[mythtv-users] Direct software mpeg-1 encoding(live)
Dhiraj Gaurh
dhiraj at vishnubhugwaan.org
Tue Jan 27 09:55:47 EST 2004
Hello friends,
Some time ago I had written a mail to this list saying that it would
be very nice if we could encode in mpeg-1 (or 2 if you please) directly,
rather than encoding in mpeg-4 and later transcoding it to mpeg-1. Many
people on this list said that it is not possible to do mpeg-1 encoding
in software as it consumes too much CPU. It sounded rather strange to me
that it was possible to do live mpeg-4 encoding but not mpeg-1. I
thought since mpeg-4 compresses more so it should require a faster CPU.
It turns out that I was right. I was just looking at the freevo
page(another free Linux PVR application). It says it is possible to do
direct mpeg-1 VCD quality encoding using a Celeron 400 MHz but mpeg-2
and mpeg-4 require more CPU power. This seems to be a true statement.
It is possible to directly make a VCD file with Freevo, zapping or the
standalone mp1e library.So now, if you can't do live mpeg-4 encoding and
you don't have enough disk space to store your recorded RTJPEG or if you
want to make a VCD anyway and don't want to bother about transcoding
from RTJPEG/mpeg-4 to mpeg-1, you can do it !! That's really nice. It
will be quite nice if we include direct mpeg-1/2 encoding support into
mythtv. That would be a very nice and useful addition. Let me see what I
can do about it. If I get some time. It will take a few months if I have
to do it myself though. The actual work itself shouldn't take a lot of
time though. The encoder is already there, you just need to put a hook
into mythtv to make use of it. Seems rather simple to me. Perhaps there
are reasons why mythtv would not want to use mp1e or rte but I am not
aware of them. As far as I know, they are open source.
thanks
Dhiraj
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