mythtv and digital tv

[Frank DiPrete]

Ben Scott wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:45 AM, Frank DiPrete <fdiprete at comcast.net> wrote:
>> I checked the HD-5500 :
>> MPEG2 decoding are done on the host computer in software
> 
>   I think that applies to most solutions these days.  Input (tune,
> capture, encode) is considered separate from output (decode, display).
>  There's a lot of arguments for that approach: You can add multiple
> input devices without paying for output hardware you only need once.
> Many video cards these days have decoders in them already.  Most
> computers these days have enough CPU power to do decoding in software.
> 
>   The HDHomeRun doesn't even have video out.  :)
> 
>   If you want hardware decoding, presumably your existing card already
> has that, and you can just use it as an output-only device.
> 
> -- Ben

time to describe my mythtv setup here.

The recording is done on a big loud backend server with lots of disk 
space racked in my office (aka "man land") using the mpg2 encoder chip 
on the pvr-250. Makes great mpg files that can be put directly onto a 
dvd without transcoding btw.

Playback is on a small quiet diskless box frontend which gets the 
recorded mpg files over the lan and plays them back using it's 
integrated mpeg decoder and tv-out (via mini-itx box). This would become 
the second brick (or paver) if I used a rented dvr.

I also pick up recordings on laptops / pc's with myth frontend.
(that's my fav feature of mythtv - it's client/server). This would go 
buh-bye also if I used the motorola model p.o.s dvr.

I've got power on the p4 ht server for software encoding, but I switched 
to the pvr-250 from an older model without hardware encoding because it 
slammed my cpu and made recordings not nearly is good.

I like the HDHomeRun card because I would not have to get a fourth box 
for the recording server. I also like that it is digital signal in with 
a tuner instead of making an analog recording from an external digital 
tuner. I'm not worried about pay channels per say but if something like 
sci-fi is scrambled for the hell of it it would impact me.

This idea is superior to renting another tuner to make analog recordings.

If the card had hardware encoding it would be perfect.

Btw - I am thinking Dish rather then Comcast here.


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