Moving to HDTV FAQ for Sage??

[PaulModz]

Hi all,

I just bought a 42" plasma, and I need to start thinking about how to move Sage from SD (Standard Def) to HD capture devices. There is HDTV info sprinkled around the forum, but I didn't see a FAQ or thread on the topic. Is there anything that consolidates all the HD info?

It seems to me a lot of people might be moving to HD, now that Sage supports it and great HDTVs are affordable (the 2006 42" Panasonic Plasma coming out this spring has an MSRP lower than BestBuy's current sale price on the 2005 model!) Maybe Sage HDTV info (and specifically SD to HD transition stuff) should be its own sticky, or at least a section in the existing sticky FAQ??

Anyway, here are the things I'm still not clear on, which might general enough to be included in the FAQ if its created:

1. Is there an offical list of supported HD capture devices? Is there a defacto standard amoung them (like the Hauppage cards in the SD world)?

2. Can Sage simultaneously use (and properly display content from) both SD and HD capture devices in the same machine?

3. I'm planning to get one of the new ATI x1000 video cards to drive my HDTV, anyone tried them with Sage yet? One of the big selling points of ATI's new chipset is hardware decode of HD signals (FYI, x1300 can handle 480p, x1600 does 720p, and the x1800 does full hardware decode on 1080p).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by PaulModz

1. Is there an offical list of supported HD capture devices? Is there a defacto standard amoung them (like the Hauppage cards in the SD world)?

Yup here:
http://www.sagetv.com/requirements.html?sageSub=tv

2. Can Sage simultaneously use (and properly display content from) both SD and HD capture devices in the same machine?

There are no limitations AFAIK.

3. I'm planning to get one of the new ATI x1000 video cards to drive my HDTV, anyone tried them with Sage yet? One of the big selling points of ATI's new chipset is hardware decode of HD signals (FYI, x1300 can handle 480p, x1600 does 720p, and the x1800 does full hardware decode on 1080p).

What you're talking about refers to H.264 accelleration. HD isn't broadcast in H.264, it's broadcast in MPEG-2 and about every video card can do that, my old Geforce 4 MX could do HD MPEG-2 decoding.

FWIW:
It isn't/won't be "full hardware" decoding. Despite what the marketing types say, it's hardware accelleration.

FWIW2:
nVidia will be adding H.264 accelleration in the Forceware 85 release, and every card from the 6600GT on up will be able to do full 1080p H.264 accelleration.

FWIW3:
Right now, nVidia is still king of the hill for deinterlacing and film detection. And is (AFAIK, can't remember about AVIVO for sure) is the only card (6600GT+) that will do Adaptive Deinterlacing of 1080i content.

[PaulModz]

Thanks for clearing that stuff up. I've always tended to favor nVidia on my main PC (best gaming and multimon support) and ATI cards on my HTPC, probably more for historical reasons than a factual comparison.

Many people on AVSFourm have reported difficulties in getting nVidia 6600 and 6800 cards to properly feed the "native resolution" to an HDTV. From everything I've read, ATI does the best job of converting DVI to HDMI at a specific resolution, esp. when coupled with ATI's latest Catalyst drivers that basically allow the card to support any arbitrary resolution.

Since HDTV is broadcast in MPEG2, the HDTV tuners should just save the broadcast file straight to the drive without doing any processing, correct? Some of the TIVO models built into a DirecTV tuner do that.

Lastly, are all the currently supported HDTV tuners for OTA HD only? Is it possilble to use the USB-UIRT to drive an HD cable box, which then outputs HDMI to a card in my PC, or is the signal between the box and the TV somehow protected to avoid just this??

[batorok]

Not sure about the video card issue, don't have a true hdtv

HDTV is captured native, no processing, but is only OTA at this point. Some have enabled firewire input in sage if your cable box outputs firewire, but there are no component or dvi or hdmi capture cards that sage or any consumer level product supports. Windows Vista will likely allow for one way cablecard support, but it's less than clear if sage will then support cablecards or if only windows media functions will, due to DRM questions.

Most people seem to recommend either dvico fusion 5 cards or avermedia a180 cards for ota hdtv; I have an ati hdtv wonder and have not been particularly happy with it in my (windows mce) system, but others have liked it quite a bit in any environment other than the supplied ati software.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by PaulModz

Thanks for clearing that stuff up. I've always tended to favor nVidia on my main PC (best gaming and multimon support) and ATI cards on my HTPC, probably more for historical reasons than a factual comparison.

Yeah, I got my Radeon 9500 (long ago) for the same reason. I'm just glad nVidia came out with the 5 and especially 6/7 series They passed ATI by quite a margin, though ATI seems to have caught most of the way up (at least) with the X1000 series. But the X1000 don't really offer anything compelling to make me consider switching at this juncture.

Many people on AVSFourm have reported difficulties in getting nVidia 6600 and 6800 cards to properly feed the "native resolution" to an HDTV.

I think there are problems with HDMI and PCs in general. For my part my 6800 was plug and play, everything from the post screen to the Windows desktop is 1280x720, 1:1 mapped to my PJ's native res. I'd assumed there'd be fanagling required, but there was none.

From everything I've read, ATI does the best job of converting DVI to HDMI at a specific resolution, esp. when coupled with ATI's latest Catalyst drivers that basically allow the card to support any arbitrary resolution.

I don't think that's any different than nVidia. You're probably thinking about the EDID issues some had when DVI/HDMI was just taking off. I don't recall seeing too many complaints about HDMI/DVI connections from users of either brand lately.

Since HDTV is broadcast in MPEG2, the HDTV tuners should just save the broadcast file straight to the drive without doing any processing, correct? Some of the TIVO models built into a DirecTV tuner do that.

Correct.

Lastly, are all the currently supported HDTV tuners for OTA HD only?

Yup. Or more correctly, they're supported for OTA only (there's no standard driver interface for QAM yet).

Is it possilble to use the USB-UIRT to drive an HD cable box, which then outputs HDMI to a card in my PC, or is the signal between the box and the TV somehow protected to avoid just this??

Uncompressed HD (besides HDMI being encrypted) is just too much data (1.5Gbps or so) for anything inexpensive to deal with.

[Polypro]

The only NVIDIA driver problem I've read is no Component drop down box on the 81 series drivers. Supposedly a new VGA BIOS fixes this, I think Leadtek was the first to fix theirs. The 78 series drivers work, but you lose Pixel Adaptive DI. Some have said going through the "TV Setup" wizard works. Check AVS HTPC forum. ATI has(had?) a problem with DVI being recognized.

P