[mythtv-users] Re: Crazy idea for cheap HDTV tuner card

[Michael T. Dean]

Jason Gabriele wrote:

>maybe im not understanding you right but would it be cheap at all if
>you needed 150GB/hour? i mean you would have to buy another drive(s) to
>do any recording at all unless you just watched live tv with it.
>wouldnt buying a new hard drive cost as much as an HDTV decoder card?
>  
>
It may not be that cheap (now), but in 349 days, it might be the only 
option available for Linux* ( http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/ ).  In 
other words, it definitely sounds like a good idea to work on 
now--before there are any DMCA implications that might dissuade people 
from performing the work.

Besides, as CPU technology progresses, systems will eventually be able 
to receive, process, and encode the signal real-time.  After all, it 
wasn't that many years ago that real-time MPEG-4 encoding of DVD-quality 
video wasn't possible...

And, you never know, if Sony's/IBM's/Toshiba's Cell computing 
architecture catches on, you might just need one drive for dumping the 
data (even as a ring buffer), and let your Cell-based computers, PS3, 
TV, mobile phones, PDA's, refridgerators, etc. do the crunching for you 
to encode it to a more reasonable 10GB/hr MPEG-4 in real-time.  For more 
info on Cell, see Sony's latest cell press release at 
http://www.us.playstation.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=208 or for a nice 
little diagram (/WARNING/) _from their US patent application_ see 
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15869 or (/WARNING/) read the actual 
patent application at 
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20020138637&OS=20020138637&RS=20020138637 
or http://tinyurl.com/4h60 .  Linux support shouldn't be a problem:  
since each core (with 1 to 8 cores per chip) will need its own Unix-like 
kernel and most systems will use 4 or more chips, Sony has chosen to use 
Linux instead of an expensive proprietary operating system.  Besides, 
Microsoft (with its traditional-CPU-based XBox 2) has been saying Sony 
(with its cell-based PS3) is wasting its time working on hardware 
because, "Sony's Cell is a hardware solution.  This is a software 
revolution," ( http://www.microsoft.com/xna/faq.aspx ).

Mike

*Except, of course, for those who buy their pcHDTV cards ( 
http://www.pchdtv.com/ ) (or possibly FusionHDTV cards ( 
http://www.dvico.com/products_mul_hd3.html ) if someone really does 
write a Linux driver) relatively soon.