Tuff decision , I want more HD than Sage offers.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by derringer

My personal opinion is that it is only a matter of time before there are tuner cards capable of digitally laying down what is currently displayed on HDTVs through the composite or other digital port (i.e. non-analog PCI capture cards.) Assuming HDCP doesn't take hold, this is an easy piece of electronics to make for a chip maker, and would result in immediate incremental income.

HDCP has already taken hold. And HDCP isn't really the biggest problem. The biggest problem is dealing with a raw HD video stream with it's 1-1.5Gbps data rate.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by derringer

My personal opinion is that it is only a matter of time before there are tuner cards capable of digitally laying down what is currently displayed on HDTVs through the composite or other digital port (i.e. non-analog PCI capture cards.) Assuming HDCP doesn't take hold, this is an easy piece of electronics to make for a chip maker, and would result in immediate incremental income.

I don't think we'll exit 2008 without an available consumer card that can capture digital video, personally. And with there being enough HDTVs out there that won't properly handle HDCP, we will then be able to capture feeds off of our Cable, Satellite, etc. STBs without having to do an R5000 mod.

As far as not having to deal with STBs, I don't think that is necessarily in the cards...

And as far as this being Sage's fault, as was already stated, it isn't. I would bet *ALOT* of money that as soon as a consumer card is available, Sage would have support for it extremely fast. It just doesn't really exist yet.

I'd absolutely take that bet re: availablity of a consumer HD card by EOY 2008 that will let you record all HD. $100? Note I don't bet, but since this is a certainty, I'll make an exception since there is no chance involved. :-)

Meanwhile, my R5000-HD modded box continues to chug along and recording HBO in HD in Sage without any DRM restrictions. I watched "Inside Man" recorded this way on my laptop on a plane flight 2 weeks ago.

Thanks,
Mike

[autoboy]

my R5000 mod is chugging along now and I'm really loving the increased HD content over traditional unencrypted methods. Since the R5000 captures the raw bitstream, there is nothing preventing me from using the r5000 in the future as Comcast adds more HD channels. I wish I had been able to use the r5000 on DirectTV, but this will suit me just fine. How much TV can I possibly watch anyways? I've got HistoryHD, DiscoveryHD, NGHD, HBOHD, All the Networks in HD, ESPNHD and ESPN2HD. That covers about 75% of my TV watching. If I get to 90-95% then I'm all set.

As for video capture cards, what about products like this?

[pat_smith1969]

Originally Posted by davefred99

I have been a long time SageTv user who originally converted from BTV. For a long time now I have been pretty much happy with Sage for SD tv and gotten by with using my HDHomrun for capturing OTA HD. Now that DirecTV has finally increased there HD capacity, I have decided to go ahead and upgrade to there HD DVR service. I will still use SageTV for some things like DVD storage, Music and ripped DVD,s, but for HD stuff its just to limited for me. I don,t see SageTV moving towards Cablecard or DtvHD Capture cards anytime soon and even if they do its just to restrictive to be work it in my opinion. I am an optimist and will continue to hope that things change in the future but am not holding my breath.
So While I am not entirely abandoning SageTV, I believe I will be using it less. .
Random Thoughts,Dave

If it is this important to you why not just buy one R5000 box and get ALL the HD you suscribe to via that. From the research I have done It seems that Dish Network and R5000 gives you NO LIMITATION, you can record any HD content you buy from Dish on your SagTV pvr. Granted it is expensive but what is $500 over the next few years.

[derringer]

You are correct, stranger89.. but, it really is only a matter of time.

While my 2008 prediction is optimistic, the industry knows it is only a matter of time before consumer hardware can handle it, which is why they're trying to push HDCP.

A 1.485gbps data rate is 185.63MB/second. If you figure that the only real other option, currently, costs us 500.00 per tuner that we want to modify (R5000, and it is extremely inflexible,) 1,000.00 to spend on such a thing is really not incomprehensible. The more wealthy among us would probably spend 1,500.00-2,500.00 to get the job done, knowing their investment is 'future-proof.' I would even suspect many people would do it just because they can, given a couple grand to spend on the flexibility. How much are some spending on their home theaters? Gaining the kind of flexibility this offers on a Home Theater system you've already spent thousands on, helps justify some pretty large pricetags.

Going back to data rate... I can build consumer hardware right now that can handle 185.63MB/second (although I concede that is on the border of 'consumer' and 'professional'.) While certainly not cheap, that certainly gets us in the realm of being able to lay down the bits necessary to work on them.

With current consumer processing power getting us down to less than 30 seconds per minute of video transcoding, at very high qualities, we don't need 100s of Terabytes, as we should be able to 'transcode on a delay.'

I guess the point is that it is certainly possible that we will get there before the end of next year, although I do agree that I am being optimistic in predicting that...

p.s. autoboy-- As an aside, why couldn't you mod directv with r5000 ? I thought it was capable?

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by derringer

You are correct, stranger89.. but, it really is only a matter of time.

While my 2008 prediction is optimistic, the industry knows it is only a matter of time before consumer hardware can handle it, which is why they're trying to push HDCP.

A 1.485gbps data rate is 185.63MB/second. If you figure that the only real other option, currently, costs us 500.00 per tuner that we want to modify (R5000, and it is extremely inflexible,) 1,000.00 to spend on such a thing is really not incomprehensible. The more wealthy among us would probably spend 1,500.00-2,500.00 to get the job done, knowing their investment is 'future-proof.' I would even suspect many people would do it just because they can, given a couple grand to spend on the flexibility. How much are some spending on their home theaters? Gaining the kind of flexibility this offers on a Home Theater system you've already spent thousands on, helps justify some pretty large pricetags.

Going back to data rate... I can build consumer hardware right now that can handle 185.63MB/second (although I concede that is on the border of 'consumer' and 'professional'.) While certainly not cheap, that certainly gets us in the realm of being able to lay down the bits necessary to work on them.

With current consumer processing power getting us down to less than 30 seconds per minute of video transcoding, at very high qualities, we don't need 100s of Terabytes, as we should be able to 'transcode on a delay.'

I guess the point is that it is certainly possible that we will get there before the end of next year, although I do agree that I am being optimistic in predicting that...

You are missing the point. It's not that such a device couldn't be built, it can be. It's that whoever would build it would get sued... Hollywood has way too much clout in Washington, and the FCC is not doing anything to make it easier to do this. This is not a technical problem, it's a political problem, and poltical problems take a very long time to change when entrenched interests are involved. They do not want to see what happened with the music industry happen to them.

Thanks,
Mike

[derringer]

Its true that there is something to that, but the hardware needs to be made for other video-editing reasons that have nothing to do with Hollywood or the film industry. I think the technical barriers have been the *main* reason and not the industry. When price comes down far enough to technically do it for not just a few professionals, but for the masses, (and we have only recently gotten to that point.) it *will* go the way of the music industry... there will be too many people to sue to even make a difference, or at least that is my prediction and opinion.

While this matters to the '2008' debate, It gets even less likely the further out we go. Specialized hardware is easier to sue over than open source software, which will be the next place we'd look for solutions to these 'problems.' I suppose my definition of 'consumer' level cost is a bit higher than 100.00, as well, but the base argument remains the same.

Regardless, I'm still looking at an R5000 mod, because it looks like the most cost effective near-term solution. I suppose we'll see, but your point is well taken.

[pat_smith1969]

Originally Posted by mikesm

You are missing the point. It's not that such a device couldn't be built, it can be. It's that whoever would build it would get sued...

So why doesn't someone who creats this "HDMI Capture Card" simply build them in china or some other country where they cant be sued. Then via the web sell them online?

I ask out of my own ignorance, surely Hollywood can't sue companies in other countries where the US laws don't apply; Countries that have no extradition type of laws.

[frontlinegeek]

Something no one has picked up on is that the HD stream that is sent to the STB is NOT raw. It is compressed to MPEG2 standards and is at most, 19 mbps (Typically only cable companies push up to the 19 mbps level). For comparison, a high quality DVD is about 6 mbps and HD-DVD/BD sits at about 40 mbps.

As was stated earlier, the ONLY reason that there are not DIY available CableCARD PCI cards and Dish/DirecTV compatible PCI cards is all down to Studio greed. They all think that a non-DRMed show will result in you pirating the hell out of it and sharing it with the world.

Beyond this, I believe that the right choice was firewire. If all of the STB manufaturers build their units with firewire and also developed a proper Windows driver for them, we could all just rent or buy STBs to use a tuners. 5C provided the protection as when 5C is 0, you can record and do whatever with it. When 5C is 1, you can record it once but cannot do anything else with the file after (Except to play it). If 5C is set to 2, then it is just flat out blocked from being played in any other fashion but LIVE.

Going firewire would have also done a few other things. It would have allowed the cable/sat companies to sell or rent something to us so that part of their revenue stream would stay intact. It would have provided the user base the easy ability to add and upgrade STBs without having to rip their HTPCs apart. And finally, the easier you make things for the end user, the more likely they are to latch on.

Best example to the above is that PVR uptake in Canada and the US is quite low considering how long they have been available (10 years). This is mostly due to the PITA factor as many households have multiple TVs and people just do not want to be forced to watch a show from only one specific TV. After that, the guides SUCK on most STBs. SageTV and most other HTPC packages have basically the very best interface available. Everytime I show my friends and family my fully comprehensive SageTV setup, they giggle. If the cable, sat and networks could only see this as the gold mine that it is, they could be rich from all of the people that would come in to get such a comprehensive setup.

To really add to that last little part, a computer that I had lent to my sister is coming back to me when she moves back to the US. When it does, I can turn it into another Sage client (I have more network runs (20+) than cable runs in my house). When I told my wife this, she had a huge grin on her face. Then when I even specified that there would be live TV on it, well, it sold itself even more.

OK, I have rambled enough.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by stanger89

-Puts on devil's advocate hat:

If they output everything via clear QAM, how do they:

• Stop people who only subscribe to "basic" cable from watching the digital tier?
• Stop people who only subscribe to the basic digital tier from watching programing from "higher" tiers?

There's different channel lineups on analog cable, so surely they can control what channels go to each house in a clear digital system.

And even requiring a box for premium only content (HBO, Showtime etc) would be an improvement over requiring one for every single channel.

Or of course they could just turn the allow copy flag on over firewire from the box.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by que3jxp

Something no one has picked up on is that the HD stream that is sent to the STB is NOT raw. It is compressed to MPEG2 standards and is at most, 19 mbps (Typically only cable companies push up to the 19 mbps level). For comparison, a high quality DVD is about 6 mbps and HD-DVD/BD sits at about 40 mbps.

Actually all digital channels are encoded in some manner. As far as I know all cable systems (in the USA) use mpeg-2; DirecTV & Dish are moving most channels to Mpeg-4 AVC. They actually could send uncompressed digital signals but there would be no reason to. Encoding schemes are utilized for either a higher quality picture in the same bandwidth as an uncompressed channel, or many channels in the same bandwidth (SD). Locally my CBS and CW affiliate are the only digital channels to broadcast at full 19mbps.

I've seen DVD content be anywhere from 4-6 mbps (sometimes less for "making of" documentaries and such), I believe DVD supports burts of up to about 10mbps.

HD-DVD/Blu-ray has a maximum data rate of 40mbps (or aprx. so). I doubt any movies average that high of a bitrate, nor would you ever need anything that high when using h.264 or VC-1 except for very high motion scenes.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by autoboy

As for video capture cards, what about products like this?

Where are you going to store a recording that's between 100-600GB/hr. And what are you going to play HDV or MJPEG recordings with?

Originally Posted by derringer

You are correct, stranger89.. but, it really is only a matter of time.

Maybe...

While my 2008 prediction is optimistic, the industry knows it is only a matter of time before consumer hardware can handle it, which is why they're trying to push HDCP.

A 1.485gbps data rate is 185.63MB/second.

That's 600GB for each hour. It would cost you half as much as much as an R5000 ($300 capture card + $300 in HDD space) to record one hour of content that way.

If you figure that the only real other option, currently, costs us 500.00 per tuner that we want to modify (R5000, and it is extremely inflexible,) 1,000.00 to spend on such a thing is really not incomprehensible.

If you want to record more than an hour or two, you're looking at several thousand dollars in HDD space to store raw or lightly compressed HD and/or CPU power to compress it to a reasonable size.

The more wealthy among us would probably spend 1,500.00-2,500.00 to get the job done, knowing their investment is 'future-proof.'

For $2500 you could get (almost) 5 R5000 tuners, and record hundreds of hours of content, or 1 raw capture card and record a handful.

I would even suspect many people would do it just because they can, given a couple grand to spend on the flexibility. How much are some spending on their home theaters? Gaining the kind of flexibility this offers on a Home Theater system you've already spent thousands on, helps justify some pretty large pricetags.

It's not really about money, not directly, HD capture cards can now be had for less than an R5000 mod, but they're not anywhere near as useful, regardless of how much money you're willing to spend.

Going back to data rate... I can build consumer hardware right now that can handle 185.63MB/second (although I concede that is on the border of 'consumer' and 'professional'.)

On 10TB ($3,000), you can record less than 16 hours at that rate. And then there's the fact that you have to use Adobe Premier or something similar to do the capture, the recordings are not in a "consumer useable format". If you want to play them on anything you need to convert them to a more compatible format, something that takes a lot of horsepower and a lot of time.

Or you can spend $1000 ($500 R5000 + 1TB HDD) and record 800 hours, and in a consumer useable format.

While certainly not cheap, that certainly gets us in the realm of being able to lay down the bits necessary to work on them.

Nobody even said it was impossible, just highly impractical.

With current consumer processing power getting us down to less than 30 seconds per minute of video transcoding, at very high qualities, we don't need 100s of Terabytes, as we should be able to 'transcode on a delay.'

Ask people who record SD with software encoders how fidgety they are, even with todays horsepower.

I guess the point is that it is certainly possible that we will get there before the end of next year, although I do agree that I am being optimistic in predicting that...

Or you can be there today with an R5000 mod. Until somebody comes out with a hardware encoding (to MPEG-2, H.264, or VC-1) HD capture card, R5000 will be the king of HD capture.

p.s. autoboy-- As an aside, why couldn't you mod directv with r5000 ? I thought it was capable?

Can't do the new MPEG-4 boxes from DTV for some reason.

Originally Posted by mikesm

You are missing the point. It's not that such a device couldn't be built, it can be. It's that whoever would build it would get sued...

I really don't think it's about getting sued. The problem is cost, look around HD capture cards are $350, rock bottom and they're targetted at the pro market, they don't even hardware encode. Hardware encoding is possible, but it's not cheap.

SD recording on the PC didn't really take off until hardware encoders were added to capture cards. That happened with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-PCI, with it's Kfir2 hardware encoder. That solution was at least 2x the price of any run of the mill "software encoder" at the time, $250.

Seems to me like a hardware-encoding HD capture card would be on the order of $1000 today. Sure a bunch of us would consider buying one, but how many others. That's the problem, at the costs today, there's no market for HD capture cards with the hardware encoders necessary to make them viable in media center applications.

The further complication is that all consumer HD is provided to the consumer in compressed form, so there's no perceived need for a "raw capture" solution. So it's not entirely apolitical, but we're still at a point where it's mostly economics preventing it.

Originally Posted by derringer

Its true that there is something to that, but the hardware needs to be made for other video-editing reasons that have nothing to do with Hollywood or the film industry.

But the content production industry has very different needs than the "DIY PVR" industry, that being the difference between little/no compression and high compression respectively. Content producers want to minimize compression for as long as possible and since they only work with "small amounts" of content at a time, huge GB/hr requirements aren't an issue.

The home user is just the opposite, we want to deal with many hours of content, and since we're not working with it, want it as small as possible/practical.

I think the technical barriers have been the *main* reason and not the industry. When price comes down far enough to technically do it for not just a few professionals, but for the masses, (and we have only recently gotten to that point.) it *will* go the way of the music industry... there will be too many people to sue to even make a difference, or at least that is my prediction and opinion.

HD capture itself is basically here, the Intensity Pro is $350. The problem is is there motivation to make the jump into consumer space with a hardware encoding card for a similar price. I have my doubts about that.

While this matters to the '2008' debate, It gets even less likely the further out we go. Specialized hardware is easier to sue over than open source software, which will be the next place we'd look for solutions to these 'problems.' I suppose my definition of 'consumer' level cost is a bit higher than 100.00, as well, but the base argument remains the same.

Except software encoding has never worked well, and never will work well in a PC architecture, I don't care how much horsepower you throw at it (ask anyone using a software encoder). You need an Realtime OS environment for it to work.

Originally Posted by pat_smith1969

So why doesn't someone who creats this "HDMI Capture Card" simply build them in china or some other country where they cant be sued. Then via the web sell them online?

Because HDMI/HDCP isn't the problem, the problem is what you do with that raw HD signal.

[lobosrul]

Stanger: the big problem right now with the r5000 is it wont work with directv mpeg-4 channels, and according to avsforum all the new channels they're rolling out are mpeg-4.

How about setting up a quad core system as a network encoder for sagetv That would work, but would be borderline "mad-scientist" in extreme.

Plus anyone with experience in software encoding knows two-passes are much more efficient than a single pass.

[mikesm]

Let me clarify my comments... HDMI capture is here today, and but because of the limitations that stanger89 points out, Hollywood doesn't consider it a threat at all. It's just not useful.

Now, let's say someone takes a fujitsu electronics realtime MPEG-4 HD encoder chip, and couples it with capture hardware that looks like it's designed to to capture HD programming via HDMI, and does it for $200, which is more than reasonable given the amount of silicon it takes to solve this problem.

Hollywood would go after these guys. Heck that chip is already in production, but noone has created a capture card with it yet. Why? I think the answer is clear.

Also, remember that the cable guys could require HDCP displays with HDMI output. If they did that, then even the fuji chip would be unable to record the programming. That would work on the 1080i comp[onent analog signals, but you'd lose some quality that way too.

The technical challenge here isn't that hard, but the political dynamic is hard.

Thx
Mike

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Stanger: the big problem right now with the r5000 is it wont work with directv mpeg-4 channels, and according to avsforum all the new channels they're rolling out are mpeg-4.

How about setting up a quad core system as a network encoder for sagetv That would work, but would be borderline "mad-scientist" in extreme.

Plus anyone with experience in software encoding knows two-passes are much more efficient than a single pass.

The only way to solve that problem is to hack an HR-21 or the like. Eventually, that maybe doable. People just haven't been working hard on it yet.

Besides, MPEG-2 playback works pretty well in Sage. MPEG4 has a ways to go.

Thx
Mike

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Stanger: the big problem right now with the r5000 is it wont work with directv mpeg-4 channels, and according to avsforum all the new channels they're rolling out are mpeg-4.

Sounds like a good reason to go to the more "consumer friendly" Dish Network

How about setting up a quad core system as a network encoder for sagetv That would work, but would be borderline "mad-scientist" in extreme.

That doesn't solve any of the flakyness that's inherent to software encoders.

As far as recording to HDV or MJPEG and transcoding to H.264 or the like, well, then you can't watch anything until hours after it's done recording.

Originally Posted by mikesm

Let me clarify my comments... HDMI capture is here today, and but because of the limitations that stanger89 points out, Hollywood doesn't consider it a threat at all. It's just not useful.

Not sure I'd say they don't consider it a thread (HDCP is there for a reason).

Now, let's say someone takes a fujitsu electronics realtime MPEG-4 HD encoder chip, and couples it with capture hardware that looks like it's designed to to capture HD programming via HDMI, and does it for $200, which is more than reasonable given the amount of silicon it takes to solve this problem.

Hollywood would go after these guys. Heck that chip is already in production, but noone has created a capture card with it yet. Why? I think the answer is clear.

I really don't thing it has anything to due with lawsuits. Look at the R5000, that does exactly what this would do, yet they haven't been sued because there's nothing to sue them over.

So long as the capture card doesn't circumvent any encryption (ie doesn't strip/ignore HDCP) there's nothing Hollywood could do. Better yet, tack that encoder on a component capture card, and there's really nothing they can do.

But who would buy such a card? Not content producers (amateur or professional). Only a few HTPCrs. I'm guessing the perception is that there aren't enough of us to justify the tooling/design required to go into production of such a card.

I really think it comes down to economics. There's nothing legal stopping, for example, a component capture card with hardware AVC encoder.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sounds like a good reason to go to the more "consumer friendly" Dish Network

... direcTV's channel lineup is now quite a bit better than Dish's (they've got sci-fi-HD!). Although some of those channels don't really deserve to be called HDTV.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=419472

Edit: guess that could change: http://www.tvpredictions.com/echostock111807.htm

[Apap]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

... direcTV's channel lineup is now quite a bit better than Dish's (they've got sci-fi-HD!). Although some of those channels don't really deserve to be called HDTV.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=419472

Edit: guess that could change: http://www.tvpredictions.com/echostock111807.htm

I am still waiting to see HD content broadcast on SciFi HD. I guess that it's just a matter of time........................................

[autoboy]

But who would buy such a card? Not content producers (amateur or professional). Only a few HTPCrs. I'm guessing the perception is that there aren't enough of us to justify the tooling/design required to go into production of such a card.

There are quite a few HTPCrs out there, and the silicon can't be that expensive to produce. If Cable Card keeps screwing everyone, I think we will see a Component HD capture card within a year or two with mpeg4 compression. I would much rather spend $500 on a component capture card than a HDMI card for fear that it would not work in the future. If you look at all the $ people throw down for their overpowered, overpriced, and overheating HTPCs, another few hundred bucks won't break the bank. The R5000 mod would be more popular if it was easier to use. It was fairly difficult to track down a Comcast cable box ( I went with the massive DCP501 receivers ). Then you have to get them activated which is no simple feat. Then you have to ship them to the East Coast, then you have to set them up by modifying code in SageTV which is the only good software that works with the R5000. It wasn't an easy process. These cards would work the same as regular SD capture cards over S-Video.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

... direcTV's channel lineup is now quite a bit better than Dish's (they've got sci-fi-HD!). Although some of those channels don't really deserve to be called HDTV.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=419472

Edit: guess that could change: http://www.tvpredictions.com/echostock111807.htm

I'm not too worried, the new channels DTV added recently aren't really channels Dish can just "not add", they're not like Dish's Voom lineup that DTV can afford to ignore. The new ones are major networks that are, for all intents and purposes, "must have". Plus I believe Echostar 11 is already slated for launch.

Originally Posted by Apap

I am still waiting to see HD content broadcast on SciFi HD. I guess that it's just a matter of time........................................

Yeah, I'm not to anxious until stuff actually appears in HD. I mean History HD is broadcasting but I have yet to see an HD broadcast on it.

Originally Posted by autoboy

There are quite a few HTPCrs out there, and the silicon can't be that expensive to produce.

I keep harping on it, but I still say, most HTPCrs greatly overestimate the size of the HTPC market. Here's just one example. Broadcom announced a PCIe card with their HD DVD/BD SOC on it for PC use. Price was listed as $40 in lots of 1000. archibael on AVS worked very hard to secure some of these for the community, but the best price he could get was five times that, $200. That's just an example of something that's cheap to start with, but the HTPC market is too small to make viable.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=209

Now imagine a card with component costs of closer to say $200.

If Cable Card keeps screwing everyone, I think we will see a Component HD capture card within a year or two with mpeg4 compression.

That would be awesome.

I would much rather spend $500 on a component capture card than a HDMI card for fear that it would not work in the future.

'course I'd rather spend $550 on a R5000 for Dish than $500 for a component capture card. With the R5000 you get a perfect capture, vs some component capture device that would suffer analog and generational lossy encoding losses.

The R5000 mod would be more popular if it was easier to use. It was fairly difficult to track down a Comcast cable box ( I went with the massive DCP501 receivers ). Then you have to get them activated which is no simple feat.

Quite easy if you've got Dish