[mythtv-users] Australia, Freeview and MythTV

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:23 PM, sonofzev at iinet.net.au
> <sonofzev at iinet.net.au> wrote:
>> We've been duped..
>>
>> Australia has a new Digital system being launched.. I'm writing just to check and
>> see what I/we will need to do if this does eventuate.
>>
>> Freeview has announced that there will be a move from the current MPEG-2 based
>> (DVB-T)system to an MPEG-4 based system... and here's the catch (that I'm dubious
>> of) "only Freeview branded set top boxes and TV's will be able to see those channels"
>>
>> Aside from the fact that aside from the proposed "Internet Filter", this will
>> make Stephen Conroy possibly the most unpopular parliamentarian in Australia's
>> history (How many people have bought new LCD's with built in HD tuners
>> anticipating the big switching off of analogue tv only to find they will need a
>> new set top box??)...
>>
>> While I'm sure this simply means that Australia will be changing over to a newer
>> technology that supports MPEG-4.. Does anyone have an idea what this is, and is
>> it likely my tuners will support it?
>>
>> (FYI I have a dvico dual express and a dvico fusion lite)
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Allan
>
> In NZ our DVB-T freeview [1] is based on h.264 video and he-aac and/or
> ac3 audio. It is unencrypted. Any DVB-T card will receive it, and it
> can be played without any form of decryption.
>
> That doesn't mean it is easy to play back. H.264 video is far more
> processor intensive than MPEG-2, and the linux (read ffmpeg) support
> for PAFF interlacing and he-aac is there now, but not in mythtv-0.21.
> There are hacked versions of myth [1] that will play this stuff fine,
> either with or without vdpau. However without vdpau you are going to
> need a machine far gruntier than your present minimum specs on mpeg2.
> Also XvMC is not going to help like it can on MPEG-2.
>
> So I suspect what the announcement is saying is "your digital tv with
> mpeg-2 codec in it won't play this stuff".
>
> But unless they mean encyption is coming, myth should be able to
> handle it, albeit with an upgrade to your CPU or your video card,
> along with the "hacked" versions of 0.21.
>
> [1] there is also an SD service running basically the same channels
> from satellite over DVB-S via MPEG-2 video.
>
> [2] https://launchpad.net/~paul-kcbbs/+archive/ppa (without vdpau)
> http://avenard.org/media/Home.html (with vdpau)
>

PS you can buy TVs in NZ that will tune and play the h.264 channels,
but I'd be pissed if I was an Aussie and had bought a TV with only a
MPEG-2 tuner to be told it won't work any more.

I have seen TV's advertised in NZ at different price points depending
whether they have the digital tuner in there. I suspect they can
therefore be added as an "extra", but YMMV.