Using 'other' codecs/players, good idea?

[JParedis]

I see in some messages that other codecs/players/decoders are being used, and was wondering what all this was about.

I'm running VISTA Ultimate, use on my PC mostly VLC (besides the standard windows player), and did install an all-in-one-for-free codec package. I use SageTV with whatever player/codes it uses out-of-the-box.

So my question is if I can improve the image/sound quality on my extender by using 'something else'? E.g., I do have now and than problems playing an avi file over the extender. As the HTPC 'translates' the avi into mpg, maybe another 'transcoder' would do this better. No idea ..

If anybody could explain what options influence what, and what I could select from as (better) alternatives, I would give it a try.

Thanks in advance .. Jan

[gplasky]

If you're talking about the extender (MVP or HD-100) all of the decoding of a video that it supports is done in hardware on the device. If it doesn't support the format your server will do the transcoding. And for that it will use the horsepower of your server. Some formats will require lots of hp and others aren't really supported yet for transcoding. (h.264 for the MVP.)

Gerry

[JParedis]

Indeed, but when he for instance transcodes an avi into mpg (for the extender), what software is being used. Is this the standard SageTV engine? Can that be altered by a more efficient, to buy, one?

Jan

[gplasky]

Sagetranscoder.exe. Can't be altered that I'm aware of. I believe it may be based on ffmpeg. If you have a HD-100 there are very few formats it doesn't support so for the most part there is no transcoding going on. For the MVP it only understands mpeg2 so anything else gets trancoded. Easy solution is to replace your MVPs with HD-100...once they are back in stock.

Gerry