[mythtv-users] Is the pchdtv card looking good?

[Jarod Wilson]

On Tuesday, Sep 16, 2003, at 14:08 US/Pacific, Steele Price wrote:

> I really hope that his guy can make his drivers work someday soon...
> http://myhd.sourceforge.net
> It's unfortunate he can't get anything out of the hardware vendor...

Indeed.

> I just don't understand why hardware vendors are so reluctant to allow
> opensource drivers to be developed, it only increases their sales, 
> maybe
> there is some licensing issue I don't seem to realize, but I really 
> just
> can't understand it.  I can think of several excuses they would use, 
> but
> nothing credible. Like bad user experience from low quality drivers, 
> but
> that's not really the issue here is it?

I'm sure many vendors think they'll end up having to deal with support, 
and support staffs aren't cheap (even the bad ones). Some are also very 
protective of their 'intellectual property', and aiding open-source 
drivers would make it much easier for the competition to figure how 
they do this and that, and could result in them losing whatever edge 
the might have had over other mfgs.

> I don't want to shell out yet another $200+ for a card when I have a
> perfectly working card sitting on the shelf waiting for drivers.

Well, I paid only $193 for the pcHDTV, shipped and everything (okay, 
that's not much different than $200+). It has yet to arrive, but...

> I'd help him out on those too, but hell, I can't get involved in every
> project that interests me (well, at least until someone invents a time
> machine or floods my bank account with cash...)

I know exactly what you mean. :)

> back to the point... ATSC signals are ATSC signals

Not quite. Let me qualify that. Terrestrial broadcast ATSC signals are 
terrestrial broadcast ATSC signals. Cable ATSC signals are cable ATSC 
signals. The two are not exactly compatible with one another, and a 
tuner designed for one won't work with the other, unless it is a 
dual-mode tuner (which most aren't).

> anything picking them
> up is going to save the stream, but not necessarily in the same end
> format, that is solely dependent on the drivers/software used.

Not necessarily the same transmission format either, broadcast vs. 
cable...

> The
> AccessTV card was saving in an encrypted format for a long time 
> (though I
> think they stopped) and it was different than other cards in windows.

I'm assuming they left the HDCP info intact.

> I
> believe that saving a single stream is possible and could be very
> beneficial from within software, It would be nice to see a stream
> selection when HDTV really gets going so we can drop the lower quality
> stream in transit(and vice versa) and just save the one we want, thus
> saving LOTS of hd space.

My understanding is that you actually can do this with the pcHDTV. Or 
at least, you can choose not to capture the unwanted audio streams that 
are usually muxed in (i.e. SAP). I'm not certain about multiple 
resolutions of HDTV streams. Is it your understanding that there 
multiple HDTV resolutions broadcast for each HD channel? I thought it 
was just one, and any down-sampling was done at the client end... Or 
did I misunderstand what you were saying?

> Transcoding is yet another thing and is rife
> with all it's own problems, but the newer transcode engine seems to 
> handle
> everything now (last spring it didn't)...

I'm curious to see how long it'll take to transcode a one-hour HD 
show...

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

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