technologies is interested in supporting the AccessDTV card, please contact me regarding what you would need from our team and I'll see if we can work something out.

For those of you who are curious, changing the AccessDTV file naming scheme, allowing the user to specify how big file chunks should be, and allowing the "trick" play (skip foward and back, slider control, etc.) features for files that were not recorded with the AccessDTV card are high on our to do list. There are several posts over at AVS forum in regards to feature requests, etc. If anyone has suggestions, please go over to AVS and post them there or feel free to send me email or PM with your ideas.

I hope this is OK to post here - If anyone is interested in joining the development team, please contact me with your qualifications and what pieces you would be most interested in working on. We would be very interested in hearing from someone with driver experience (especially someone with experience with and access to the Compuware driver development tools).

mkerdman

05-24-2003, 07:17 PM

accessDTV & SageTV/SageRecorder

I would like to join Geoff in inviting all present and prospective SageTV and Sage Recorder users with an interest in HDTV to take a look at the accessDTV Digital Media Receiver which sells for $249.95 complete with an excellent indoor Silver Sensor Antenna.

THE FOLLOWING IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT INTENDED AS A COMMERICAL OFFER:

http://216.207.142.133/local/buyonline.htm

The accessDTV is the ONLY HTVD PVR card that can:

- Pause live HDTV

- Record a buffer of up to one hour that you can FF or RWD through and watch a program from the beginning while still recording/buffering the rest.

- and many many more "trick" features to come...

iTech, owners of the accessDTV product, have agreed to make ALL the underlying source code available to the new All-Volunteer OFFICIAL AUTHORIZED accessDTV Software Development Team to further develop its features to take greater advantage of the excellent hardware that exists of the card.

Geoff and I are forming the nucleolus of the All-Volunteer OFFICIAL AUTHORIZED accessDTV Software Development Team and would like to invite:

- anyone with technical code writing expertise and access to the requisite development tools to respond or PM either of us with your qualifications, interest and area of expertise in participating in the further development of the accessDTV software

- Frey Technologies to cooperate to bring together the best HDTV PVR hardware/software ("accessDTV") with the best EPG Programming and Guide Data ("SageTV & SageRecorder") to create the ultimate in HTPC HDTV Time Shifting and Recording available.

- all forum members and end users of both accessDTV and/or SageTV to express their support for developemnt of the SageTV service for the accessDTV Digital Media Reciver.

Please express your interest by posting here and feel free to PM me or Geoff Reynolds directly.

Murray Kerdman

Mark Lamutt

05-24-2003, 09:18 PM

This should make Jeff happy! :)

python

05-24-2003, 10:36 PM

Murray,
If accessDTV is able to get support for SageTV I will purchase an accessDTV card and SageTV software tommorow.

mkerdman

05-24-2003, 10:41 PM

"python

Murray, If accessDTV is able to get support for SageTV I will purchase an accessDTV card and SageTV software tommorow. "

I hear you.

Let's see who else (at Frey Technologies) does.

Murray Kerdman

lovingHDTV

07-08-2003, 11:05 AM

Any updates? There seemed to be some hope back in February.

Jeff, Mark anything you can add to update this thread?

thanks,

mikesm

07-08-2003, 01:01 PM

I wouldn't invest a lot of time in supporting the hardware decoding HDTV boards like AccessDTV and others. Most future users of Sage TV's HDTV capability will be using the Fusion type architecture, esp given lack of QAM decoding support for these hardware based boards, and the increasing amount of cable systems offering HDTV on their plant.

Additionally, people who want HDTV functionality from Sage will be people that will use a hardware MPEG encoder like that found on the WinTV-PVR series, and that will be the primary way analog capture is supported even for folks with the HDTV cards, though at some point software encoding may be stable and powerful enough to do a great job, but we'll likely see different chipsets with better audio support by then.

So if Sage wants to invest some cycles on these old architecture HDTV cards, that's fine as long as it doesn't subtract from what will be the mainstream HDTV solution. I predict within 2 years most of the hardware based folks will have switched over due to QAM support anyway. Not a very good return on your software investment.

BTW, congrats to the Sage team for an excellent product.

Mike

Eiffel

07-09-2003, 09:41 AM

Mike, I'm not quite sure I follow your argument...

QAM is not supported by any HDTV card at the moment... and the benefits of it are not clear (unless encrypted QAM is supported, which is very uncertain at the moment!). Dvico has stated that their future card will support QAM, but stayed clear of announcing a release date. The MyHD and AccessDTV hardware decoding cards are rumored to have the required hardware for QAM, although the corresponding drivers are not available... In short the QAM issue is not correlated with hardware or software decoding.

I am also not sure that people who want HDTV support are necessarily interested in analog capture either... On my system, I pretty much stopped watching analog channels a while ago, as digital OTA looks so much better. With this in mind, I will not invest in a NTSC hardware based capture card when I can get an HDTV card for about the same price (Fusion). Many people also have a Tivo which works quite well with analog video... but doesn't support HDTV yet...

Given the stress that HDTV puts on current computers, and the moderate price difference, It might be a good idea to support some hardware based cards too (this comment is coming from someone who owns 3 different cards... ;) )

Finally, we should also keep in mind that the HD picture quality of the Fusion card is not quite to the level of the hardware based solution (try the standard 1080i patterns to see what I'm talking about ;) )

mkerdman

07-09-2003, 10:01 AM

Mike,

As the owner of both hardware and software decoding based PC based HDTV card tuner/recorders, Eiffel's observations and suggestions about the further need for more NTSC recording solutions in a fast emerging DTV/HDTV world as well as the critical comparison of 1080i/720P images derived from HW vs. SW technologies are well informed indeed.

Murray Kerdman

mikesm

07-09-2003, 11:42 AM

Guys, I understand QAM is not supported by any HDTV card today. My comment was that future users of SageTV will likely be receiving signals that are QAM modulated over a CATV system than OTA. That has been a big issue for HDTV so far, and a lot of effort is being put into support of QAM into new TV sets. Comcast, TW, and many other MSO's are now rolling out HDTV in earnest in major markets, with good acceptance.

Interestingly, none of QAM broadcasts appear to be encrypted, at least so far, though that will likely change for non-local channels.

I would be very surprised if the demods in the existing HDTV cards that support 8VSB can also do QAM. Not unless they do the demod in DSP of some sort, and not of my looks at the cards indicate they use that approach to demod. This isn't a trivial task.

The question in designing a product is finding out what features in a product will drive the maximum amount of adoption of that product. SageTV as a product has only scratched the surface of demand, and HTPC's as a whole are still very immature. It will take a major OEM building a nice easy to use package (like Sony or HP) to really drive sales. These folks will need to target QAM support, since OTA reception is not a huge market anymore. These folks will likely use a DVICO fusion style architecture to acoomplish this for cost and a whole other range of reasons.

So while I think it's great that the folks at frey want to accomodate currect HDTV PC card users, their real goal to be to get the product so polished and functional that OEM's will adopt it and drive large volumes of sales. Integrating HTPC's from components will never be a mass market activity (even though I personally enjoy this very much!). This means targeting the next generation cards like the Fusion. I haven't seen any new hardware product announcements from the Access DTV or hiPix folks. Did I miss something or are these companies just milking their existing designs by enhancing their software support to appeal to additional HTPC users?

The encryption issue is a big deal, just as it is a major problem for HTPC adoption in the mainstream today for SD video from DBS and digital cable. Most HD is targeted at the local affliate stations, but more premium content is becoming available, and that will need crypto over the long run, but these issues are so thorny that today most cable offerings of HD and even VoD transmit the data in the clear with no encryption. If a board came along that could decode SD as well as HD unencrypted streams it would be a pirate's dream. :-)

Standard solutions need to address this (new HDTV sets are coming with QAM decoders and consumers hate cable set top boxes), so hopefully a standard implementation can also be ported to the PC's. If US DBS operators move to more standard technology as we see in Europe, those streams may be opened up to PC users too.

Either way, HD is going through a major growth spurt now, and that is being driven by CATV HD transmission as much as anything else. New cards will be needed to support this for PC's, and these will likely be in the Fusion architecture because it's cheaper and more flexible (and that PC's have gotten very fast - when did you last see a DVD-ROM drive ship with a hardware MPEG decoder?). I am hoping that Frey will target the right platform so they can b e more successful and afford to put in more features for me... :-)

Thanks,
Mike

Narflex

07-09-2003, 05:50 PM

FYI - The current beta, 1.4.3, can playback HDTV Transport Stream files (i.e. a file recorded with the ADTV, HiPix, DVICO, MyHD, etc.). You definitely need to have a video card with DXVA for this to work correctly. Feedback on this is greatly appreciated (and please post it to the SageTV Beta Forum)

corykim

07-09-2003, 07:38 PM

I'm going to buy an HD receiver card now. Which provides the best results with Sage?

Mark Lamutt

07-19-2003, 05:19 PM

Jeff - how do you load a transport stream file into the library or into the Sage Recordings list so that it can be played? I couldn't get one loaded when I was trying this out this afternoon.

Narflex

07-20-2003, 01:07 PM

I should probably add .ts to the default import list...whoops. :)

You can change the import list in the properties file, just add .ts to this list:
seeker/library_import_filename_extensions

Mark Lamutt

07-21-2003, 10:30 AM

I'll try to give it a shot tonight. :)

mkerdman

07-31-2003, 05:45 PM

Tried the .TS file playback feature of the 1.4.5 Beta SW with Cyberlink/Intervideo/and one other MPEG2 SW decoder using a P4 2.4GHZ PC w/ 512MB and a 64MB ATI 8500DV video card.

NOTE: The function worked though I am not entirely certain that the 64MB ATI 8500DV video card supports DXVA and their web site was help.

I do not recall right now which, decoder was which but:

One had a problems fully displaying the entire 1.78 aspect ratio as full screen. It did displayed the correct ratio- but "window-boxed" (smaller) than it should have been (similar to SagTV windowed vs. full screen).

Another displayed the white "safe image" overscan lines on the left and bottom of the image.

The third worked relativly well.

It did have some picture stutter and pixelization at times as well as slight audio sync issues.

It would seem that the MPEG2 decoder used and the tuning of the hardware acceleration of the video card is critical to the picture quality and performance.

Murray Kerdman

sundansx

08-29-2003, 08:13 PM

I vote for HiDTVpro. I dont think you should concentrate specifically on the software based decoders.
I am running a P3 933 mhz machine and it works fantastic as a HTPC machine because the only thing it does in software is the DVD decode and even that is hardware assisted by my radeon card. To decode full resolution 720p or 1080i(with deinterlace) HD stream in software you would need at least a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 system and you would not have much horsepower left over for anything else. This info if from one of the Digital Stream developers. This might be aleviated some by a healthy hardware decode engine on the video card, but the only one that has that level of decode (and it wont help that much, it saves 10% decode load on a DVD decode) is a freaking ATI 9700 $300 video card. Can you say rediculous. I think a Geforce FX 5800/5900 might include that too, but they are off their rockers on price, also. Decoding HD on a processor is a different ball game than DVD. It wont be in the future, but it is now for a while.

rfutscher

09-03-2003, 04:39 PM

I am waiting for the bundle - software, 8VSB HD tuner, QUAM digital tuner and analog tuner with MPEG hardware encoding.

The question is how long do I have to wait?

coppit

06-22-2004, 11:19 AM

BUMP

Now that Fusion III Gold is out with QAM support, I'm more interested in HD support. Can anyone provide a status update? Now that Sage 2.0 is out, I'm hoping you'll tell me that an HD beta is coming out soon. :)

flashbacck

06-22-2004, 07:49 PM

Yea. The Fusion software that DVICO provides sucks butt, and I would love to use Sage instead.

Deadbolt

06-23-2004, 05:27 AM

Does the Fusion III Gold work with Comcast or Adelphia cable? How about the HDTV movie channels like HBO?

stanger89

06-23-2004, 11:01 AM

Only the Fusion III QAM will do HD on cable, and only unencrypted channels (no HBO probably). The best place to find out about HD on cable is probably the AVS Forum, you should be able to figure out what's encrypted on your providers.

wordgasm

07-06-2004, 06:54 AM

I just received my new myHD120 (not insalled yet) and read in this thread that it can be used with Sage (with no HD recording or playback). Could I get confirmation on this, so I can purchase Sage. This would be very good news AND MAKE ME VERY HAPPY!

I was planning on a win350 also, feed thru the myHD120 for scaling.(after I get the myHD up and running/configured) But if Sage works with myHD, this would save alot of setup and tweaking, not to mention cash!

TIA

Jeff

Stealth1971

07-06-2004, 09:06 PM

Not sure if this is the right thread for this - but...

SageTV is great for my SD content so far, but I would love HD for my Samsung RP DLP TV. I had voted for a firewire solution so I could use well known name brands for OTA receivers. Some of these HDTV PCI cards are coming from smaller companies and give me some apprehension :( I like the ability to go to BestBuy and pick up a Samsung OTA receiver w/ firewire same day...

If there was a way to control the DirectShow filter graphs I would love to work on a solution for SageTV.

There are some helping hands out here! (actually I had started a similar product last year using DX9 with .NET/C# but life things happened....)

yadda yadda yadda...

jake_friz

07-13-2004, 12:14 AM

FYI - This site claims that the OnAir USBHDTV can do QAM with the latest (beta) software.

http://www.copperbox.com/lite/sasem.php

Niles

09-25-2004, 05:43 AM

I have both the PVR-350 and the MyHD MDP-120. Both are excellent cards for their function. Using the MDP-120 of course is far better than the PVR-350 in its respect. I have tried just about every turner/capture card out there. The MDP-120 is still king of the hill in my book both in video quality and compatibility. Do not get me wrong there were a few apps and configurations that did not like the MDP-120, but very few and with some minor work arounds.

Though not a cheap card, hence the reason most people will settle for a more less exspensive card, it should be consider as a high end alternative. Plus it has video loop cable that can allow for both TV and monitor support at the same time.

Now understand that some people may think that hardware decoding will become a thing of the past. I doubt it very much. Remember that DVD's are fixed at 720p and HDTV is maxed at 1080i with no prospect of increasing anytime soon. Hardware decoding will also relieve your system of those resources as well. I have tried both hardware and software. Hardware wins.

Video resolution support is very impressive.

- 1080i(1920x1080 interlaced, 33.7kHz)

- 1024p(1024x768 progressive, 48.3kHz)

- 720p(1280x720 progressive, 44.9kHz)

- 480p(720x480 progressive, 31.5kHz)

- 480i(720x480 interlaced, 15.75kHz)

http://www.mitinc.co.kr/mitinc/e_site/prod/prod_mdp100.jsp