<br><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><br>It is getting cheaper though. I thought I saw an article that Samsung<br>came up with an HD MPEG-4 encoder chip designed for the HD camcorder
<br>market. If those are half-decent and make their way to capture cards it<br>would revolutionize HD capture - no need to hack your cable box to add<br>firewire - just capture it off of component/DVI. HDCP could become an
<br>issue but once the demand is there the hacks will become commonplace...<br><br></blockquote></div><br>There's nothing new about realtime compression in HD camcorders - a quick search at <a href="http://bestbuy.com">
bestbuy.com</a> reveals about half a dozen HD camcorders for under $1000 - and all of them store their video in some compressed form or another. As a myth user, I could care less (initially) if the video is HDV, h.264, or MPEG-2.
<br><br>The technical differences between a camcorder encoder and an analog video encoder are somewhat beyond my grasp, but it is clear to me that the lack of consumer grade analog HD encoders on the market is no longer due to technical limitations - it is due to a lack of critical mass of demand in the marketplace.
<br><br><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>TV/IT Engineer<br>WCJB-TV Gainesville, FL<br>(352) 377 2020 x248<br><a href="mailto:cribe@wcjb.com">cribe@wcjb.com</a>