[mythtv-users] Possibly a "dumb" question

[Raymond Wagner]

On 2/5/2010 10:40, Jim Morton wrote:
> Can someone explain this to me? I just don't get it...
>
> Myth records shows as mpeg or whatever is being broadcast with no 
> decoding or other changes effectively capturing it unaltered.
> During playback, Myth has a myriad of ways to process and render 
> video/audio to then deliver to the TV.
> Why can't it just stream the exact file to the TV and let the TV tuner 
> receive/decode/render/interlace/deinterlace it. In other words hand it 
> to the TV exactly as it were broadcast.
>
> I believe cable boxes do just that. Provide the broadcast stream on 
> channel 3 or 4 and let the TV deal with it.
>
> The TV should not know any difference between live OTA, live cable, 
> and a playback of a recording from Myth...
>
> It seems to me that this configuration would greatly reduce the video 
> card and/or cpu requirements and setup/config efforts.
>
> Maybe I am waaay over-simplifying things...
>

If you feel up to it, check out:

http://bellard.org/dvbt/

Understand, however, that encoding HD MPEG2 is NOT TRIVIAL.  If you did 
manage to get such a thing rigged up and working, you would still need a 
massive amount of power to re-encode in real time to render the menus 
and OSD.