Questions about the STX-HD100

[OldPCGUY]

I want an extender but have a few basic questions.

1. Where is the extender manufactured?
2. I assume there is a decoder in the extender and if so does it support 3/3 pulldown with 720P and 1080P at 72HZ refresh? IS this a menu option?
3. Is the decoder in the extender software based where the extender is just basically a small PC or does it have a hardware based decoder?
4. Some people are experiencing Video Tearing on HD playback due to a missmacth between the decoder Vsync and graphic board Vsync(or as best I can understand it). Is the extender architected in such a way that this will no longer be possible?

Kind Regards,

Tony

[proudx]

good questions, I am a big fan of hardware based mpeg decoding, I think it visiually looks better than software based decoding.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

I want an extender but have a few basic questions.

1. Where is the extender manufactured?
2. I assume there is a decoder in the extender and if so does it support 3/3 pulldown with 720P and 1080P at 72HZ refresh? IS this a menu option?
3. Is the decoder in the extender software based where the extender is just basically a small PC or does it have a hardware based decoder?
4. Some people are experiencing Video Tearing on HD playback due to a missmacth between the decoder Vsync and graphic board Vsync(or as best I can understand it). Is the extender architected in such a way that this will no longer be possible?

Kind Regards,

Tony

LOTS of discussion on the HD100 and its abilities:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...=HD100+support

some others:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ght=HD100+chip
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ght=HD100+chip

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by Djc208

LOTS of discussion on the HD100 and its abilities:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...=HD100+support

some others:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ght=HD100+chip
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ght=HD100+chip

Thank you for the above links which explain that the extender supports alot of formats Natively.

There was also a claim that this box was running Linux but no difinitve answer on Hardware Decoding. Given all the formats then I think we have to assume it is software with maybe a hardware assist.

I would really like to know if someone who had video tearing on their server did not see it when played through the extender.

My other questions still remain

Kind Regards,

Tony

[Brent]

I want an extender but have a few basic questions.
Where is the extender manufactured?

Not the u.s. I'd guess China like most other things these days....

I assume there is a decoder in the extender and if so does it support 3/3 pulldown with 720P and 1080P at 72HZ refresh? IS this a menu option?

Is what a menu option? As mentioned above, check the FAQ for the HD100 and it should answer these types of questions.

Is the decoder in the extender software based where the extender is just basically a small PC or does it have a hardware based decoder?

It's a CE device with Linux embedded.

4. Some people are experiencing Video Tearing on HD playback due to a missmacth between the decoder Vsync and graphic board Vsync(or as best I can understand it). Is the extender architected in such a way that this will no longer be possible?

Not sure what people you are speaking of. I don't get video tearing on HD playback on any of my PCs or on my HD Extenders. So not sure how to answer your question except that the HD Extenders I have don't have any tearing....

The extenders are awesome overall. You won't be disappointed. Biggest downer at the moment is they are sold out.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

2. I assume there is a decoder in the extender and if so does it support 3/3 pulldown with 720P and 1080P at 72HZ refresh? IS this a menu option?

It can output 1080p24, don't think it can do anything above 60Hz though. But be aware that it doesn't do any sort of IVTC or advanced deinterlacing, so for 24p output to work, you need 24p flagged source material.

3. Is the decoder in the extender software based where the extender is just basically a small PC or does it have a hardware based decoder?

It's based on a Sigma Designs SOC, like many STBs (DVD players, Blu-ray players, etc).

4. Some people are experiencing Video Tearing on HD playback due to a missmacth between the decoder Vsync and graphic board Vsync(or as best I can understand it). Is the extender architected in such a way that this will no longer be possible?

That's a PC-specific problem, due to the way PCs render video. No, it's not a problem on the extender.

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It can output 1080p24, don't think it can do anything above 60Hz though. But be aware that it doesn't do any sort of IVTC or advanced deinterlacing, so for 24p output to work, you need 24p flagged source material.



It's based on a Sigma Designs SOC, like many STBs (DVD players, Blu-ray players, etc).



That's a PC-specific problem, due to the way PCs render video. No, it's not a problem on the extender.

Okay SOC is good, Extender should look great but I am a little confused by 24P. Let me explain.

I know the source film is 24P
I know my info file tells something like 1080i@60fps MPEG2 for OTA or 720P (I was really suprised by this)
I know my TV can handle up to 85 HZ
I know Graphics card will not let me do 1080P or 720P at 72HZ but it does let me do 85 and so I tried that and it did not look any different than at 60HZ.

When I changed the Graphics refresh to 24HZ it looked bad and was very slow.

I don't believe the source MPEG2 has the 3/2 pull down already inserted but thats what is says.

I am just confused by this

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by Brent

Not sure what people you are speaking of. I don't get video tearing on HD playback on any of my PCs or on my HD Extenders. So not sure how to answer your question except that the HD Extenders I have don't have any tearing....

The extenders are awesome overall. You won't be disappointed. Biggest downer at the moment is they are sold out.

The problem appears to be multifaced and here is the case I have:
HD+VRM9+Certain Video Cards = Tearing

If you are Using an Overlay renderer you would be happy like I was for the last year.

Here is a link that discusses this.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30498

Here is a Vista Related Issue

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34557


I am very excited about the extender and the possiblity to use my cable for for ethernet. I am excited about the HD PVR and the R5000. I better get an increased WAF after all this.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

Okay SOC is good, Extender should look great but I am a little confused by 24P. Let me explain.

I know the source film is 24P
I know my info file tells something like 1080i@60fps MPEG2 for OTA or 720P (I was really suprised by this)
I know my TV can handle up to 85 HZ
I know Graphics card will not let me do 1080P or 720P at 72HZ but it does let me do 85 and so I tried that and it did not look any different than at 60HZ.

When I changed the Graphics refresh to 24HZ it looked bad and was very slow.

I don't believe the source MPEG2 has the 3/2 pull down already inserted but thats what is says.

I am just confused by this

All ATSC* (HDTV and digital SDTV) broadcasts @ 60 fields/sec (1080i is 30 frames/sec, 60 fields/sec; 720p is 60 frames and fields/sec). Thats regardless if the program it's showing is film-sourced (24p) or not. Thats called telecining. You don't need to do anything special with the HD-100 during such programming (leave it at 60fps output). The HD-100 handles telecined material quite well, believe me I was worried about this when I bought it.

The only time where you would want a 24fps output is when the source is itself 24p (such as a Blu-ray, or some downloaded video files).

* ATSC is the spec used in North America for digital television.

[OldPCGUY]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

All ATSC* (HDTV and digital SDTV) broadcasts @ 60 fields/sec (1080i is 30 frames/sec, 60 fields/sec; 720p is 60 frames and fields/sec). Thats regardless if the program it's showing is film-sourced (24p) or not. Thats called telecining. You don't need to do anything special with the HD-100 during such programming (leave it at 60fps output). The HD-100 handles telecined material quite well, believe me I was worried about this when I bought it.

The only time where you would want a 24fps output is when the source is itself 24p (such as a Blu-ray, or some downloaded video files).

* ATSC is the spec used in North America for digital television.

Going back to the early days of encoders and decoders. It was my understanding that you compress the source VIDEO to the smallest file possible for the compression rate specified. You do not insert frames like 3/2 pulldown to match 24P to 60Hz until after the files has been sent. You let the MPEG2 Decoder insert the frames. This saves on the file size during transmission. There is no reason to insert the copied frames before you transmit.

Does this make sense or am I out in left field?

Now what could be happing is that the ATSC Receiver could insert frames before decoding but I don't like that becuase I want smaller files for storage.

One thing I like about Sage is the continuos improvment. I would like Sage to think about 120HZ and how they can take advange of that to display better video at HD rates.

Well all of these points are Mute if you are telling me
Extender +HD(H.264or MPEG2) +VRM9 = No Video Tearing then I will be very very pleased.

[OldPCGUY]

Film is migreated from 24p to 60p at the encoder

Here are all the gory details

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/sta...umber=01566621

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

Going back to the early days of encoders and decoders. It was my understanding that you compress the source VIDEO to the smallest file possible for the compression rate specified. You do not insert frames like 3/2 pulldown to match 24P to 60Hz until after the files has been sent. You let the MPEG2 Decoder insert the frames. This saves on the file size during transmission. There is no reason to insert the copied frames before you transmit.

Does this make sense or am I out in left field?

Now what could be happing is that the ATSC Receiver could insert frames before decoding but I don't like that becuase I want smaller files for storage.

One thing I like about Sage is the continuos improvment. I would like Sage to think about 120HZ and how they can take advange of that to display better video at HD rates.

Well all of these points are Mute if you are telling me
Extender +HD(H.264or MPEG2) +VRM9 = No Video Tearing then I will be very very pleased.

You are right about saving bitrate is compression. 24p is certainly better than 30i, and ATSC does actually support 24p. When I encode my caps to h2.64, I IVTC first. The problem is a broadcaster would have to keep switching their format even during a show (for non film sourced commercial spots), this is apparently impractical.

What I don't understand is why channels that show almost nothing but film-sourced material don't use it (ie HBO, or Showtime, most of their TV shows are filmed as well).

I'm not sure how much improvement you would see going to a 120hz output would make. It can output @ 24p for anything you had that is actually 24p (ie a Bluray rip) connect that to a 120hz TV, you would see no film jutter at all. As far as a film on TV, outputting @ 120hz probably wouldn't help much. There would be a frame pattern of 6:4 instead of 3:2.

There is absolutely no tearing with the HD-100, and it won't matter a bit how powerful the SageTV server's CPU or GPU is.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

Okay SOC is good, Extender should look great but I am a little confused by 24P. Let me explain.

I know the source film is 24P

Yes, most film is 24 fps.

I know my info file tells something like 1080i@60fps MPEG2 for OTA or 720P (I was really suprised by this)

Most (actual all OTA I've ever seen) is telecined to either 60i (1080i) or 60p (720p), meaning it's encoded with a 3:2 pulldown cadence of repeated frames.

I know my TV can handle up to 85 HZ
I know Graphics card will not let me do 1080P or 720P at 72HZ but it does let me do 85 and so I tried that and it did not look any different than at 60HZ.

My guess is your TV accepts 85Hz input, but internally converts it to 60Hz. I'm not aware of any TVs that accept >60Hz input and display it "frame locked". Most "TVs" only support 60Hz display, though proper handling of 24p is becoming more common.

When I changed the Graphics refresh to 24HZ it looked bad and was very slow.

There could be a number of reasons for this, but my first guess is that your playback choice isn't doing proper IVTC of of the source to extract the original 24fps frames. And 60fps->24fps is a horrible conversion.

I don't believe the source MPEG2 has the 3/2 pull down already inserted but thats what is says.

All broadcast video is either telecined film with 3:2 cadence or video (30 or 60 fps) native. Blu-ray, and things like quicktime trailers are really the only sources of "non-telecined" 24p video. For broadcast you need to use a "video processor" that can do IVTC to get native 24p output.

I use the term "video processor" generally. ATI AVIVO and nVidia PureVideo solutions count for DVD, and their higher end options can also do IVTC on HD resolution content.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by OldPCGUY

One thing I like about Sage is the continuos improvment. I would like Sage to think about 120HZ and how they can take advange of that to display better video at HD rates.

There's nothing for them to take advantage of. The purpose of a 120Hz display rate is so the display device and not the output device can be optimal for display of either 60fps or 24fps material. The reason for a 120Hz display is so that there is no uneven pull-down. 120Hz is evenly divisible by both 60 and 24. Meaning that the number of inserted frames per frame are always going to be the same. Unlike for display of 24fps material on a 60Hz display where the number of inserted frames will vary per frame causing a visible judder.

This is a display only matter though. The display should adjust to the input. The output device shouldn't be adjusting to the display.

[briands]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

There's nothing for them to take advantage of. The purpose of a 120Hz display rate is so the display device and not the output device can be optimal for display of either 60fps or 24fps material. The reason for a 120Hz display is so that there is no uneven pull-down. 120Hz is evenly divisible by both 60 and 24. Meaning that the number of inserted frames per frame are always going to be the same. Unlike for display of 24fps material on a 60Hz display where the number of inserted frames will vary per frame causing a visible judder.

This is a display only matter though. The display should adjust to the input. The output device shouldn't be adjusting to the display.

It would be nice if it could do different refresh though... as now it is locked at 60hz... not the best for film based content as it causes judder as you indicate.

[stanger89]

It'll do 1080p24 just fine. Just need to define a custom resolution.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by briands

It would be nice if it could do different refresh though... as now it is locked at 60hz... not the best for film based content as it causes judder as you indicate.

You've missed the point. As long as the input video (component, s-vid, composite) is 60 fields per second or the digital video stream is 23.976 frames per second or 59.97 fields/frames per second the 120Hz TV should be able to process the video to be able to display it smoothly. 120Hz is all about processing for display regardless of the input. 120Hz is the lowest evenly divisible frequency between film and video. This means that both film and video can be processed to display on it without judder.

Again, it's about being able to display both types of content smoothly regardless of or as long as the input is either 24 or 60 frames/fields per second.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Again, it's about being able to display both types of content smoothly regardless of or as long as the input is either 24 or 60 frames/fields per second.

But unless the TV is really smart (and I'm not sure how smart "120Hz TVs are), you still need to be able to output both 60 and 24Hz.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

But unless the TV is really smart (and I'm not sure how smart "120Hz TVs are), you still need to be able to output both 60 and 24Hz.

Ok, I think I kind understand what you're getting at. Say I have a ripped BD movie at 24fps and my HD100 is set to display at 1080p60 then it's going to be converting to 60fps before it's sent to the display. So you'd have to define a display mode of 1080p24 and use that to display fim material such as ripped BD and DVD movies. Is that right?

[stanger89]

Yup, in theory Native Output switching should cover that (automatically switching), but last time I asked, they didn't check framerate, just frame "size".