Necessity of video compression

[JJarmoc]

Someone up there mentioned sports. While I watch sports closest to live of anything, I still wait and watch it 10 minutes or so after it starts. This lets me FF through commercials, time outs, etc.. I usually pause a few times to get food, hit the bathroom, etc. so it works out that I'm catching up near the end.

Last night's cubs game, I watched pregame on two channels (one live, the other while the game buffered) and then watched the game fast forwarding through the commercials and stuff. I caught up to live in the bottom of the 8th.

It's just too bad the cubs couldn't rewind and do over a few plays.

Ohh, for football, you'd be shocked how much downtime there is. I once watched a bears game in under 90 minutes, and saw every play.

[takeshi]

If there was strong customer desire to support uncompressed sources as you mention, I'm sure Frey would have already implemented the features that are asked for in this thread. That's the short and sweet answer of it.

As for why that is the way it is, things get a bit more complicated. Stranger89 answered one part. Most people don't have a good enough TV programming source to really care about the negligible difference between compressed and uncompressed video.

Die hard fans of a particular show will definitely buy the show on DVD which will generally have significantly better encoding quality. Yes, some shows aren't available on DVD, but a lot of those shows aren't airing either (Millennium was a good example until recently).

Don't forget that most consumers until very recently have been happy with VHS quality. Granted, Sage are likely to care a bit more about quality, but most obviously find Sage to be good or better than just good.

Another thing -- don't forget that a lot of us are putting together Sage systems because it supports hardware encoders which allow us to use older PC parts that would otherwise be sitting around and collecting dust. In my case, I've been able to employ a PIII 700 based system.

In other words, very few of us are willing to pay for uncompressed video. Most of us are using Sage following a pure PVR paradigm which means you accumulate and view it at your leisure. This means that an ideal PVR records as much possible programming in as little space as possible.

It's the golden triangle of speed/convenience, cost, and quality. Most of us are least concerned about quality while it's one of your primary concerns. You can't ever have all three with the golden triangle.

[maximumpig]

here's an irony that I don't think has come up on this thread--for people with digital cable (and my guess is satellite as well), the signal that comes into the set-top cable box is already mpeg 2 encoded--so the set top box is decoding, then we sagers pump that into our pvr cards, which re-encode, and then when we watch we decode yet again.

it would be interesting to me to see what happens if you could tap directly into the original mpeg encoded signal from the cable provider and store that directly to disk, decoding only once when viewing it. you wouldn't need an encoder, only a decoder, and you'd have less artifacting from only one cycle of encoding/decoding instead of 2

now I have read that the FCC now requires cable providers to provide firewire enabled boxes upon request but I don't know what comes out of them. anyone here have any knowledge of that? Also, is there a way for sage to, in essence, recognize the cable box as a capture device and thus treat the incoming mpeg stream as though it were coming from a hauppauge or other cap card?

[stanger89]

http://www.vividlogic.com/products/dtvr_overview.html

[edmc]

stanger89> http://www.vividlogic.com/products/dtvr_overview.html

Alas, and I quote:

Download the DTV Recorder

The Vividlogic Beta program is closed. Look for buying this product in the near future. If you already have the activation key, you can download the new versions.

Please note that we will not be able to give new activation keys at this time for the Beta program.

--- End Quote ---

As near as I can tell, VividLogic has dropped this effort or is having mucho trouble (hence the extremely long and long-since closed Beta).

However, I would suggest checking out the HDTV Recorders Forum over on the AVS Site:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forum...?s=&forumid=42

Search for "without FireBus". There you will find several threads (with gabs of replies) talking about how to capture Firewire data using various freeware tools. Certainly not as user friendly as SageTV though :-)

My understanding is that, as of today, your HTPC won't be able to exchange the proper "5C" keys (the encryption scheme used on Firewire/1394), so only unencrypted content will be captured. At least that was my understanding some time ago. Too many posts/threads to follow there :-).

The real issue I have with the Firewire/1394 path is this. The CableCo's were excluded from the requirements placed by the FCC on the OTA ATSC broadcasters in that content can all be encrypted coming out of that Firewire/1394 port. So, while it is true that your CableCo is required to provide you with a working Firewire/1394 port upon request (as of 4/1/04 according to the negotiated settlement between the FCC and the CableCo lobby), it is quite possible that it will be of no use to us HPTC-ers in the end.

And I wouldn't hold my breath for any "CableCard" slot available in an HTPC either (which would enable QAM-capable HD Tuner Cards such as the DViCo FusionHDTV 3 QAM Edition to decode Premium Content).

All is not impossible, however. While all Firewire/1394 traffic coming out of a set-top box may ultimately be encrypted (5C), the same will not be the case for the actual QAM-256 encoded broadcast. Apparently, the CableCo's are likely to be required (ongoing hearings as I write this) to carry the QAM-256 signal un-encrypted for stations which are broadcast OTA ATSC (and subject to the "no encryption" clause for OTA). No decision/ruling has been announced yet, however (as far as I know).

[edmc]

I have an update to the link I provided above for Firewire/1394 recording :-)

Here is a link to the "sticky" thread at the top which is most recent and has lots of tutorial on how to do it:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=403695

The thread is entitled: "How to record via 1394/Firewire to WindowsXP"

Now that's pretty specific :-) I hope you are running WinXP...

[stanger89]

Yeah, I was thinking I should have mentioned the fact that Firebus seems to have gone MIA somewhere between Beta and release.

I posted the link, more to show that it could be done/has been done, than anything else. I put a post in the official feature request thread requesting HAVi/FW recording support.

Sadly, right now firewire seems to be our best hope for HD recording outside OTA/QAM direct. What we are really going to need, will be the HD equivalent of a PVR 250.