HDTV On Your PC And Hard Drive 279
Jack Kolesar writes: "So, you want to watch HDTV but you don't want to shell out thousands of dollars for a new television. Well, AMDPower.com has a review of the AccessDTV HDTV tuner card. Not only does it let you watch HDTV, but you can also record it on your harddrive. Yes, the full 19.4Mbps stream of 8VSB is stored in raw format. Now, if somebody out there could just make some linux drivers for it ..."
HDTV Protections? (Score:1, Troll)
-foxxz
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:1)
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:3, Insightful)
A question that has plagued us for decades.
And dear lord please tell me people have better things to do than spend $$$$ on a HDTV just to watch "Weakest Link"!!!
Another question that has plagued us for decades, but substituting the latest technology and crappy-but-popular show.
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:1)
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:1)
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:2)
Re:HDTV Protections? (Score:2)
Name one "Open Source company" that manufactures HDTV tuner cards.
Its Broadcast, not encrypted. (Score:2, Informative)
They make their money on advertising...
They are not going to encrypt it. Watch all the commercials you want.
I work in TV. It is based on free watching and commercials. Regular TV is not going to become pay-per-view. Because if it was, then someone would come back and give it away for free. That is not how the system will ever work. Anywhere.
If there is encryption, it is a hardware issue... not the transmissions themselves. I think you might be confusing compression with encryption on this one.
Guess how much most cable companies pay for CNN?
Nothin. Find the satellite. Just run the advertisements, please.
I'm usually very polite on
Hauppauge? (Score:1, Interesting)
Doesnt Hauppauge (the WinTV people, for which there are already linux drivers) make a HDTV version of their product?
They make a WinTV-PVR, and work is progressing on linux drivers for that thing.
Re:Hauppauge? (Score:3, Informative)
Hauppauge Linkage inside (Score:3, Informative)
It appears to do the same thing.
Re:Hauppauge? (Score:2, Informative)
In fact there are several on the market now - see www.digitalconnection.com. I have yet to see a card tho that will actually output full ATSC video thru component outputs to an hdtv. When they say "full resolution" they mean vga to a computer monitor.
hauppauge claimed to provide hard drive recording of the mpeg2 streams with their latest drivers - but I have never been able to get it to work - nor have they answered repeated requests for technical support.
Re:Hauppauge? (Score:3, Informative)
The PVR function of the WinTV-HD software is quite weak, but I can record MPEG-2 transport streams to the hard drive as long as I do not use the component output mode. Instead, I must use the RGB output mode. I can not hear sound while capturing unless I use the direct AC-3 SPDIF output to my amp, but my amp only has one connector, which I usually leave connected to the digital out connector on the Soundblaster Live for
DVD playback.
IIRC, The Telemann HiPix also records standard MPEG-2 transport streams to the hard drive.
I purchased a 34 inch, 4x3, direct view (tube) HDTV monitor for $1495 from a maker called Sampo. It has VGA input and can display computer RGB output at 1024x768. I run my WinTV-HD at 1440x1080i with the component output.
The biggest problem I have is with reliable reception even with a decent powered antenna in the attic. Some channels never work unless there is a low pressure weather system.
Adam Williams' Linux mpeg library can decode MPEG-2 Transport Streams that he can record using a WinTV-D that does have Linux drivers.
Re:Hauppauge? (Score:2)
-
Are the streams saved by this card usable (editable, playable, etc.) in other programs without much fuss?
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Does the PVR function also work with analog channels, or will it only record from digital channels? (Analog recording would require either an MPEG encoder on the card or software-based MPEG encoding, vs. just dumping the received MPEG stream from a digital channel to a file.)
I'm currently using a TiVo with a NIC to grab TV shows and archive them to SVCD. It works, but it's somewhat cumbersome and it doesn't always work. I was thinking of snagging something along the lines of an All-in-Wonder Radeon to add video capture capability as I'm fairly sure it'll handle analog TV just fine...but if the WinTV-HD can do both analog and digital, it would seem to make more sense to go that way.Re:Hauppauge? (Score:2)
www.hauppage.com [hauppage.com]
Short description is here [hauppauge.com]
SGI (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:SGI (Score:1, Informative)
Re:SGI (Score:2)
As for "sinking into obscurity" you obviously have no clue about SGI. They are THE provider for high-end hardware to the NSA. As such, they cannot report their earnings of these sales, appearing to the general public that SGI is a goner. This is simply not the case.
Rest assured that SGI is alive and well.
As for a $500 board to receive and watch HDTV on an SGI, why the hell would you want to? That's what a TV is for. SGIs are about CREATING content, not viewing it.
Here's a nickel. Go buy yourself a clue.
Cray (Score:2)
The NSA still uses and buys SGIs.
Re:SGI (Score:2)
Yeah, so? SGI had the formats before the standard was defined. Like I said, as early as at least 1993. Are you saying that people don't support up-and-coming standards? What about browsers then?
Here's another nickel. Go get a spell checker.
Re:SGI (Score:2)
The digital video boards could output to HDTV format among many, many others for at least a decade. Perhaps they weren't specifically intended for that format, but they certainly could output at that resolution, frame rate, etc.
I refer you to the "Video for Impact" and such boards, that support full component video, D1, etc.
Re:SGI (Score:2)
Re:SGI (Score:2, Informative)
It is not supported in the most common machines used at TV stations, the Octane and the O2. There have been rumours that an HDTV card was being developed for the Octane, but as far as I know it hasn't been released.
SGI hardware is, IMO, overpriced. We usually would buy a barebones system (no memory, no monitor, etc) and then buy the parts from third party vendors. At the same time, SGI and the Irix operating system offers much more than you can get out of a standard windows or macintosh system, such as really fine grained scheduling control, guranteed I/O and frame rates, which is very important to engineers.
PC's are improving (and in many areas surpassing), but are not yet at the level of SGI servers for specialized broadcasting environments.
Re:SGI (Score:2)
Octane2 (and Octane with an Xbow 1.4 backplane) supports HD video via the "snowball" DM2 card and breakout box:
http://www.sgi.com/workstations/octane2/dig_med
Like most broadcast products, it only supports noncompressed video, so you'll also need at least two channels of Ultra160 SCSI or three channels of 1gbit fibrechannel. You *do not* want to work with compressed HD until you're finished with editing and compositing, otherwise the CPU and daughtercards spend 75% of their power compressing and decompressing every time you make a slight change.
We use an Octane2 daily for HD editing and mixing. Source is a Sony HDcam deck controlled by and uplinked to the DM2 breakout box. Video is stored on 8 rackmount Ciprico 7000 fibre disk arrays (RAID 3). It's certainly not consumer, but it works without a hitch. And it's fast.
Re:SGI HDTV format (Score:2)
Indy? O2? (Score:2)
Solid State Archiving. (Score:2, Offtopic)
Instead of things being written directly to Harddrives, etc. I think we're going into the error of solid state memory.
Yes, this will lead to big problems if there are power outages etc. but I think this will all be "built in".
The only way this quick retrival is possible is through solid-state solutions...
The current videos can be stored on the solid state memory as they are transferred to large DB on very fast RAID'ed systems. The index, however, will remain in the solid state memory. This will allow for quick access, etc.
but.... we all know how expensive that is, or will be.
So I think until solid-state solutions are affordable, you're not going to have a quick indexing solution.
There comes a point in time where our physical hardware (HD's etc.) can't keep up with the processing bandwidth (sufficiently, that is) and we're going to need solid state solutions to keep up with those speeds.
This is one of those instances.
Don't you mean NON-volatile memory? (Score:1)
HDTV/DTV and TiVO (Score:2, Interesting)
I second the motion for Linux drivers. Imagine a set-top box for the geeks which can play games, do all your usual duties, and all on a screen which is actually readable!
The future is now.
It would be cool if... (Score:1)
Re:It would be cool if... (Score:2, Funny)
Ah! What timing (Score:3, Interesting)
The thought of building up a personal A/V library accessable anywhere in my home has always been a dream of mine: I have about 220 CDs (approaching the limit of my custom stereo cabinet designed to hold "enough") and countless VHS video tapes. I HATE contemporary storage solutions: expandable usually means ugly, and elegant (like my stereo cabinet) usually mean limited. If anything, I want original media archived away generally out of site and out of mind. Thus, the desire for a remote, unobtrusive, media server.
Timeshifting broadcast programs to some fraction of this server's space is a natural extention of the idea.
So, such technology would be a welcome addition to my media server idea: besides my main (expensive) HDTV setup, I could have lesser playback equipment in other rooms that could leverage this technology (server side), and perhaps dedicate yet another satellite receiver or two for timeshifting purposes (quite willing to pay another $10 a month for the privelege).
So, bring it on
Re:Ah! What timing (off topic but don't mod down) (Score:2)
Embedded software development. Specifically, right now, big honkin' routers. In previous lives I helped develop POTS test equipment (to test all British Telecom phone lines each night), automated directory assistance systems that employ speech recognition, mobile radio modems, X.25 PADs and switches, and national CD-ROM based telephone/address databases.
After 11 years, it was time to get a new TV. Driving old cars and not paying the "30% depreciation driving a new car off the lot" also helps.
For the rest of us, there's a recession and, oh by the way, planes are falling from the sky, plague is spreading through the land and the world is about to end any day.
Yeah, I know. I left a previous job, sold a house in a horribly overpriced neighborhood, moved to Texas, and bought a cheaper one twice the size. The recession is good for mortgage rates. As for the other "chicken-little" comments, what good would it do to panic? Besides, receiving and paying my bills on-line means I get almost no paper mail, so "hakuna-matata to mail anthrax delivery".
The trick is to keep enough saved up so you can weather the inevitable downturn in the economy, and not live paycheque to paycheque.
Re:Ah! What timing (off topic but don't mod down) (Score:2)
Ditto here - I have a nice full-fiber linked sound system with 800 disk storage, HDTV front projector, etc... In an okay apartment that is close to a bad neighborhood (it's tucked away, though, and the immediate area is full of families). I absolutely credit the additional disposable income to the cheap rent. For a year I lived in a nice house in an upscale neighborhood "appropriate to my income". But I'd much rather have gadgets. To each their own...
But, having an HDTV system, I have been utterly unable to find any "real world" HDTV feeds. DirectTV claims to have some, but I got stalled due to "equipment out of stock" for months. After that, nobody seems to be able to provide anything, and there's nothing even vaguely prosumer or consumer that plays DVDs with an HDTV output (not that I'm really complaining - the local anime club calls my screen "the artifact finder" with just a S-Video cable).
--
Evan
Re:Ah! What timing (off topic but don't mod down) (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the HDTV satellite feeds, DirectTV has few, and only if you pay for some silly "everything" package. But, I hope this will change over time, so I sprung for the twin dual-LNB 18x24" elliptical dish (besides, it was cheap future-proofing over the standard single dual-LNB 18" dish). I am fortunate in that I can get about 8 local terrestrial DTV broadcasts out of Dallas, TX, and some of them are starting to broadcast in HD. FWIW, I have a Sony 32" HD-ready direct-view set, and HD-DTC100 receiver, purchased from Crutchfield (only $9.95 inside delivery!). I stayed with a 4:3 format because most material my wife watches is still either analog 4:3 or DTV 4:3. We have a horribly large collection of VHS tapes (mostly movies for the kids). The Sony does a nice job of upsampling 480i to either 960i or 480p as well.
I haven't set up a media server yet, primarily because of the lack of a quiet MPEG2 playback device (i.e. not a PC with noisy fans) that looks like a hifi component. I have wired 6 rooms for 2xRG6 and 2xCat5e though, and recently installed a DSL connection. There's nothing like sinking your own email. Headend includes a 8 port 10/100 Mb/s firewall/switch and Trunkline 5x8 multiswitch. Terrestrial DTV is via an attic-located Terk antenna with a ChannelVision 15db RF amp.
Re:Ah! What timing (off topic but don't mod down) (Score:2)
Except for gadgets like lawnmowers, etc.? :-)
Re:Ah! What timing (off topic but don't mod down) (Score:2)
They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:4, Informative)
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:1)
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Well, considering that at least in my case, the video card and the tuner card are the same card, I think he's probably not talking out his ass. Which leads directly to my question: Really, what ARE you talking about?
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Right, that's how my (admittedly, non-HDTV) tuner works too, but that's beside the point. When the tuner stuff and the video stuff are on the same PCB in the same slot in your computer, replacing one means replacing both.
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:3, Interesting)
Pat
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:5, Insightful)
The upshot to this is that you can get Total Recorder to record this stream in just about any format at whatever rate you want.
I use this for the audio books I get from Audible [audible.com]. The books come down in some encrypted format that requires a special plugin for Windows media player or RealPlayer, or you can push them to an Audible enabled device (like the Rio).
Before going to bed, I start the book playing in media player with total recorder saving it out as an mp3 as it goes. The next morning I convert the mp3 to wav and burn it to a standard audio cd.
This type of circumvention is very easy as long as the stream has to be decrypted somewhere on the motherboard. Having the stream sent encoded to the card and having it decrypt it is another matter. I'm sure that someone will come up with a way to decrypt it.
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:4, Informative)
All you get it a black box.
What the DVD Consortium decided what that a DVD video is sent directly to the video card as an overlay. Basically, the DVD is invisable to the rest of the system. You can't bypass the video somewhere inbetween the disc and the monitor.
I'm sure they can/will/already do something like this with HDTV.
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:5, Interesting)
Before I continue I should say that I programmed most of the v4l-drivers of voodoo 3500 tv so I do know what I'm talking about.
Registers in that videocard are going to point exactly to where that buffer is located and accessing it is no different than just mapping that portion into your address space and copying the data from there. There's going to be a lot of data but technically it is possible. And, this way you'll actually get the clean data instead of something that has already been stretched/filtered/de-interlaced/etc by your graphics card..
To summarize.. If you can see it, it resides somewhere in memory. If you can hear it, it resides somewhere in memory. It might not stay in one place for very long but definetly long enough for someone with intermediate hw-programming skills to capture.
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
All you get it a black box.
Yeah, I tried and it works fine... my DVD player software, InterVideo WinDVD, even has a convenient keyboard shortcut [intervideo.com] you can type to save the current frame to a BMP file.
What the DVD Consortium decided what that a DVD video is sent directly to the video card as an overlay.
Someone must not've relayed that decision to InterVideo then, ah?
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:4, Informative)
Also there is another card that does mostly the same thing (no PVR functions) but doesn't encrypt the stream at all called the HiPix [telemann.com]
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Get this HDTV card, and a regular TV-out card. Hook the TV-out card into a good ol' VCR (or hooked through a TV-in card which then saves the stream to the hard drive). Boom. Unencrypted content.
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
Clearly digitizing a clean analog signal is going to be good enough.
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
The significant point is that the existance of those meaures makes it illegal for you to exercise your fair use rights.
rot13 is an extremely weak "encryption" (more like an encoding method than encryption), but it was enough of an "effective" (legal definition) measure to get Sklyarov arrested and indicted, and facing a possible 25 year prison sentence (5 counts, 5 years each).
Re:They encrypt, folks; you don't get raw format (Score:2)
The only thing I could think of that comes close to a "VGA-in" device is some older 3D cards that ONLY did 3D (no 2D graphics), and required a seperate 2D card for rendering such things (most (all?) Voodoo2 cards have this). The card has two ports. One is a VGA-in from the 2D card, and the other goes out to your monitor (or to a second 3D card, if you have one, in the case of the Voodoo2).
Anybody know the hardware behind those cards? Would it be possible to hack a kernel driver to let you grab the stream from the VGA-in?
Hard Disk Space (Score:5, Informative)
So.
19.4 x 1024 = 19865.6 Kbps
19865.6 x 1024 = 20342374.4 Bits Per Second
Now lets divide by 8
20342374.4 / 8 = 2542796.8 Bytes Per Second
2542796.8 / (1024 x 1024) = 2.425 Mega Bytes Per Second
Now, I would like to record a move of 2 hours
2.425 x 60 x 60 x 2 = 17460 MB
or 17460 / 1024 = 17.05 Gb
Thats alot of space , evan for a 80mb hard disk.
Just a question someone might be able to answer, how well will this compress ?
If its a good level of compression, will it allow a new way for the napster type people to break into a new medium.
Re:Hard Disk Space (Score:2, Informative)
The video is as compressable as you want it to be. Using mpeg 4, you can get a pretty decent looking 2 hour movie in a gig and a half, so I'd guess that if you wanted to preserve the HDTV look, it would be somewhat larger than that... But just like you can choose quality settings on a tivo, or like you can choose SP, SLP, or LP on a VCR, you can choose the bitrate and compress it to whatever size you want with a quality tradeoff.
I think its a wonderful idea, and I can't believe there hasn't been something like that for the PC yet. A 5 gig compressed movie may sound huge now, but in a few years it'll be like storing an MP3 album as hard drive sizes increase.
And once you're playing video on your computer, how long could it possibly take before someone finds a way to break the encryption and then compress the raw stream?
Re:Hard Disk Space (Score:3, Informative)
Mb with a small b is megabits
kB is kilobytes
kb is kilobits
(I don't think it matters much whether the K is big or small, but the convention in the sciences and engineering is to use a small k for kilo, big M for mega, and big G for giga.)
Also note that hard drive makers always use multiples of 1000 for their units:
1kB = 1000B
1MB = 1000kB
1GB = 1000MB
(RAM of course is always measured in multiples of 1024, e.g. 1GB = 1024 * 1024 * 1024B . And before anyone starts whining that the HD makers are ripping you off of those extra bytes, remember that using multiples of 1000 is an older convention in engineering.)
I'm glad I've got that off my chest. Now that you understand these conventions, I WON'T HAVE TO COME OVER AND KICK YOUR ASSES.
Re:Hard Disk Space (Score:2)
It's best to check facts before you spew.
You know that last line you wrote? Remember it.
The "HDTV" signal in the 1981 demo on the page you reference was not the same "format currently called HDTV". The NHK "HDTV" signal you reference was an analog format. The Japanese government and a consortium of Europeans governments spent millions of dollars to develop competing analog HDTV standards throughout the '80s.
Look at the 1991 December entry in the site you references -- that's when the first digital HDTV format was demoed. Less than ten years ago. Now look at the 1993 February entry, where the NHK withdraws its analog format from consideration as the HDTV standard, meaning that the NHK 1981 format is not the format used for modern HDTV. Finally, look at the 1993 October entry -- the point where the "format currently called HDTV" is endorsed by a consortium.
Now, do you remember that last line? Good.
If I have an HDTV...Can I....? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If I have an HDTV...Can I....? (Score:2)
Re:If I have an HDTV...Can I....? (Score:2)
1920x1080 needs to be interlaced at 60 Hz. Your average video card doesn't do that well.
Re:If I have an HDTV...Can I....? (Score:2)
But you do need a pretty recent one, because GeForce 1 and 2 cards I know have had problems with it, even though they do 1920x1080x60Hz non-interlaced.
Re:If I have an HDTV...Can I....?...ANSWER! (Score:2)
Wait a sec - conflicting standards? (Score:2, Interesting)
If HDTV is not the new standard, then I wonder where the card maker is going to make the money from. No one I know has HDTV, and only one channel I know of broadcasts in HDTV (and that's the Japanese satellite broadcaster BS1).
Re:Wait a sec - conflicting standards? (Score:2)
Analog HDTV is dissapearing. They had it in Japan, but not anywhere else, really.
There are two standards for HDTV. Same as analog TV, actually. There's the standard for the US and there's the standard for the rest of the world. The US standard is called ATSC. HDTV is the generic term for any higher resolution TV standard.
Re:Wait a sec - conflicting standards? (Score:2)
Re:Wait a sec - conflicting standards? (Score:2)
It's tired and I'm getting late.
There will never be linux drivers for this card (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been trying to get information on the chipset from Teralogic for several months. On Dec 29, 1999, David Auld of Teralogic posted to the video-4-linux mailing list. "We at TeraLogic are interested in encouraging the development of Linux
drivers for the Janus DTV card." The company went so far as to offer reference cards and driver sets, and was in favor of having a total GPL driver set. You can do a google search to find the archive.
A couple months ago I e-mailed David on this subject and got a fairly kurt thanks but no thanks response.
The obvious reasons for pulling out support for the Linux driver are all MPAA based. The content controls comming down the pipe won't be in the Janus Chipset. It would have to be software based. With a linux driver could could patch an HD-Tivo, or your Windows based solution to ignore the content control flags. Most interesting would be trying to wield the DMCA against people on this. It's doubtful a linux driver would ever ack the content flags in the first place.
DMCA would not be applicable here (Score:3, Insightful)
DMCA would not apply to this, and is completely impotent against this.
The capture card itself is what does the encryption. The HDTV signal is sent in the clear, and accessible to anyone who knows how to build the hardware to receive it. Thus, there is no "technological measure that effectively limits access" to the copyrighted content, so 1201 doesn't come into play if you chose to undo (or prevent) the card's encryption.
Re:DMCA would not be applicable here (Score:2)
Re:There will never be linux drivers for this card (Score:2)
Digital TV/Radio musings (Score:4, Informative)
On a related note, I picked up a DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) digtal radio receiver [wavefinder.com] the other day, I can save the MP2 baseband strem directly to disk... no loss of quality, you can actually record all the stations within the same multiplex at once since they all come through the same COFDM transport stream. The datacasts are pretty smooth (and quick) too.. take a look [geocities.com] at radio, if they get this into portable devices then this will give 3G a run for its money when it comes to rudimentary information like news, sports scores etc
Re:Digital TV/Radio musings (Score:2)
Who does the chipset for the DVB boards in the UK? If it's teralogic, then the drivers for the DVB might work as a base for HDTV cards here in the US.
Cheers
TV on computer. Wow! (Score:3, Funny)
Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
I used to test/troubleshoot profesional video equipment. Until I actually saw it I couldn't care less about HDTV. The problem is that true HDTV runs at 1920x1080 (as I recall). Why is that a problem? Because most monitors won't do that.
Most of our test bays used standard computer monitors for output, we ran the signal the signal through a box that stepped down the resolution. I still looked sweet, but it was nothing compared to watching the same signal on a real HDTV monitor.
Granted, most HDTV broadcasts will be at one of the lower resolution standards, so it probably won't matter that much...
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
1080i is the highest resolution in the standard. (At the time of the standards, 1080p wasn't feasible.)
720p is the other common resolution, and also looks very nice.
480p is not much better that s-video, and 480i is basic tv.
In the above i=interlaced, p=progressive.
The problem with every tuner card i've seen on the market so far is every last one of them downgrades the image to 480p. Why bother?
For those looking to buy a HDTV, one of the most important questions is what is the native mode. The cheaper sets may use 720p or even 480p. You want to get one using 1080i.
I haven't been able to read the article yet as it is
most broadcasts will be either 720p (Monday Night Football and Super Bowl when they were being aired) or 1080i.
I use a good monitors that will support 1280x1024@75Hz or better, so I look forward to a true HD card.
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
The monitors we were using were equal to or better than that, but they still won't handle 1080i. Because of the letterbox aspect ratio, the operating resolution is 1920x1080. There are monitors that will handle that, but they're not within my price range yet...
There are something like 18 different standards that fall with the broad heading of HDTV, so I have to warn you that your description is a little simplified. I wish it were that simple, but the FCC has decided to let the market work it out, so it's about as standardized as DVD burners.
And to think... (Score:2, Funny)
With the possible exception of high-speed satellite access to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica...
Get a clue, people (Score:2, Insightful)
The other half are "here's how you, too, can buy into consumerism and give your money to entertainment megacorps, who will use it to buy fascist laws!"
Maybe a bit of consistency would remove this bad taste in my mouth, eh?
-Kasreyn
Re:Get a clue, people (Score:2)
why should we watch TV? (Score:2)
Okay, the rest of the list:
Smallville
West Wing
any of the Law & Order series
UC: Undercover
ER (though fading fast)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel
Enterprise (still maturing)
Simpsons
This Old House (shut up, I like it)
many things on BBC America
many things on public tv
many things on various cable channels
So stop being such a tv snob and see what's actually on there. It's not all Jerry Springer, ya know.
Why can't we build our own? (Score:3, Informative)
If the people at SlimDevices [slimdevices.com] can create their own network-based MP3 player with off-the-shelf chips, why can't they (or someone similarly talented) create a little device that takes off-air HDTV signals, feeds it into standard chipsets, and outputs compressed (MPEG-2?) HDTV video over ethernet? Get the little thing responding to simple commands over IP (maybe port 80, just have something in your browser that can handle video/mpeg-2 streams), and you've got a great thing going.
Make 'em cheap, put a few of these in your basement, have 'em all stream to a big RAID box, and then all you need is for the same guys to build a nice ethernet-to-video box for the set-top.
Seriously, though -- how available are these chips? Could someone easily build something that takes "GET CHANNEL 37.3" on an IP port and streams MPEG back? If I recall correctly, off-air HDTV streams are *not* encrypted, right?
Re:Why can't we build our own? (Score:2)
I've tried getting stuff from Teralogic for a while with no luck. If there is enough HDTV sales though it might be possible to see some imports from China and Tiawan that are a bit more lax on the content protections (ala Apex).
But at this moment it's slim to none you can pick up a digikey catalog and order all the parts.
Solution: ITV systems (Score:2)
Part of the solution is that you want to convert to a video format, rather than trying to store the raw frames. MPEG-1, -2, -4, or Motion JPeg are probably your best bets. That should get you a fairly large compression factor over the raw frame data set.
Some of this technology is still around, if you know where to look. Email me if you want to chat.
bad tech background in article (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead, the reason that TVs flicker less is that TVs have higher-persistence phosphors, i.e. after the phosphors are excited by the CRT's electron gun, the image takes longer to fade away -- a phenomenon that's totally acceptable with full-motion video but not when you don't want your mouse pointer looking smeary.
For proof of this, ask anyone who has a progressive-scan DVD player connected to a progressive-scan TV -- it certainly does not flicker more than a non-progressive scan player (would be somewhat defeatist, no?)
Isn't HDTV dead? (Score:2)
Who and where is broadcasting HDTV now?
Re:Isn't HDTV dead? (Score:2)
Except that I didn't have to buy a $10,000 monitor to get 1024/768 and I can still use a monitor capable of 640/480 after 2006.
Compression ??? (Score:2)
So what sorta compression codecs are they using? Please excuse my ignorance as I have never worked with compressed HDTV. My only experience has been on the production end where we used SGI Octane2 and Onyx2 systems with the Snowball DM2/DM3 I/O cards fo uncompressed work. Of course, that required a full rack of Ciprico fibre disk arrays to store the data, but the quality was awesome. On the software end, we used IFX's 'Piranha HD' and Discreet's 'Inferno'.
Re:MPAA? (Score:1)
Re:MPAA? (troll? why?) or some other villain (Score:2)
I was stumped why the parent was modded as troll, because these are close to my thoughts on the matter. [As far as the DMCA and MPAA in Afghanistan, DMCA applies only to businesses doing business in the USA, though political pressure upon foreign manufacturers may be applied. The MPAA isn't relevent in Afghanistan because the Taliban banned all movies and TV, besides, the third world flaunts such things as a habit]
My concern is Microsoft, AT&T, TimeWarner or anyone else dictating right down to the hardware all the standards, circuitry, etc. to make these things work and completely bar recording and replay without buying into some service they offer. I.e. You can rewatch last nights baseball game five years from now, but it's not on your video cassette, DVD or hard drive, rather, it's something that you pay for and they'll retransmit for you, complete with up-to-date advertising inserted. What a boon, eh? No more need for buying piles of recordable media and recording devices. The MPAA is thrilled because they now know exactly what you are watching, through their partnerships with such schemes, but use it to dumb-down film and TV, targetting, always targetting.
There must be some reason I keep watching non-Hollywood films at the Santa Cruz Nickelodeon. Possibly because I've already seen every plot beaten to death by Hollywood, tired of vacuous actors and actresses, weary of bad writing and fatigued by orange fireball explosions, and these alternative films are refreshing and interesting .. nah, I'm probably just a weirdo.
Re:MPAA? (troll? why?) or some other villain (Score:2)
And flaunting them (putting them out where the public is exposed to them, even if it's only yourself in your own home) is what enrages people like the Taliban. Flouting them (the IP laws about unauthorized copies) is what enrages people like the MPAA and the RIAA.
Re:Just so nobody else says it... (Score:1)
Going to Best Buy should be fun now...
"Hi sir, may I help you?"
"Yes, how much for that beowulf cluster?"
<blank look>
Re:what exactly gives hdtv ? (Score:4, Insightful)
It was going to be 1050 with slightly non-square pixels (i.e. 1920x1050) but they wised up.
And the frame rate is 24,25,29.97, or 30 progressive frames per second, depending on the source material, and twice those numbers for interlaced frames per second. Which means it will actually be able to do movies at the right frame rate so that it will look better.
You aren't going to see anything really taking advantage of the quality of HDTV for another few years. But when they start to show movies at the form factor the producer intended, it'll be great.
Re:what exactly gives hdtv ? (Score:2)
Actually, there are six HDTV formats, according to the Advanced Television Standards Committee:
1920x1080 @ 24 fps (1080p24, or just "24p")
1920x1080 @ 30 fps (1080p)
1920x1080 @ 60 fps (1080i)
1280x720 @ 24 fps
1280x720 @ 30 fps
1280x720 @ 60 fps
The ATSC has also approved 12 (!!) formats for digital standard definition TV.
More info here: http://www.atsc.org/press/PR_Def.html [atsc.org]
Not really... (Score:2)
Basically, it was discovered early on in creating the film medium that anything 30 FPS or above tends to look fairly smooth and natural in movement, and around 50 FPS and above looks very smooth and natural, but the 24 FPS of standard film looks jerky and unnatural when there's a lot of movement involved.
So, that's why the "flicker" of the movie projectors was introduced. Rather than waste an extra 6 FPS of very expensive film stock, which adds up quickly, to get the smooth motion of 30 FPS, it was discovered that introducing a very brief flicker in the middle of each frame--originally produced by passing a small wire or small disc or square of metal through the aperture of the projector 24 times per second, spaced timewise in the middle of each frame--would produce an optical effect which "tricked" the brain of the viewer into seeing the film at 48 FPS. Motion looked smooth enough because each frame was being interrupted by the flicker, so that the brain of the viewer would naturally group half of two frames together and create the sense of movement, instead of grouping it frame by frame and seeing the choppiness. An optical illusion, really. This is continued to the present day in every standard film projector, in one way or another.
So, seeing a "flat" 24 FPS film without the flicker would show the true choppiness of this very old format which lacks a high enough frame rate.
The easiest way to see this yourself is to find a high quality movie on the Net encoded at 25 FPS progressive from a deinterlaced PAL source, which is of course normally 25 FPS interlaced. People used to watching NTSC 30 FPS (29.97, but close enough) video on their monitors will definitely notice the difference in scenes involving fast motion. That extra 5 FPS is at an important threshold, as any PC gamer could tell you.
Of course, both NTSC and PAL use the trick of interlacing to make motion look even smoother, bringing the effective frame rates up to 60 FPS and 50 FPS respectively. This looked wonderful on standard TV sets, which lacked high resolution and make the signal into a more diffuse and softened display anyway; but it becomes a problem when the material is shown in its original interlaced form on a high definition monitor and looks pretty bad, or gets deinterlaced and the motion appears choppy (for PAL at least). Definitely a problem.
But film, at 24 FPS, would look even worse on a high definition monitor in its natural raw format, in terms of motion looking choppy. It would be noticeably like the purposefully choppy scenes in *Gladiator*--not quite so bad, but still not good. The ideal solution would be to present films in their original 24 FPS speed, but with the display introducing a minute "artificial flicker" to produce the same optical effect we get at the theater with projectors.
HD HBO and Showtime are sweet (Score:2)
Pretty much all of the movies on HBO are in HD format. The quality is so good it's like being at a movie theater. Showtime is hit-or-mis on the movies. Both HBO and Showtime have their own series, such as The Sopranos and Leap Years, which are broadcast in high def. I just recently started watching The Sopranos(I didn't have the HBO package until I got my HDTV) and have become hooked - it's an excellent show.
Last night's Disney movie on ABC was Toy Story in HD. Next week will be Toy Story 2. A couple weeks ago they showed A Bugs Life.
PBS has been showing ONLY HD shows on their HD channel - shows on nature, travel, exporation. The travel shows through Europe have been really slick, the detail shown in HD of artwork and buildings is phenominal.
Non-letterboxed DVDs also look great on a HDTV. Any movie that's labeled Anamorphic or Enhanced for Widescreen has 33% more detail when shown on an HDTV. The movie is recorded on the DVD without the black bars. The DVD player will throw out every 4th scan line of the movie on a traditional set and add the letter box bars. See The Ultimate Guide to Anamorphic Widescreen DVD [thedigitalbits.com] for some good info on anamorphic DVDs.
Mitsubishi HD VCR (Score:2)
Not sure when it's due out, but a google search yeilds a list price of $1049. Not bad - that's what my SVHS deck ran me way back when(late 80s?).
It's going to hook up via firewire - which my set doesn't have. I've heard there will be a plug-in board for the set though which adds the firewire port(s).
Re:It's even less than simple Firewire AVI DV form (Score:2)
Re:How much does it cost? (Score:2)