Hauppauge WinTV HD PVR (H.264) screenshot and pre-order link

[wado1971]

I've been assuming that this device will capture both HD & SD from my cablebox - simply anything that comes off component. Bad assumption?

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by Revan654

May be to soon to ask this question.

However Does anyone know If I can use both HD-PVR and a DVB Card(PCI Card) on the PC(not at the same time)? Wondering if their would be any conflicts.

Should be fine as long as you have enough CPU and disk throughput. Not that the CPU required should be much... Make sure you have 64k clusters on the recording disk if they're both going to the same one.

[K4R]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Audio is AAC 2.0. Trust me-it's there.


Gerry

No doubt its there but im just saying the PS3 didnt recognize it.

[hemicuda]

tried it on my setup:

HD100: black screen no audio.

VLC: froze on 1/2-rendered first frame, audio works, causes program error dialog while playing.

WMP: semi-fluid video, clear audio. nice image quality too

Sage(local): playback exception rendering the video.

[BitBass]

Originally Posted by Djc208

The only other thing you may have to do is look into a different IR blaster/cable box control scheme. The Hauppage IR blasters aren't usually designed to work with multiple tuners.

If I understand what you're saying, that would only matter if the Hauppage was controlling the channels of the feeding device (STB). If the Hauppauge is a recording pass through and you're using Sage to control the STB it shouldn't be a problem, right?

I'm planning on having the Hauppauge record DirecTV as I'm sure many are. I'm looking into my options for Sage to control the DirecTV STB. IR blaster and the serial/USB adapter look like my 2 options. But the point being Sage will control it.

Doing it that way I shouldn't have a problem having multiple Hauppauges each connected to their own DirecTV STB, provided SageTV supports multiple Hauppauge HD streams concurrently over the USB ports.

Looking for some validation here!

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by BitBass

If I understand what you're saying, that would only matter if the Hauppage was controlling the channels of the feeding device (STB). If the Hauppauge is a recording pass through and you're using Sage to control the STB it shouldn't be a problem, right?

The Hauppage box has an IR blaster built in. Sage can change the channels through it using the Hauppage software. But I don't think it's currently designed to work with more than one device. Which is where the USB-Uirt comes in, or serial control, or firewire.

So if you have two tuners, each connected to their own HD-PVR, I don't think Sage can control each IR blaster separately. You'll need some other device to do that.

[bialio]

Finally got around to trying the sample clip on my Client PC.

VLC crashes when it tries to play.
Windows Media Player opens it and plays it - playback is not smooth.
PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 opens it and plays it - playback is a little better than WMP, but still not perfect.
Sage Client - opens and plays it (still not smooth!), no audio.

CPU load is non existant on all the working playback scenarios. This leads me to believe that everything is being offloaded to the GPU - and it's not quite up to the task. It's an 8500GT, so that doesn't suprise me too much.

I haven't tried it on the extenders yet.

btl.

EDIT : I also think I'll try it in PowerDVD with Hardware Accel. turned off. Might be something the E4400 can handle. We shall see.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by bialio

VLC crashes when it tries to play.
Windows Media Player opens it and plays it - playback is not smooth.
PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 opens it and plays it - playback is a little better than WMP, but still not perfect.
Sage Client - opens and plays it (still not smooth!), no audio.

What decoders are you using with WMP and Sage Client? I remember trying it a while back in WMP and ffdshow and I didn't have any problems.

[bialio]

I'm not sure what decorder WMP is using - all I have installed is NViDiA PureVideo Decoder (DVD-BRONZE) and whatever Cyberlink installed.

btl.

[bialio]

Did a few more tests last night with the clip.

PowerDVD with video acceleration disabled, played smooth.
HD Extender just did the black screen thing. Seems like that's the norm though.

I have to conclude that the 8500GT in my client isn't quite up to H264. Does that sound right to anyone?

[reggie14]

Perhaps, but I think its probably more likely that the Cyberlink AVC decoder isn't always that great at playing back a lot of H.264 videos. It has given me problems with standard-definition files on pretty powerful machines. I never tried playing that file in PowerDVD on my machine, which has a HD3850. I can try when I get home.

[lobosrul]

Is the only sample file out there 1080i? I plan on downscaling everything to 720p anyways, so are there any 720p samples out there? I've had many many issues with 1080i when 720p played back just fine. If I could build a time machine I'd go back and kill whatever idiot decided to create an interlaced HD standard (OK maybe I'd try and reason with him first).

[morikaweb]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Is the only sample file out there 1080i? I plan on downscaling everything to 720p anyways, so are there any 720p samples out there? I've had many many issues with 1080i when 720p played back just fine. If I could build a time machine I'd go back and kill whatever idiot decided to create an interlaced HD standard (OK maybe I'd try and reason with him first).

Totally agree with you there. Interlaced HD was the worst idea ever, 720p looks better (at least as far as I'm concerned) and upscales to 1080p better.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Is the only sample file out there 1080i? I plan on downscaling everything to 720p anyways, so are there any 720p samples out there? I've had many many issues with 1080i when 720p played back just fine. If I could build a time machine I'd go back and kill whatever idiot decided to create an interlaced HD standard (OK maybe I'd try and reason with him first).

You'd be killing the TV manufacturers. When the HD standards were being formed they wanted interlaced (since analog TVs were interlaced) and the PC industry wanted progressive (as computer monitors were). 720P and 1080i were the compromise. Thank goodness they threw 1080p in the spec too.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Is the only sample file out there 1080i? I plan on downscaling everything to 720p anyways, so are there any 720p samples out there? I've had many many issues with 1080i when 720p played back just fine. If I could build a time machine I'd go back and kill whatever idiot decided to create an interlaced HD standard (OK maybe I'd try and reason with him first).

I love that we're still compensating for the limitations of electronics back in *1950*.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I love that we're still compensating for the limitations of electronics back in *1950*.

Interlacing is actually more of a way to conserve broadcast bandwidth. It's not like the radio waves have changed since TV was first introduced. From a broadcaster's point of view both 720p and 1080i require approximately the same amount of bandwidth to broadcast. So it lets them transmit a 1080 signal without requiring more bandwidth.

Certainly interlacing isn't ideal but it does get around inherent limitations in broadcast TV.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Interlacing is actually more of a way to conserve broadcast bandwidth. It's not like the radio waves have changed since TV was first introduced. From a broadcaster's point of view both 720p and 1080i require approximately the same amount of bandwidth to broadcast. So it lets them transmit a 1080 signal without requiring more bandwidth.

Certainly interlacing isn't ideal but it does get around inherent limitations in broadcast TV.

The waves haven't changed but what we're sending over them has. Back when it was analog the 2x resolution benefit was very real (320x240 NTSC video? No thank you :-p) but now that we're broadcasting in digital the benefits are less tangible and , IMHO, far out weighed by the limitations.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Interlacing is actually more of a way to conserve broadcast bandwidth. It's not like the radio waves have changed since TV was first introduced. From a broadcaster's point of view both 720p and 1080i require approximately the same amount of bandwidth to broadcast. So it lets them transmit a 1080 signal without requiring more bandwidth.

Certainly interlacing isn't ideal but it does get around inherent limitations in broadcast TV.

You're partially correct. Theres no need, nor was there ever, for broadcasts to be interlaced. It just meant a higher resolution signal could be crammed in each 6MhZ channel.

1080i does require less bandwidth than 1080p, but it certainly requires more than 720p. I see more artifacts on 1080i channels than 720p even though my local 1080i chans use higher bandwidth (except PBS which looks awful). Quick math gives 1920x540x60 just a bit higher than 1280x720x60 But for whatever reason 1080i needs much higher bandwidth.

But the main reason I hate it is IVTC and de-interlacing. I bet I've spent $500 dollars on new equipment and a good 50-100 hours trying to get it all working right when 720p stations were solid as a rock.

[cat6man]

the problem with 1080i is the complexity of de-interlacing algorithms that look good........they do exist but are still somewhat rare

i cannot stand the artifacts from poor de-interlacing so i splurged big time for a dvdo video processor and spent less on my hdtv set (fed at 1080p by the dvdo so the tv set does ZERO signal processing).........this combo does a superb job on 1080i sources and a surprisingly good job on SD sources

these algorithms are beginning to show up in ASICs in tv sets and in a few years will be common, but right now there is lots of stuff out there that just doesn't do a good job at all

[Shield]

Originally Posted by bialio

Did a few more tests last night with the clip.

PowerDVD with video acceleration disabled, played smooth.
HD Extender just did the black screen thing. Seems like that's the norm though.

I have to conclude that the 8500GT in my client isn't quite up to H264. Does that sound right to anyone?

No, the 8500GT will decode H.264 all day long, twice on Sundays. I have a 8400GT, 8500GT, and an 8600GT and they all decode H264 streams perfectly, even 1080p. Something else is going on with that clip as I'm having trouble with playback too...