[mythtv-users] Hdhomerun Prime sale at Newegg

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:51 PM, Ian Evans <dheianevans at gmail.com> wrote:
....
>  Just curious...I see the HDHR4 hardware transcodes into H.264.

As an option.  Doing so is (probably) targeted on improving their
capability as a DLNA server, since many (newer, especially mobile)
devices do not do MPEG2, and transcoding to H.264 will also
improve bandwidth requirements (also likely for wireless, which
will may also reduce your storage requirements for recording),
and according to posts on their forum, are likely to support
selecting differing resolutions depending on the target device(*).
SiliconDust has not yet publicly documented the detailed
capabilities, nor the programmatic API to control the device.

For MythTV, at introduction, the most interesting thing about
the HDHR4-CC will be 4 tuners (the 4 in the name is the
generation, not the number of tuners, btw), and not some
future transcoding abilities(***).  Of course, pricing is also not
yet known, so that may influence the value proposition
compared to the HDHR3-CC.

Gary

(*) Note that some providers are already transmitting in
H.264(**).  I presume that the HDHR4 will transcode from
H.264 to H.264 too, not just MPEG2 to H.264, to support
lower capability/bandwidth requirements over DLNA.

(**) And now that even the cheapest newer DTA style
devices do H.264, it will be a way to move forward for
some providers to offer more shopping channels (and,
perhaps, higher quality for some channels).

(***) Thinking out loud, and without really looking into the
codes carefully, I would presume that MythTV will need
to add the capability for recording profiles to send info
to the HDHR4 to select, say, a low bitrate transcoded
recording of "Talking Heads", and, say, a high bitrate
transcoded recording of "Fast Moving Sports Action".
But this will require some developer to be sufficiently
motivated to add such capabilities.