[mythtv] WinTV PVR-250 (hardware mpeg encoder)

[Ryan A. Carris]

Dr. J. S. Pezaris wrote:

>    From: Isaac Richards <ijr@po.cwru.edu>
>    To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
>    Subject: Re: [mythtv] WinTV PVR-250 (hardware mpeg encoder)
>    
>    On Thursday 09 January 2003 11:07 am, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote:
>    
>    > The output from this card is great, and I believe it would be a wonderful
>    > way of promoting MythTV considering the cost of the card (around $140) and
>    > the features of MythTV.
>    
>    And you can buy a cpu that will produce better quality video with higher 
>    compression for $50.  I'm not really interested in the cards. =)
>    
>I think the larger point is being missed here.  With a low horsepower CPU,
>you can think about small, low-power, fanless Myth implementations.  A
>larger CPU requires a bigger, noisier fan, and a bigger, noisier power
>supply, and a bigger, more expensive chassis.  The catch is that a low
>horsepower CPU requires hardware support for at least one of
>encoding/decoding, if not both.  The recently released VIA EPIA
>motherboards (with equivalent of 500 MHz Pentium III processors) are
>screaming to be built into a Myth box (TV out, network and video on-board,
>digital/analog audio out, fanless, small, and inexpensive), but they don't
>have the horsepower to do real-time software encode/decode on video
>streams.
>
>I know it's possible to work really hard and get a decent-looking
>desktop-sized case with a heavy-hitting processor that is reasonably quiet,
>but the solutions quickly become expensive.  I don't see having separate
>encode and decode boxes being very interesting as there are already
>commercial one-chassis attractive and quiet implementations (like TiVo)
>that work just fine for much of MythTV's functionality and aren't that
>pricey.  Having an encoder farm networked to a series of display clients is
>all well-and-good for the small number of people for whom that solution is
>interesting.  I suspect that far, far more people will want something like
>I've described: a small, attractive, silent (or nearly so) one-box
>solution.
>
>In sum: I think suporting harware encoding/decoding in MythTV is not just a
>good idea, but a critical one.
>
>That's my two cents.
>
>       - pz.
>
>  
>

Hardware encoding may be critical to conquering the world and putting 
Tivo out of business, but I don't think that what MythTV is about.  It 
isn't for me.

The beauty of open source, if you want something done the code is there 
for YOU to make it happen.  

RAC