Making the HDTV Vision Quest?

DumbSwede asks: "I have embarked on a do-it-yourself HDTV project with a NEC 135LC quad-XGA projector purchased on eBay. But I have only found 2 HDTV tuner cards, AccessDTV and WinTV-HD, both far short of quad-XGA resolution (if I am reading the specs right, they max out at SXGA for VGA output). ATI claims to support all DTV resolutions and has quad-XGA resolution with its All-In-Wonder 9700, but has only a standard analog tuner built in. A search of ATI or NVIDA web-sites, give no recommendations on DTV turners to use in conjunction with their products (perhaps either accessdtv or wintv-hd will work). Any details and insights would be appreciated, as two or three days of web searching seems not to have provided me with total solution answers."

"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."

Comments

Check AVSForum

[Anonymous Coward]

Try www.avsforum.com for shitloads of info. In particular, the HTPC forums. There are several other HDTV cards out there (I don't follow it since OTA HDTV isn't in my area yet) and lots of advice on what type of hardware/software to consider.

Good luck.

Stay Away from the Hauppauge WinTV-HD

[pyite69]

I have one of these and the hardware is nice,
but the software is more or less useless. The
last update on their site is from April 2002,
so it looks like they have just given up on it.

BTW, what is Quad XGA? Why would you want 4
times the headache-inducing interlaced 1024
line mode?

You are going to be a pioneer on this one.
Time shifting of HDTV requires moving a LOT
of data. If you have an infinite amount of
money and can hack well, the WinTV-HD would
actually be a good start - just buy the
driver source code and make it work properly.
If anyone is interested in trying this, let
me know.

TV is Not That Important

[SuperJames_74]

I don't get the whole super-duper mega-super-size TV craze, anyhow. I mean, it's just TV. You're just sitting there, being immobilized and spoon fed artificial ideals by observing make-believe stories and/or lives of media-friendly commercial-pimping characters in some fabulously unrealistic plot. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to set my TiVo to record Friends while I watch Survivor...

Re:TV is Not That Important

[Selanit]

You're just sitting there, being immobilized and spoon fed artificial ideals by observing make-believe stories and/or lives of media-friendly commercial-pimping characters in some fabulously unrealistic plot.

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.

Re:TV is Not That Important

[argStyopa]

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.

Visit AVSForum.com for exactly the info you want

[sdo1]

There are two extremely important steps necessary for a successful DIY HDTV experience...

1) Go to the AVS Forum's HTPC section

2) Start reading.

The people there have already come across every issue you will encounter. They're extremely helpful. It's an absolutely invaluable resource.

Once you get your HDTV setup working, be sure to visit their HDTV section, especially the HDTV Programming section.

-S

Amen

[zvogt]

I went on this same quest several months ago, and I too was completely disheartened by what WinTV had to offer, and the other option you mentioned was pushing a monthly fee (what kind of BS is that?)
One you didn't mention was:
http://www.cinefx.com/mdp100.htm
which I was THIS CLOSE to breaking down and buying, but after spending many many hours researching the currently available products, my logic centers were able to win out over my instant-gratification centers. As much as I don't want to wait, I honestly believe the best advice to those who are close to making the HD leap would be: wait the 6 or 8 months until the big name TV manufactures have competing lines of all-in-one televisions sets that have fully integrated high-def tuners.

total solution answers...

[core plexus]

...will require a significant investment of time and energy. You already know this, after two or three days of searching. Might want to settle in for the long haul. Personally, I have yet to see anything on TV interesting enough to incite me to want to see it better. Some of those projectors are very nice, but you already know this, too.

How many mouse nuts does it take to make 12 pounds of mouse nuts?

I've already done this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an NEC XG 1352LC driven by a HTPC with a HiPix HDTV card in it. I have it driving the projector at 1920 x 1080i and it is fantastic. While the projector will accept resolutions higher than this, there is really no reason to do so as the tube faces won't really resolve much past that. I have a 10' screen and people's jaws drop when I fire up my local (San Francisco) public station (KQED) which uses one of it's feeds to broadcast amazing 1080i footage 24 hours a day (most of it is eye candy made by other public stations around the US showing off their State or city). The Hipix card also has an excellent Svideo capture interface which is much better than my old Happphauge one running Dscaler (which I still use in other situations... like when I want to show 4:3 footage in 16:9 format).

The folks over at Avsforum should be able to answer any other questions you have. There's a group of people there who write open source software for the Hipix so no DRM on the HDTV shows you record!

Dude,

[sheddd]

Wait.

Don't spend the big bucks now; stick with the resolution you have. The industry is in chaos and your solution might not work so well with mandated encryption for broadcast TV. According to this article, it'll be illegal to decrypt broadcast video (unless at STV resolution, or output thru DVI using HDCP encryption) anywhere but inside the display device:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_1/feature- article-digital-home-video-2-2002.html

Satellite

[T3kno]

Why dont you get a sat dish from DirecTV or DishNetwork (subscribe or pirate depending on budget and ethics) and use one of the HDTV receivers they have, I know DirecTV has a couple of HDTV receivers that support DVI/D-SUB out as well as the standard component and s-video. Just plug that directly into the projector, there are only a few channels that are broadcasting HDTV right now, but the difference is pretty noticeable, especially on a nice projector. My boss just got a 9 inch 3 chip DLP installed in his house (130" screen) and HDTV looks schweet on there. I prefer CRT's for the color though.

Get a MyHD card

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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...

Umm... nearly all HDTV's support 1080i

[trcooper]

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).


Every HDTV I have seen has suport for 1080i. Very few have support for 720p. 720p is primarily used for sporting events, most programming will be in 1080i. I believe Toshiba's support 720p in addition to 1080i, but for the most part, they support 1080i (720p is converted to 1080i or 480p) in the HDTV realm and 480i/p in the DTV realm.

I have the Panasonic 53WX42, and can garuntee it supports 1080i. It's absolutely goregeous.

some tips

[dfay]

Everyone else here has suggested avsforum.com, which is the best place to find the info you want and more. I'd also suggest you look at www.hometheaterforum.com. It's a nice site with tons of info too.

I have a Sony similar to your projector but older (1272) and would suggest you do what they call an "anamorphic squeeze" (search on avsforum) and use 1280x720 as your native resolution. That should be very resolvable by your 8" guns. I guess having 1920x1080 interlaced might look better for source material at that res, but your projector will not resolve it, so you'll have overscan. (That's where each line is drawn slightly overlapping the previous line, so they all blend together. It is caused by your electronics being able to handle higher resolutions than your optics.) You really need 9" guns to resolve 1080i.

I currently haven't taken the HDTV plunge, since TV really isn't that important to me. You might consider how important TV programming is to you, regardless of the specs. After all, if all you can get is the latest Friends and Jay Leno in HD, what's the point? I mainly watch DVDs (using WinDVD or PowerDVD) scaled up to 720p. That's the source material I care about more.

BTW, if you don't mind running Windows, which will almost be a necessity, it is a lot of fun to play games on. I got a Radeon (nVidia cards are ok too) and used Powerstrip to insert a custom timing for 1280x720. After that, I installed the latest DirectX and now many games (mostly the 3D ones) will recognize and allow the 1280x720 res. It's a lot of fun to play Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed or games like that on a 100+" diagonal screen. :) The widescreen aspect ratio almost makes it better, especially for racing/flying types of games.

Anyway, enjoy the new hobby. You'll never be able to give it up once you start. :)

*GA

[captaineo]

Dontcha wish they'd stop using those stupid XGA/SXGA/QXGA/whatever acronyms and just tell you how many damn *pixels* the thing does horizontally and vertically...

HDTV PCI Cards

[-tji]

Here is the situation on with HDTV PCI cards..

All of the current field of cards is based on the Janus reference design, by Teralogic. So, they are all very similar.

They all take a standard antenna as input (cheap UHF antennas, like the Radio Shack double bowtie work great). They have onboard ATSC Digital TV tuners, which decode the 19.3Mbps data channel containing MPEG2 video Digital audio (some channels support Dolby Digital 5.1 audio). They have onboard MPEG2 hardware decoders which output the HDTV programs in their high resolution formats (1080i: 1920x1080 interlaced or 720p: 1280x720 progressive). They output through a VGA/RGB port, though some support transcoding to component video out. They can also output on the PC desktop in a small scaled down video window.

The Players:

- Telemann HiPix DTV-200 - http://www.telemann.com/products/dtv200.html - Probably the most popular, has been around for a long time, but seems to be abandoned by Telemann. There is some driver source code availability (not open source, but available to the community under restricted terms) and people at avsforum.com have made large contributions. Availability of the card is pretty spotty, and ongoing support is very questionable.

- AccessDTV - http://www.accessdtv.com/accessdtv/index.htm - Card has some additional hardware, which enables some Tivo-like features, such as pausing live tv with the view buffer. Initially this card was unpopular because they felt the need to encrypt their data files, eliminating the possibility of sharing between PC's or even editing files. Recent versions of their software have relented on this encryption stance, so this could be a good card.

- MIT MDP-100 ( the "MyHD" card ) - http://www.mitinc.co.kr/e_pccard.htm - $300 - Has two antenna inputs, handy for positioning seperate antennas to get all stations. Also includes the ability to play back DVD's at 480P or non-CCS VOB files at HDTV resolutions, which is a great feature for a home theater.. DVD's look great scaled to 720P. Drivers are still immature and can be unstable, but not bad for normal usage.

- Digital STREAM HiDTV Pro HDTV - http://www.pc-dtv.com/ - $370 - Relatively new card, very similar to others, software looks more polished than some others.

- Happauge WinTV-HD - http://www.hauppauge.com/html/products.htm - Poor drivers, no recording capability. Product appears to be abandoned, no driver updates. Stay away from this card.

- Happauge WinTV-D - http://www.hauppauge.com/html/products.htm - Similar to the above card, except it only displays at 480i on the desktop (it scales all hi-res HDTV down to standard TV resolutions). This card may be okay if you ONLY want to watch digital TV on your PC desktop in a little window. If you want to watch on an HDTV, stay away from this card.

WinTV-HD can record

[Wag]

I have a WinTV-HD and can save the transport stream to my harddrive just fine.

But you're right about the drivers, they suck. Stay far away.

Would just like HDTV VGA box

[Krellan]

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.

MyHD all the way

[YetAnotherName]

I use the MyHD card and haven't looked back. Except at the TV, that is.

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 :-) in stunning 1080i.

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.