R5000 + Mythical HD extender = Any Hope?

[DualQuad]

Like many folks, I have been anxiously awaiting the HD media extender to finally distribute media around the house. I also have an R5000 that generates H.264 streams for many channels. This H.264 stuff has been a pita so far and really isn't resolved.

Seeing the difficulty that just playing back this H.264 stream on a ultra configurable PC poses, is there any hope that the mythical HD extender would even work with this setup?

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
DQ

[mikesm]

H.264 is still a bit immature to depend on interoperability, and the hD extender supposedly doesn't do 1080p either, so that may be an issue from a HD-DVD and BR perspective. So I'm not sure I would bank on that working.

However, the R5000 is not limited to Dish, and my Cable based R5000 works terrific. All cable video is MPEG2, which Sage handles extremely well, and I would be shocked it that was a problem for the HD extender. So if you want to couple those two elements together, a cable based R5000 implementation is your best bet.

Thanks,
mike

[DualQuad]

The issue of cable use with R5000 come down to the acquisition of a firewire-less HD capable box and then activation with my local cable company. I had done firewire capture using mythTV years back. The showstopper, then like now, is that many of the "popular" SD channels are relegated to the analog spectrum and are substandard on my cable node. The cable companies response was that "signal is good, you have what you have."

The rumored HD extender device, if it could playback H.264, do you think it could playback the H.264 streams from the R5000+DISH combo? Or is this likely so screwy that a hardware decoder based on standards has no chance?

Thanks,
DQ

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by DualQuad

The issue of cable use with R5000 come down to the acquisition of a firewire-less HD capable box and then activation with my local cable company. I had done firewire capture using mythTV years back. The showstopper, then like now, is that many of the "popular" SD channels are relegated to the analog spectrum and are substandard on my cable node. The cable companies response was that "signal is good, you have what you have."

The rumored HD extender device, if it could playback H.264, do you think it could playback the H.264 streams from the R5000+DISH combo? Or is this likely so screwy that a hardware decoder based on standards has no chance?

Thanks,
DQ

If you have Motorola boxes in your cabel system, buy a DCP501 from amazon and get them to provision it. No need for a box from the MSO. Then you can do whatever you want.

I am not sure it's out of the realm of possibility for the Sigma based decoder in the HD HomeRun to decode the Dish h.264 stream. After all, the Dish STB's may have Sigma chips in them too. Some research on the innards of the Dish HD STB's may yield info about which chip they use. If it's a sigma chip, this may be easier than it is on a PC.

Thanks,
mike

[GbrNole]

mike, my cable co will use motorola boxes but to get the r5000 mod on it what is the best (only?) place and approx how much does it cost?

thanks,
nick.

[zoop]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

mike, my cable co will use motorola boxes but to get the r5000 mod on it what is the best (only?) place and approx how much does it cost?

thanks,
nick.

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/r5000/home.htm

they can mod the DCP501 mentioned in the thread above

[HawgGuy]

In my <rural> neck of the woods. Most of cable's limited offering is analog. There is some digital selection and scanty HD. Zero OTA. That leaves DirecTV and Dish.

AFAIK no one offers a r5000-type solution for DirecTV h264.

The r5000 h264 streams are not playable by Sage. Hence the eagerness of some of us to crack the Dish/r5000-hd/h264 nut.