Comcast HDTV mp4 and Cablecard

[MattHelm]

All,
Just got a letter from Comcast announcing that they will be switching to mp4 (I assume the mean H.264) on their HDTV channels. I'm recording most of them with Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe card and SageDCT.

Will this cause any issues with SageTV??? (I did some searches, but no hits I could find)

[donkey]

H.264 is supported in SageTV NativeCore as DVB uses H.264. but we need raw dump data to look at how it caries H.264 data in a stream.

[MattHelm]

OK, when they switch, I'll try and get someone the info. They did not include a start date.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

All,
Just got a letter from Comcast announcing that they will be switching to mp4 (I assume the mean H.264) on their HDTV channels. I'm recording most of them with Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe card and SageDCT.

Will this cause any issues with SageTV??? (I did some searches, but no hits I could find)

The PrimeNetEncoder has an option to transcode HDHomeRun Prime streams to h.264 in realtime. Sage is able to handle .ts files with h.264 encoded video without an issue.

The other variable in the equation would be it SageDCT is expecting mpeg2 as the input. I would guess that it probably does not care what the input stream is, and that it is just doing a stream copy.

Unfurtunately I think you might have to wait and see. Are they going to change over before the new TV seasons gets into full swing.

[KryptoNyte]

Is .ts the default file extension for PrimeNetEncoder? I was wondering about what the extension would be in this scenario (I run SageDCT where direct stream copy allows for .mpg switch if desired).

[Fuzzy]

as far as sage is concerned, .ts and .mpg re exactly the same. Most any player can open them interchangeably, and the contents inside the file don't even matter (you can put MPEG2-TS in a file with an .mpg extension, just as you can put an MPEG2-PS in a file with a .ts extension, and I don't know of a single player that would choke on either 'wrong' scenario.

[stanger89]

Also the HD PVR/Colossus create H.264 files and Sage handles those just fine. I'd expect you'll be just fine.

[Fuzzy]

Ultimately, I think the only thing that might throw it off, is if the tuner and/or interface (SageDCT or PrimeNetEncoder, as the case may be) is hard coded to look for MPEG2 streams, and ignores h.264 ones. I doubt that is the case, but if it is, it's likely easily fixed via either firmware or software changes.

[MattHelm]

OK, thanks everyone. I'll let everyone know once they roll it out. Like I said in the first post, they didn't even put a date in the letter.

[weeber]

I've finally seen h264 channels here in Atlanta and HDHR Prime and Prime NetEncoder 1.2.5 handle it fine. I know it's not directly applicable to you, but I've seen no problems with my setup. I think you'll be fine.

FYI, I'm seeing Comedy Central, FXX, and AMC converted to H264 first. 1-hr episodes of the Walking Dead are now 1.9 GB w/H264 vs. 5.2 GB w/MPEG-2

[Naylia]

Anyone been through this with a Ceton and SageDCT? Anything I need to do? Just got a letter here in the San Jose, CA area. Thanks!

[MattHelm]

I have the 4 port internal Ceton, and I won't have noticed a difference, except they WAY over compressed 1 show. (it was about 1/8 the show size). Other shows are about 1/2 to 2/3 old size.

I currently use SageDCT and a HD300.

[Naylia]

Sweet. Nothing but good news then. Assuming they don't butcher the picture quality but I can't control that.