[mythtv-users] Is 0.28 going to support HEVC does anyone know?

[Stuart Auchterlonie]

On 12/01/16 13:04, Bjoern Voigt wrote:
> Another Sillyname wrote:
>> IF (and it's a big IF) the German transmissions have complied with the
>> HEVC standard they SHOULD work.....the problem will be if anyone has
>> done some 'tinkering'.
>>
>> This wikipedia piece makes interesting reading as the likelyhood of
>> licencing costs is raising it's ugly head.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding
> We will see. Currently testing is complicated:
> 
>   * the test broadcasts in Berlin, Munich and Cologne-Bonn are not for end users, which may not be important for us

But useful

>   * there are no DVB-T2 HD USB adapters on the marked AFAIK - older DVB-T2 USB adapters may work too

That's wrong, there are several, I have one. The adapter is not
responsible for the HD part. See below.

>   * DVB-T2 HD is not an official feature of MythTV 0.29, because of the feature freeze and because nobody put this on the feature wishlist earlier

Wrong again. You have been consistently confusing the transmission
standard (DVB-T / DVB-T2) with the encoding of the content broadcast
over that transmission medium. (mpeg2, H264, H265 etc. aka "codec")

The two are completely independent, and it's up to the country how
they combine them to provide their "HD" standard

What is normal, is to run the newer codecs (h264, h265) over dvb-t2 / s2
as dvb-t2/s2 provide better symbol rates for a given amount of bandwidth
the newer codecs are able to transfer more information than older codecs
for the same symbol rate.

Now to clarify.
- dvb-t/t2/s/s2 adapter support is provided by the kernel using the DVB
api. MythTV supports, and has done for a long time, anything the kernel
supports.

- Newer "codecs" require updated ffmpeg to decode, and that is what has
been merged to 0.28. 0.27 could already manage h264, which is what most
of Europe is currently using for HD. h265 (aka HEVC) requires the ffmpeg
we have merged into 0.28.

- The encryption is a different matter altogether, you would be able to
record an encrypted stream, but the recordings would be unwatchable
without having been decrypted via an approved smart card / CAM.

> 
> I am confident that if functions like channel search, tuning, EIT, stream demultiplexing etc. are working, HEVC compatible decoding will not be a big issue.
> 

Yes these work


Regards
Stuart Auchterlonie
MythTV Developer