[mythtv-users] OT: ATSC/QAM Encode to distribute HD over longer runs.

[Chris Ribe]

> Depends.   It is trivial to do software encoding of menus into an atsc
> stream to
> provide menus and such,


How do you figure?  Menus may be less computationally intensive to encode
than other full motion video - but they still need to be full motion video.



>  most of the ATSC stream would be fed
> directly (with no software decode/reencoding needed)


What gets recorded to your harddrive when you record OTA DTV in Myth is not
an entire ATSC stream, it is just an MPEG-2 transport stream.  It lacks
various meta data that a TV would require in order to tune the signal.


Multiplexing a previously recorded MPEG-2 transport stream into an ATSC
stream would certainly be less computationally intensive than encoding video
into a compliant MPEG-2 stream, but the later problem can at least be
accomplished today with existing free software tools.



> And so far the "cheap" set top box (that does actual HD w/enet) is
> $200-$300 and
> you need one for *EACH* television, and if you have a number of TV's that
> gets
> to be more expensive than the other solution.


This is true, but it would be much more difficult to provide multiple
streams from a single backend if you were feeding ATSC streams.  Without the
ability to have independent frontends, such a system would be of limited
appeal.  Also, consider that very few TVs have multiple ATSC tuners, so you
would need to work around the problem of still allowing those TVs to watch
off ait TV.

-chris


-- 
Chris Ribe
TV/IT Engineer
WCJB-TV/DT Gainesville, FL
(352) 416 0648
cribe at wcjb.com
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