Slashdot Mirror
Making the HDTV Vision Quest?
"Granted an 8' foot wide front projection system is probably over kill for my bedroom, but the heart wants what the heart wants. For now I have had to be content with XGA and SXGA DVD playback from my 300 Mhz Dell Laptop. So far, the results appear better, than the best HDTV setup I have seen playing progressive scan DVD, so I am anxious to get to the next level, now that HDTV is supposedly finally rolling out in my area.
As an aside, I have noticed that broadcasters are transmitting in a range of resolutions from 480p to 1080i, but all the HDTVs I have seen for sale are 720p or lower (although 720p on 720p looks pretty sweet).
NVIDA mentions the need for a digital TV tuner with compressed transport stream and software decoder.
ATI I think needs MST (MPEG Stream Transport)
With the booming market in Graphics boards, one would think they'd be falling over themselves to provide HDTV solution information, but a site search of ATI, only gives HDTV details by way of a press release, and comes up short on how to best get the job done.
The plan is to buy a 2ghz+ system with DVD RW-/+ from Dell with Window XP (I have no desire to be a Linux pioneer on this project), and drop everything in and have it working within a few minutes. Easily converting my back video collection is a high priority with this project (though a AIW9700 would be overkill for this, and perhaps overkill for HDTV as well) and having a decent digital video recorder to time shift both HD and Analog TV shows. I would also like to have multiple monitor outputs so I can web-surf and watch HDTV on my big screen at full res at the same time (without annoying hiccups). I am not a really a gamer (anymore), so again, perhaps the AIW9700 is overkill (as well as being pricey), though it seems to have all the other essential features I crave (though earlier model AIWs should have them as well). With this kind of size and resolution, I may wish to get back into flight simulators again and getting back into gaming is not out of the question."
There are other choices, definitely stay away from the Hauppauge, their founder died and it seems that with his passing so has any passion for HDTV.
The MyHD card is an excellent choice though. It has active software development and currently has support for recording both ATSC (HDTV) and NTSC - most similar cards only do ATSC because it is easy - it is already in MPEG form off the air.
All cards, except the AccessTV are one-way only. You can either record/watch incoming HDTV or play recorded HDTV but not both at the same time. The Access card essentially has two cards in one and comes the closest to tivo-like functionality, but they are known for flakey software and taking up two slots and being hot.
All of the cards (except the WinTV-D, the predecessor to the WinTV-HD) are based on the Janus ATSC decoder chipset. Janus, recently purchased (by Oak Technologies?) has never been, and still isn't, interested in supporting linux driver development. Programming specs are only available under tight NDA...
Check out the HDTV forums and the Linux HTPC forum at avsforum for lots of talk about this kind of thing. Beware, avsforum has been growing by leaps and bounds and their server is in need of an upgrade (seems like they upgrade at least every 6 months), so it is probably a little slow and might come to a halt under the mighty gaze of slashdot...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Television can indeed be stultifying. I think the reason that we continue to watch it nonetheless is that we have an inborn need for continuing validation of the way we think things are supposed to be. If we see that others behave in the same fashion as we do, then it reassures us that we are in tune with our culture. It helps us form a sense of ourselves as belonging to a larger social unit than just our families or immediate friends.
In the past, this sort of external validation was provided by books, and before that by oral storytelling. The fact that the characters are fictitious makes them excellent for conveying abstract ideas about what an ideal person is supposed to be like.
This sort of thing can be repressive and conservative in the extreme. Note that while most of our recent movies portray the ideal woman as sassy, smart, and independent, the ultimate fate of these heroines is the same as always: marriage and presumed domestic bliss. There is the implication that these characters are basically templates to model ourselves after. "If you follow the script, you will be fulfilled," whispers the sub-text, "And if you don't, you will be isolated and unhappy."
That said, there are counter-examples: some shows subvert the dominant ideals through parody, satire, or irony. The Simpsons is a prime example. Regrettably, however, such counter-cultural shows are comparatively few. Likewise for movies; the vast majority of 'em are essentially forms of brainwashing, especially those out of Hollywood. Independent films from smaller labels are much more likely to be aware of their own messages. Books are subject to the same sort of division.
There's no way we can stop doing this; there is no such thing as a totally unbiased text. We automatically encode our beliefs into anything we write, or sing, or act. And though this is a subjective value judgement on my part, I find that the best pieces of literature are the ones that are aware of this fact. They don't have to be progressive, or anything: simply being aware of the effects and writing a thoughtful and deliberate piece of work makes it a lot better than a simple regurgitation of dominant values.
As for wanting really big televisions, I think that's more of a status competition than anything else. If your neighbors can watch your television from across the street and not miss any details, that advertises your ability to spend large amounts of money on fancy equipment. Same as big expensive cars.
Anyway, this post is getting long and rambling, so I'll shut up now.
I would be interested in a standalone box (no PC connection or software required) that converts HDTV to VGA. It would output to any ordinary PC monitor that accepts VGA. Many people have extra monitors lying around and it would be very cost effective to simply convert these into HDTV sets instead of buying new HDTV gear.
This ideal box would have:
* Antenna input, for the raw signal from the antenna
* HDTV tuner, with selectable channel (including selectable feed if channel is multiplexed)
* VGA output, to an ordinary PC monitor
* Audio output, with standard RCA jacks (or optional digital jacks) for sound
* Downscaler, to downgrade to a lower resolution in case the VGA monitor does not support a given resolution (the VESA DDC standard would be used to query the VGA monitor and detect what resolutions it supports, without needing user configuration)
* Optional remote control for the HDTV tuner
Simple, cost effective, does not require purchase of a monstrously huge and expensive set in order to watch HDTV, and does not involve the complication and setup hassles of a PC.
Does such a box exist? I would love to buy one.
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
I use the MyHD card and haven't looked back. Except at the TV, that is.
:-) in stunning 1080i.
My MyHD is in a 1.8GHz P4 HTPC in an equipment closet connected with about 25 feet of Y/Pb/Pr cable to a Toshiba 34HF81 HDTV (1080i). One antenna input is from over-the-air broadcasts (Dallas area), the other from analog cable TV.
Record and playback is with an IDE-baed RAID array with a SCSI interface, currently less than 1TB of storage, but more planned.
DVDs that I've legally purchased get DeCSS'd and go onto the RAID array under a subdirectory named FairUse. Then the originals go into a box for safekeeping and I play just the personal, legal backup copies. (Take that, Jack V.).
MyHD plays back the DVDs, cable TV, and over-the-air HDTV (mainly PBS specials and Jennifer Garner in Alias
True, the driver's aren't entirely stable, but it works well enough for HDTV and SDTV timeshifting as well as DVD playback.
And I learned about all this stuff from AVS Forum. Ask there, and learn.
Personally every time I catch myself zoning in front of the tube I wonder: what's the difference between a show that you really want to watch, and a (psychological) drug addiction?
I mean, instead of shooting a chemical into your bloodstream, in this case the delivery vehicle is your optic nerve. Since the part of the body being affected is intellectual and not chemical, the delivery has to be necessarily more subtle; to get an high TV typically focuses on emotional responses - like a 'command-line' drug that turns on/off adrenalin, endorphins, and all the other wierd crap in our heads.
It's kind of the 'ultimate' drug delivery - why sell an illegal, dangerous chemical on the street, when you can (through the presentation of phosphor images and sounds in the appropriate combinations) induce the addict's body to create not only the need but the drugs themselves?
Anyway, thinking like this kind of helps me veer away from spending my hours in front of the tube.
-Styopa