[mythtv-users] HDMI capture card with linux drivers

[Yeechang Lee]

Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> says:
> Their software... meaning it has nothing to do with the hardware or
> the drivers.

That's can't be right; my understanding is that it's impossible for a
general-purpose consumer-priced computer today to real-time encode HD
video into high-quality h.264. (Otherwise someone by now would've
written such an encoder and turn any simple hardware framegrabber into
a HD-PVR equivalent.) Or am I mistaken?

Even if I am mistaken and such a thing is practical, I certainly
prefer the HD-PVR approach for its convenience, flexibility, and
simplicity. While going the all-software route is sometimes
desirable,[*] VDPAU and HD-PVR have shown that inexpensive custom
silicon can sometimes do things that general-purpose hardware just
can't replicate.

[*] Such as Linux software RAID versus fakeRAID cards. Even Areca,
3Ware, and other good-quality true-RAID cards share fakeRAID's
disadvantage in terms of vendor/model lock-in potential, and they
haven't offered better performance than mdadm RAID on a non-ancient
server in a long time.

-- 
Frontend/backend:	P4 3.0GHz, 1.5TB software RAID 5 array
Backend:		Quad-core Xeon 1.6GHz, 6.6TB sw RAID 6
Video inputs:		Four high-definition over FireWire/OTA
Accessories:		47" 1080p LCD, 5.1 digital, and MX-600