[mythtv-users] Frontend for Apple TV 4

[Tom Bongiorno]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 11:27 AM, Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com
> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 2:54 PM, Tom Bongiorno <tbjr at bongohut.com> wrote:
> ....
> > You are correct, you are getting cynical. Again, none of the low power
> > streaming devices natively support MPEG2 for good reason.
>
> Actually, with the unusual exceptions, all the SoC chips that have on-board
> hardware H.264 decoding have hardware MPEG2 decoding on the chip.
> Even the Apple chips (although I have heard no one confirm the A9 still has
> the hardware decode for MPEG2, all previous gens were reported to do so).
> The RPi has hardware MPEG2 decode (which requires a license to enable).
> The Nexus Player always had the hardware capability, but ASUS/Google
> did not license or support it until Marshmallow (The Nexus 7 2013 had MPEG2
> decoding enabled with Lollipop as I recall).  If one gets down to the SoC
> VPU
> level, MPEG2 capability is commonly in there.
>
> It is software and licensing that determines if the systems support the
> hardware capabilities.  It is true many low power streaming devices do
> not support MPEG2.  But it is not about capability, but ROI.  Few people
> will not purchase a Roku because it does not support MPEG2 (even though
> the hardware can do so), so why invest in support of it?  It is not what
> most streaming devices are purchased for (which is Nefflix, and Amazon
> video, and Apple itunes, and Google play, and HBO now, which all
> use H.264).
>
> To be (slightly) fair, it is also true that MPEG2 bandwidth requirements
> means that few people on (true) mobile devices would have been able
> to be satisfied with the experience.  H.264 fits better.
>
> This has lead to an entire cottage industry of transcoding solutions
> for people with MPEG2 content (which includes those with a lot of
> recorded TV, or ripped DVDs), but while everyone on this list may
> wish for MPEG2 support, the total is still small, and companies look at
> ROI.  Commit (with a purchase order) to purchase a few hundred
> million Rokus if they add MPEG2 support by the new year, and you
> might find Roku will add it (well, they could not ship that many, but
> they would talk).
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
>

I did not realize that the hardware can decode it. I would happily pay the
license fee through the app store to unlock the capability.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20151110/019bb6c1/attachment.html>