EFF Reviews HDTV PVR Solution for Mac

enrico_suave points out this "PVRBlog post about EFF's Review of Elgato's EyeTV 500, an HDTV solution for the Mac. Well, a very speedy dual-processor G5 Mac, apparently. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been doing a lot of important work defending our online and digital rights including opposing the dreaded FCC mandated broadcast flag (cue boos and hisses) Elgato and Plextor also have a Standard Definition homebrew PVR solution with an EyeTV and ConvertX PVR bundle (Wired review)." (See also this earlier review from a Slashdot reader.)

Comments

RTFA?

[DreadPiratePizz]

I've got no problem with reading ONE article, but this is ridiculous!

Re:RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

May explain why nobody's replying. I got mod points but nobody's posting.

Re:RTFA?

[kanweg]

What on earth gave you the impression that we can slashdot only a single URL or so?

Bert

Re:RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice to the stupid moderators, how can the first post be redundant?

Re:RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm it looks like a Wiki entry.

Re:RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but I have no fucking clue what the damn post is about - the grammar is atrocious and the punctuation sucks.

Re:RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice to the stupid moderators, how can the first post be redundant?

Because it's pretty much the same comment that gets posted in every story.

Am I missing something here?

[thammoud]

If you intend to have your Mac handle all of your DTV duties--watching live TV, recording, and playing back recorded shows--you'll probably want a dual-G5 PowerMac

On Monday, comcast will install a $10 a month PVR with dual tuner and one that can record 15 hours of HDTV and 60 of regular TV. Why should I invest in a dual G5 power mac and an additional $350 to basically get the same functionality.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is funny if you picture in your head this guys current computer...

Re:Am I missing something here?

[PornMaster]

Can you archive HDTV broadcasts, though? 15 hours isn't much in the whole scheme of things.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

i want a nice dual g5, that is shinier than whatever comcast must have. and it is an excuse to own a mac, never had one before.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[91degrees]

On Monday, comcast will install a $10 a month PVR with dual tuner and one that can record 15 hours of HDTV and 60 of regular TV. Why should I invest in a dual G5 power mac and an additional $350 to basically get the same functionality.

Perhaps because you'll want to record TV shows for more than the ($cost_of_Power_mac + 350) / 10 months.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[BJH]

Because, uh... you already own a Mac?

Come on, I'm sure whoever wrote the article wasn't expecting you to immediately run out and plunk down a couple of thousand dollars for a Mac just to use this peripheral.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Possible things you're missing:
1. If you get Comcast's PVR, Comcast controls your PVR and you do what they tell you.
2. Comcast isn't worldwide, last time I checked.
3. Ridiculously excessive, far more expensive hardware is way cooler.
4. I could hook up a RAID array and record a metric gazillion hours of HDTV! What now, Mr. 15 hours?
5. Comcast is the devil and they will kill your dog. If you don't have a dog, they will give you one for the express purpose of killing it.
6. Because I say so! Buy this! Do it! Do it now!
7. ???
8. Profit!!!!

mission option: the mac supports video editing to insert sex with a mare into all your favorite shows.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[entrigant]

Ya, you are missing the ability to backup your recordings so you can archive your favorite shows "for all time."

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Presumably, because Comcast will kowtow to the major media companies and start respecting the "broadcast flag." The hope is that this device will remain blessedly versatile after July of this year.

However, suppose that some major media properties persuade Apple to rewrite their firewire drivers, necessitating a a similar driver update from ElGato. The question then becomes: Is ElGato legally required to cripple its software in the course of this update? Could one reinstate compatibility with the old, pre broadcast flag driver by rewriting portions of the Darwin source?

Perhaps the best solution would be to build a Linux PVR server, possibly adding on a suitable mac client, a la vlc. After all, Linus Torvalds doesn't own an online media shop.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Yaztromo]

On Monday, comcast will install a $10 a month PVR with dual tuner and one that can record 15 hours of HDTV and 60 of regular TV. Why should I invest in a dual G5 power mac and an additional $350 to basically get the same functionality.

Well, not everyone in this world lives in your country.

Lots of people take it for granted that PVRss are available everywhere. They aren't. Here in Canada, I have never been able to buy a Tivo up here, because Tivo has never sold their devices up here. Why? Who the hell knows.

The only traditional PVR games in town up here rquire you to sign up for a digital satellite or digital cable service. Me, I'm happy with a basic cable package as I don't watch that much TV -- so long as I get the CBC, CBC Newsworld, and the Space channel, I'm completely happy.

But I'd still love to own a PVR. The only way that is going to happen for me is to buy a PC (in this case being "personal computer", and not just the "IBM PC compatible" platform) add-on PVR. And as I'm already a Mac user, a solution like this make sense for me (although IMO it's still a bit too expensive for my tastes).

Yaz.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[NardofDoom]

A) Because its fun.
B) Because soon HDTV receivers will have Broadcast Flag
C) Because Comcast is evil.

Now why you'd have a Mac do it is beyond me. I'd just build an HDTV capable MythTV setup and have a lot more control over what goes into my system.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[thammoud]

I thought about building my own but content is the problem. OTA programming is just a fraction of available HD programming. What capture card will decode comcast's signal? And how about if the evil company Comcast decided to change the encryption of their signal? Can they?

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.... I can't live without the Spice channel either.

Pervs need to stick together.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I think you are missing your common sense. I didn't see anything in the primary article that insinuated that you should run out and buy a dual G5 so you could get a setup using the 500 up and running.

But maybe, like me, you already have a dual G5 and when you went to get a DirecTV receiver/pvr you discovered that, for some dumbass fucking reason, one MUST have a telephone landline to use the thing. (we have no landline, just cell phones)

So, factoring in the 30 bucks a month (cheapest phone service i could hunt down here in L.A.) plus the $10/month (assuming you didn't buy one outright), in less than 10 months the EyeTV 500 solution pays for itself. If you're in my boat.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[NardofDoom]

There's only a little HD programming available on Comcast right now anyway. If you mean digital cable, MythTV (like TiVo) has the capability to control a cable box using a serial or usb connection, or using an IR blaster.

Me, I'd just grab a torrent.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[wfeick]

Get a network card, and hook your tivo up to that. Mine's been doing that for a couple years now, and the only down side is that it won't let me purchase PPV with the remote anymore. I have to go to their web site or call them to buy anything. Not a big deal, since I very rarely buy PPV.

You could also get a Vonage account for about $18/month, although you have to configure the tivo to only try 9600 baud.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[maggard]

One reason might be early reports have the Comcast box a heinous monstrosity with an unacceptably crappy interface and a list of crippling 'quirks' that betray it's barely-into-beta status.

Needless to say most Mac, and TiVo, users expect better...

Re:Am I missing something here?

[steve_bryan]

I hope people don't take your casual claims as anything authoritative on the subject. Have you tried to "just build an HDTV capable MythTV setup"? If you follow the discussion on AVS forum of people trying to use the only linux HDTV board you might not be so sanguine about your prospects. The EyeTV product is priced higher than I'd like but once you purchase it you'll have something that just works.

I've used their USB product for a while and it uses the same software. It is much less finicky than the corresponding HDTV software I have for my PC.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Leo McGarry]

Maybe because it takes time and trouble to set up a sales channel, and there are fewer potential customers in Canada than there are in Florida?

No shit: There are blogs that get more readers in a month than the entire labor-force population of Canada. No kidding, honest-to-God blogs.

I've got nothing personal against Canada. It's just that it kinda makes me scratch my head when I hear somebody ask, "Why is X available in America but not available in Canada?" That's a big "duh," as far as I'm concerned. Itty bitty market.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Leo McGarry]

A) Because its fun.

In various places around the world, there are groups of people that call themselves "polar bear." As far as I know, the tradition mainly goes back to Scandinavian immigrants to the United States; whether they brought the tradition over with them from their homelands or just made it up on the spot to mess with their new neighbors remains a mystery.

The mission of these "polar bear clubs" is to go swimming in icy rivers and lakes, usually on New Year's Day. For example, on New Year's Day 2004 some 600 members of the Boulder Polar Bear Club dove into Boulder Reservoir, the temperature of which was a life-threatening 34 degrees at the time.

Why? "Because it's fun."

The moral of this little parable is that some people are just fucking insane, and no amount of talking is going to cure them of it.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Yaztromo]

I've got nothing personal against Canada. It's just that it kinda makes me scratch my head when I hear somebody ask, "Why is X available in America but not available in Canada?" That's a big "duh," as far as I'm concerned. Itty bitty market

That's not the reason. Tivo at one time licensed their set-top box technology to other companies, including the likes of Sony. Sony already has channels here in Canada, and could have put boxes into their Sony Stores (which are in virtually every major mall in Canada). Or they (Tivo) could have sold online to Canadian addresses. But they don't.

What with the FTA and NAFTA, setting up channels is hardly any more difficulat then in the US -- indeed, there are many channels which deal with both countries. They could have sold in the likes of Sears or Walmart for example -- but again, didn't.

But that's besides the point. Myy intent wasn't to grouse about the lack of Tivo in Canada. I would have liked to own one, but if Tivo doesn't want to sell here, they won't get my money. Simple as that, so be it, and such-and-such.

My point was that devices like the EyeTV do fill a niche in places like here in Canada where the usual competing offerings simply aren't available. I can buy an EyeTV unit through Apple Canada's website (and probably elsewhere -- I haven't bothered to check around), but I can't buy a Tivo through either a Canadian source or through Tivo directly (although if I really wanted one, I could find someone to buy one in the US and ship it to me. There aren't any export or import restrictions on the device itself that prevents me from actually owning one).

Yaz.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a network card, and hook your tivo up to that.
So, you CAN do that 'eh. Well I'll be dipped in shit and rolled in crackers. I mean, its not like the damn computer doesn't allready have one, so I figured...SHAZAM, I can just use cable modem instead of phone line for PVR data transfer!

Those bastards specifcally told me I COULDN'T do that very thing when I inquired about it. I should have suspected as much when I asked why I couldn't do that and was greeted with a response that sounded strangely like chirping crickets.

You could also get a Vonage account for about $18/month, although you have to configure the tivo to only try 9600 baud.
I have been thinking about a Vonage acct. for landline use now that we are all settled into the new place. Being told that PVR (in my case, TIVO) wouldn't work using ethernet for data had me thinking that would be the only optioned if I really wanted one (which I do).

Although even at only $18/month, it still validates the idea that, for some, the cost analysis may prove the EyeTV 500 to be the "best" solution

Re:Am I missing something here?

[wfeick]

Yeah, check out www.9thtee.com for lots of tivo related hacks.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, it needs a hack to do that...well, at least that somewhat excuses the lack of response i got when i asked about it...

looks pretty cool...i might go this route...

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used their USB product for a while and it uses the same software.

Tell me, do you still have to change channels by clicking the up and down arrows, or have they added a keypad?

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

In March, Voom will be releasing a whole house dvr solution, that will record 50 hours hd, or nearly 300 hours sd on a 250GB hard drive, that is as easy as tuning to a 900 number channel to watch whatever you record. Need more storage, add another dvr. As far as the interface is concerned, you just choose to record, not caring which dvr it records on. Who needs a crappy little expensive computer solution, when you have Voom!

Re:Broadcast flag

[KlaymenDK]

Well, that's a fine idea ... so it's probably illegal (in the US). In fact, such a box would constitute a "circumvention device" wich is, as far as I have understood, exactly the thing you're not allowed to have. Bah.

Glad I live in Europe.

iTele

[ed 'g3']

iTele [for os x] is free, works with generic digital tv tuner cards and supports the high definition picture for those regions where it is available, i.e. everywhere except the uk.

http://www.defyne.org/dvb/

Re:iTele

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand...will ANY PCI TV tuner card that can take advantage of the dvb drivers work on a Mac? E.g. could I use a Hauppauge WinTV-250 or 350 on a Mac? I know it's the same bus architecture, but I've always been confused about what PCI cards that are advertised for PC can be stuck in a Mac. Sorry for the noobness.

Re:iTele

[yet another coward]

The Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 and 350 are not DVB cards. The company cited has a list of supported hardware.

Will it be able to connect to iHome?

[WildKard]

just think about not only being able to connect your iPod or DV camcorder or digital camera or flash media reader, but third party peripherals like this HDTV tuner to it. and it all being networked!

Re:Will it be able to connect to iHome?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go stick it up your iAss

Re:Will it be able to connect to iHome?

[drdink]

You mean the EyeHome by Elgato? It exists. I've not tried one, but I'd like to... I do own the EyeTV USB and it is a nice product.

Re:Will it be able to connect to iHome?

[node 3]

No, because the iHome does not exist (well, except as a plastic and cardboard hoax mock-up).

Something like it may debut at the Keynote next week though.

Re:Will it be able to connect to iHome?

[HTH NE1]

And, as it pertains to the topic, it will not play back HDTV content recorded with EyeTV 500 or other devices.

Re:Will it be able to connect to iHome?

[unithom]

I got one of the EyeHome refurbs they were offering for $150. So far I'm not nearly as impressed with it as I was with my EyeTV 200.

The short list:

* I had two 10/100 hubs in-lined between my Mac and my EyeHome. Video sometimes stuttered, but usually just fell off. This happened regularly. There is no easy way to go back to where you were if the program dies. I had to home-run a second cat5 just for the EyeHome, to the hub the computer was plugged into.

* Fwd/rev are unreasonably slow on feedback, i.e. you push a button then wait about 10 seconds or more for the result. And of course, sometimes it dies.

* It doesn't let you watch live or time-shifted TV, only programs you previously recorded. You cannot be recording the end of something using your EyeTV while watching the beginning of it using your EyeHome. Which IMO is kind of dumb. But I do have to wonder about the amount of data being written to / read from the disk.

EyeTV does allow you to watch live and timeshifted TV, but only on your computer.

* No '7 second instant replay' or 'skip forward 30 seconds' buttons for EyeHome. These features ARE available on EyeTV, as is the ability to easily edit out commercials.

My guess is, they think you don't need a commercial skip button since you already removed them. No logical explanation for lack of 7 second instant replay, though.

* You basically are running Tomcat / jsp stuff on the server side (your Mac) in order to share your media (previously recorded TV, movies you ripped (and presumably own), your iTunes music library, your iPhoto albums, etc.) But it's not open, which is retarded.

IMO the SliMP3 / Squeezebox is much cooler in this regard. (The last version I used of their server, I wasn't that impressed with, but at least with open source, I had no excuses for not getting in there and making it better. Plus, you could hack additional IR codes that it received to do other things. Which is awesome.)

* They licensed the technology from someone else. While I don't know what the relationship is there, it makes me wonder about the frequency of updates (if any). I saw someone else who I think is licensing from the same company (Syabas) but their box looks newer, which has me worried - great, can't upgrade this box anymore? etc. HTH.

Re:Broadcast flag

[CrackedButter]

"Glad I live in Europe"
Why? Because we are next in line after Australia?

I'm illegal in the US

[MAdMaxOr]

As a hacker, I constitute a circumvention device.

Re:I'm illegal in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

you're also a fucking idiot.

la di da... I need 10 more seconds of shit to get this to work.

fuck off and die. how bout that???

Re:I don't have a TV :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

You are soo much more leet than the rest of us.

God I hate slashdot. I hope you die in a puddle of your own feeces. or RobLimo's feeces.. whatever.

shithead

When did the EFF start doing product endorsements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does publishing a thinly vieled advertisement for someone's product constitute "defending our online and digital rights"? The EFF ought to be ashamed of themselves. This sort of action does not help their credibility at all. If the IRS got wind of this, they would be well within their authority to revoke the EFF's 501(c)3 status.

Same Functionality?

[voidstin]

basically get the same functionality.

Well, since the article is from the EFF, I bet this one does things that the comcast won't let you do, such as:

- archive programs
- move programs to a different device
- save programs as long as you like
- record whatever you want (despite the broadcast flag)

(If you want to send me a dual g5 to test on, I'll probably think up a few others)

Granted, $350 (or $4000) > $5/mo, but this is true for Media Center PCs as well, and they are so afraid of the broadcast flag, you can't even record HBO. And, soon, neither will your comcast PVR...

http://www.allyourtv.com/0405season/news/novembe r/ 11282004transitional.html

Re:Broadcast flag

[tfiedler]

Yeah, because Europe is much more "free". Go be a troll somewhere else.

Re:Broadcast flag

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be rejoicing just yet, you live under a central near-totalitarian government called the "European Union" that can pass any laws it wishes against your country, including laws that are just as bad if not worse than the ones currently enacted in the U.S. Its like the U.N. with relevance, and anytime a central power has control over other smaller powers there is a very real possibility for abuse that is very difficult to stop.

Re:I don't have a TV :-)

[MightyPez]

Well, let's all raise our glass to this superior human specimen. Don't have a TV you say? Well I haven't raped any dogs lately. Can I get a golf clap too?

Re:Broadcast flag

[CrackedButter]

Unless you are called Poland...

I have it and it's AWESOME

[ntxb229]

I just got this box the other day and it is FANTASTIC. I had a Tivo as well and I think this thing is just head and shoulders above the Tivo. It's got most of the same features and is just much smoother than the Tivo (especially the guide). HDTV recording is just awesome (as well as dual tuner).

Re:I have it and it's AWESOME

[thammoud]

I have the ReplayTV with its fantastic commercial skip feature and the quick 30 second advance. DOes this box have either features?

Re:I have it and it's AWESOME

[MightyPez]

What does ReplayTV have to do with this thread topic?

Re:I have it and it's AWESOME

[Wehesheit]

The question was about the box for the mac.

Re:I don't have a TV :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not alone brother, I have no invention called a TV either... or Bit Torrent for that matter.

Comments

[MBCook]

OK, interesting gadget. I just have a few questions.

Why do you need such a great CPU? The article says it's because the hidef MPEG2 content is decoded in software. Huh? I though graphics cards started doing MPEG2 assist and later complete MPEG2 decoding years ago? It that feature just not in the drivers, or was it dropped due to cost and faster CPUs? Guess you should budget in some more for an MPEG2 decoder card, but they are not easy to find anymore (at least not as easy as they were), they tend to require passthrough (I've never seen pass-through DVI, and would it handle dual link for 30" screens?), etc. Seems like a big problem.

Only an antenna? If this thing can record HD and SD content (as long as it's digital), why not give it an HDMI connector so I could record off equiptment that has HDMI out? Or give it a DVI in for recording off that? Just an antenna seems.... measly.

Interesting though. The CPU problem is not as bad as it sounds considering how many people would currently want to use their computer to timeshift full glory HD content. If you have the TV and such for that and you can afford this box, you can probably afford a computer to play the file (or at least an MEPG2 decoder card).

Re:Comments

[Jozer99]

If you read the article, it clearly mentioned that although modern Mac graphics cards have hardware MPEG2 decoding, the APIs for accessing it are not documented by Apple for 3rd party manufaturers.

Re:Comments

[mkldev]

Even when the hardware is doing some of the work, it's usually not doing all of it, a few specialized MPEG-to-video output cards notwithstanding. There are several different parts of playing back MPEG video, including: decompressing, deinterlacing (optional), scaling, color space conversion, etc. The hardware only provides the last one, and sometimes the next-to-last, IIRC. The actual decompression occurs in software (doing all the inter-frame math, etc.), as does deinterlacing, generally, assuming you are using an MPEG player that supports it.

Basically, doing full MPEG decode in the GPU made sense before we had vector units in the CPU, but these days, it isn't enough of an advantage to care. And besides, you usually want to have some software control over the presentation---the ability to float windows over it, etc. That sort of thing doesn't work too well if the GPU is doing all of the decoding for you.

And, of course, HD video is a different animal---different resolution, higher data rate, etc. Even if you have custom hardware to decode SD video and send it to a TV on-the-fly, doing the same for HD is sufficiently harder that it probably isn't worth it, particularly since you have a fast CPU handy already.

Re:Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should Read The Fucking Article instead of rambling pointlessly.

Re:Comments

[NanoGator]

"Why do you need such a great CPU? ... I though graphics cards started doing MPEG2 assist and later complete MPEG2 decoding years ago?"

Because progressive full-res HDTV is 12 times as much data as what your DVD playback feature on your card supports?

Re:Comments

[Wesley Felter]

why not give it an HDMI connector so I could record off equiptment that has HDMI out?

And what is your Mac going to do with a >100MB/s uncompressed video stream? Oh, and HDMI is often encrypted.

Re:Comments

[Scudsucker]

Which one? There's about ten in the summary.

Re:Comments

[MBCook]

Oh, thanks. I read the article (most of it, not every word) so I must have missed that point. I guess to watch full hidef content, most computers will need help for a few years (dual 2+ ghz computers are not quite the "mainstream" yet), so maybe mpeg decoder cards will become more popular again.

Everything old is new again.

Re:Comments

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Actually, there is a point. Nearly any Radeon can unload half the CPU needs for decoding over the air broadcasts. nVidia did not put this in until their 6xxx series. A single 2GHz P4 should be able to decode OTA transmissions on their own.

Re:Comments

[Jozer99]

Its weird. I decode MPEGs all the time on my P3. You would think that they could do it with a 1.6 GHz IBM Power4 Processor.

Re:Comments

[Leo McGarry]

Your math is a little off, Wes. An uncompressed HDTV signal requires more than 1.6 GB/s to play back in real time.

Re:Comments

[MBCook]

Can your P3 decode a 1936x1080 high bitrate (11MBps) MPEG files in real time?

Didn't think so.

Re:Comments

[Have Blue]

New consumer product from Apple: iSan! Bundled with matching white plastic iServe RAIDs, and check out our multicolored fiber channel hubs!

Re:Comments

[prockcore]

There are several different parts of playing back MPEG video, including: decompressing, deinterlacing (optional), scaling, color space conversion, etc. The hardware only provides the last one, and sometimes the next-to-last, IIRC

Depends on which card you're talking about, the old mpeg2 decoder cards that we used to play DVDs on Pentium 90s did everything. You fed it an mpeg2 stream and it did everything. You had to route your video out into its input, then hooked your monitor up to the dvd card so it could do the hardware overlay.

Hell, TiVo only works because of hardware mpeg2 encoding/decoding. TiVo is a 54 mhz (yes, fifty-four mhz) PPC. It wouldn't be able to encode a show to mpeg2 using the CPU even if you gave it a week and half to do it.

Re:When did the EFF start doing product endorsemen

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to slash-fucking-dot.

Re:Broadcast flag

[Anonymous Coward]

such a box would constitute a "circumvention device" wich is, as far as I have understood, exactly the thing you're not allowed to have.

It's a minor technicality, but you are allowed to build and possess them. That's why the law does not violate your rights (ha ha). The law makes it illegal to traffic in circumvention devices or to use them to access copyrighted works.

It is also illegal to traffic in the technology to build one. But if you can build one using nothing but your own knowledge, you're golden!

Can you..

[discovercomics]

With the exception of VHS downconverted archiving
Can you...
export the HDTV recordings to other media?
archive the HDTV recordings?
edit out portions of the HDTV recordings you want to discard or save?

Re:Can you..

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the Fucking Article you cock-sucking whorebag!!

Re:Can you..

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA? It's not fucking hard, christ.

Re:Can you..

[akac]

1) Answered in the article.
2) Answered in the article, and isn't it the same as #1?
3) Answered in the article.

Amazing what 3rd grade reading skills will do for you. And if you're still too lazy to read it - YES to all those questions because its all just MPEG2 after all.

Re:Can you..

[discovercomics]

Jeeze dud get a grip, I wasn't asking about the mac solution, just replying to the parent who indicated his comcast box would do the trick

Re:Can you..

[discovercomics]

I read the f'in article, my post was in reply to parents post re his comcast box. get a grip dude too much jolt in your system.

Re:Can you..

[discovercomics]

My questions were in response to a specific post which evidently my post didn't get nested under. So it appears I am a looney idiot, which I assure you I am not, most of the time. The post I tried to reply to indicated a comcast solution was more cost effective and although it is I was trying to point out, too subtely evidently, some of the things his comcast box couldnt do that this solution would allow. And yes 1 and 2 are related, If you cant do 1 you cant do 2.

note to self, express reality with more reality

GNU Radio

[arose]

THere is also GNU Radio

Re:Can you.. MOD UP PARENT!!

[Anonymous Coward]

god damn I wish I had mod points.

this is the most informative post so far

Re:Careful, fault-tolerant programming

[Anonymous Coward]

no

Re:Broadcast flag

[djsmiley]

its true though,

lately me and my dad have been researching this thing they are calling Freeview, basicly you buy this box and you get extra channels no cost.

After much much digging we finally found the flaw, 99% of the boxes you find are all actually Sky boxes, its the sky design, just with a different packaging. Now, normally when people use these boxes they connect them to their terrestial aerial, or even their cable, and these boxes decode the signals.

This is all fine and dandy unless one of two things happen:
1. You use a satalite dish
2. You can't recive sky in your area.

We are in the middle of the UK and our whole city (pretty much anyway) can't recive freeview, yet they still sell these boxes in the shops =/. I digress, my point is my dad and i set out looking for a box which wasn't SKY. It seems this is a almost impossible task, only ones we could find were on some shady looking sites on the web.

Also if your using a stupid sky box, it will ONLY decode signals from sky and that includes the sky satatlite. Currently they are working on a different bandwidth or something such as this, and it will mean that everyone with a sky box will also be UNABLE to use it for this!. And we say M$ have a monopoly?

The G% is a slow processor

[Jah Shaka]

"Well, a very speedy dual-processor G5 Mac, apparently" reading the article only the dual G5 was able to play back HDDTV - just goes to show how slow those crappy processors are in the first place... a single P4 or AMD would do the trick...

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[akac]

Have the P4 or AMD do it in software and it'll take you to a dual or very powerful single processor.

THe only reason (which you would have found out if you read the article) it requires a Dual G5 for SMOOTH playback is because Apple decided to be stupid and keeps the MPEG2 hardware playback API private so that they have to do the decoding in software and not hardware like a normal Intel based system can.

Its not a hardware issue at all, but a simple OS design issue. One of the very few places where OS X actually fails compared to Linux or Windows.

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[node 3]

Well, I imagine a G 0/0 processor is prettey damn slow.

But the G5 is fast. Much faster than a P$!

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[displaced80]

I'm not excusing Apple's behaviour -- there's a whole heap of things that they've kept undocumented/private which annoy me in current versions of OS X.

However, my impression is that much of the video rendering systems within the OS have been in flux over the course of OS X's development. Remember, QuickDraw's still in active use. QD's really in need of replacement, and will be deprecated in Tiger.

From what I've seen, The Core[whatever] frameworks in Tiger will finally put this issue to bed, and provide all the APIs a developer could want... Quartz 2D Extreme looks like it'll round things out, with some nice things like full resolution-independence for each application individually.

For those who understand these things better than I, there's the WWDC's graphics 'State of the Union' presentation available here.

It's generally a nice look at how OS X's video architecture's finally coming together.

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[bnenning]

From what I've seen, The Core[whatever] frameworks in Tiger will finally put this issue to bed, and provide all the APIs a developer could want...

Right. Unfortunately Tiger will probably not be released before the broadcast flag deadline, so any updates from Elgato to take advantage of it will likely cripple the EyeTV's functionality.

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[yabos]

Right, just like MS's HD WMV takes a P4 3GHz CPU to decode their HD content in software.

Put it out to graphics hardware and it takes basically no CPU cycles. This should change in Tiger, where all of the graphics sub system is going to be hardware accellerated, including video playback.

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[displaced80]

That'd be a shame. Out of interest, when's this broadcast flag coming into effect?

I'm a UKer, so I'm not up on the details.

Cheers,
Chris

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately Tiger will probably not be released before the broadcast flag deadline

Can the flag be stripped out of the MPEG stream before it hits Apple's API or the GPU? If EyeTV can remove the flag before it hands off the stream then the OS is non the wiser. If this feature [flag stripping] in the EyeTV hardware beats the flag deadline, you're golden. Or, am I missing something?

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[Jesrad]

The MPEG2 decoding of a stream from a HDTV signal does NOT require a dual G5. At the last Apple Expo we were demoing an EyeTV 310 displaying an HDTV DVB-S channel on a dual G4, and it was very smooth, no noticeable slowdowns of the whole machine. It could read another standard resolution MPEG2 file or two at the same time, so a single G4 processor might even suffice.

Re:The G% is a slow processor

[Have Blue]

Isn't the MPEG-2 algorithm public? And isn't the Altivec API public? And isn't the "secret" hardware MPEG decoding API just a hook into a chunk of Altivec code that does MPEG-2 decompression? So why hasn't someone with some expertise and spare time solved this problem already?

OK, will it work under Linux?

[waferhead]

Been running MythTv for over a year now, and am curious if this thing throws std MPEG streams or something funky?

The price is a little steep, but with accellerated playback on NVidia cards under X, it would rock on most recent Athlon systems. (2600+>)

Re:OK, will it work under Linux?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I have one of their older, non-HD tuner setups. It is much more user friendly than MythTV and is does save as standard mpeg-2, DV, etc.

Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[tji]

A dual G5 requirement for smooth HDTV playback is a big problem. You should be able to easily do this with a midrange G4 system.

The problem is that Apple has not opened the API for the MPEG2 acceleration available in most of the video chips in Macs. ( The equivalent of DxVA in Windows, or XvMC in XFree86 ). In the x86 world, this takes the CPU requirement down from ~ 2.4GHz P4 to ~ 800MHz P3.

Apple's DVD player uses the MPEG2 acceleration, but they don't allow others to use it. So, we're stuck with extremely high CPU requirements of dec oding those hi-res HDTV files.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[Capt'n Hector]

I can attest that the need for a Dual G5 for smooth HDTV playback is utterly ridiculous. I have a dual 1 ghz G4 and HDTV is just fine, in 1080i. This is with Safari, Mail and iTunes open as well... Getting a good signal, on the other hand, is a problem. Does anybody have reccomendations on what Antenna to buy? I live in Berkeley, so the signal I'm getting is coming from San Francisco, which is across the bay. ~20 miles...

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[arazor]

just go to http://www.avsforum.com and find the correct topic for your area. Exellent info on HDTV and other expensive AV equipment. You might also want to check out http://www.antennaweb.org for the general antenna info.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[steve_bryan]

"In the x86 world, this takes the CPU requirement down from ~ 2.4GHz P4 to ~ 800MHz P3"

That is a marketing lie which was commonly told a few years ago. There are HD tuner cards that specifically include hardware decoding on the card (not the video card) which people have used successfully in less powerful PC's. But using DxVA from a video card doesn't buy you much if you are using a Fusion card or some other software decoding solution.

Also it is worth noting that although Apple's DVD player uses MPEG2 acceleration it still doesn't do de-interlacing decently. You can probably get better results with VLC.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[tji]

> Getting a good signal, on the other hand, is a problem. Does anybody have reccomendations on what Antenna to buy? I live in Berkeley, so the signal I'm getting is coming from San Francisco, which is across the bay. ~20 miles...

20 miles across the bay should be pretty good for reception.. not too many obstructions.

Most stations broadcast from Mt. Sutro, and all locals but KNTV (NBC 11/12) are UHF.

I have had good results with are the Radio Shack Double Bowtie indoor antenna (it's not carried in-store anymore, but they can special order it for you. It's only ~$15)

If you can put up an outdoor antenna (even just tacked up on a balcony) the ChannelMaster 4228 four bay bowtie works great for a lot of people.

Many people like the Silver Sensor indoor antenna. It's a very directional UHF antenna. But, it didn't work well for me in Mountain View.

I have also heard that the Winegard Square Shooter is good. But, I have no direct experience with it.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[tji]

> That is a marketing lie which was commonly told a few years ago.

Actually, No.. DxVA is what makes the CPU requirements reasonable, even with the software decode products. The 2.4GHz -> 800MHz was specifically addressing DxVA offload of HDTV MPEG2 decode.

I have two MyHD cards and two FusionHDTV cards. The MyHD cards have an onboard MPEG2 decoder and they display the HDTV output directly from the receiver card - not through your video card. It does the complete MPEG2 decode in hardware, so the CPU requirements on the host are VERY low. You could do it with a Pentium II.

The Fusion cards only do the reception of the ATSC Transport Stream - they pass that 20Mbps data stream to the host for processing. All MPEG decoding and display is done in software (which is the same as with the Sasem USB HDTV device, ATI HDTV Wonder, pchdtv.com HD-3000 for Linux, and the EyeTV 500). In this model, the decoding is done on the CPU in software, and some of the more compute intensive portions are offloaded to the video card via the DxVA API. Specifically, the iDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform) and motion compensation are hardware accelerated. So, it still takes a decent CPU, to do the MPEG decoding, but much less than for full software decode. On my Athlon64 3400+, the CPU utilization goes from ~ 70% to ~ 35% when I turn DxVA on.

I prefer the MyHD cards for a number of reasons. But, their main drawback is flexibility. They just do the HD video output. If you want to integrate with a PVR solution, like XP Media Center, you need the video to be displayable on the PC video output. So, the hardware decode cards are becoming less popular.

> Also it is worth noting that although Apple's DVD player uses MPEG2 acceleration it still doesn't do de-interlacing decently. You can probably get better results with VLC.

That's just a limitation of Apple's software.. DVD Player is not exactly renowned for its video quality.
The video hardware and MPEG2 accel are fully capable of good de-interlaced display. The FusionHDTV software does a good job of de-interlacing 1080i output when using DxVA. It looks almost as good as the output from the MyHD.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[steve_bryan]

"Actually, No.. DxVA is what makes the CPU requirements reasonable, even with the software decode products. The 2.4GHz -> 800MHz was specifically addressing DxVA offload of HDTV MPEG2 decode."

I know they claim that. What I was reporting is that it is a lie. I had a 700 MHz Athlon which was originally claimed to be sufficient for the Fusion I card (using DxVA) and it was not. I upgraded to a 1500 Athlon and finally the 2400+ which is sufficient for software decoding with DvXA assist. Without DxVA you get a more stable picture but it has to throw out every other scan line. I actually prefer that picture generally because it doesn't have the artifacts that you get with DxVA.

If someone has an older box with a sub 1 GHz processor he will need to get a MyHD card to get good results. I wouldn't recommend Fusion cards to anyone with less than a 2 GHz processor. I am using the computer monitor. Maybe the picture from the DVI port gives better results with less CPU.

It has been reported elsewhere in the comments that dual 1 GHz G4 Mac will produce good results with EyeTV 500. If that is the case then the results are not so starkly different. I'm sure the software is less finicky because I have and use EyeTV (I just use it with the EyeTV USB but it is the same software). It doesn't restart the Mac just because I commit the mistake of running VLC or some other video program. In fact on the Mac I have the option of having multiple programs running at the same time without causing a crash.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[tji]

My experience has differed from yours. And, I think there are plenty of other reports out there to prove that MPEG2 acceleration is not a "lie". Do a google search and you'll find a lot. You'll also find a lot of comments on problems getting it working well. Or, you can even look at source code from the Linux apps implementing XvMC to see exactly what is being offloaded.

I have had Fusion cards for almost two years, and I originally used it with a 1GHz P3. The HD playback with DxVA acceleration was good on that system. (although, at that time the Fusion software was not exactly reliable, so the overall solution wasn't great)

Software playback is also much more sensitive to other system issues. You have high CPU utilizatin, and high AGP Bus utilization. So, it's sensitive to any resource limitations. On a system that had interrupts shared among multiple devices, I would often get stutters in the video and audio glitches. With some of the video drivers I tried, I had big problems with DxVA. So, everything needs to be working well. But, when it is, DxVA works well.

Re:Dual G5 requirement should be improved

[steve_bryan]

My characterization was probably at least slightly too harsh. I didn't mean to imply that DxVA was no more than a hoax. To be more explicit I found the situation to be too fragile to be taken seriously. You needed to have just the right motherboard, drivers for the motherboard, video card, drivers for the video card. Once you arrived at an environment that "worked" you faced the possibility that updating any of the variables could undermine all that tinkering. If you do other things with your PC, like gaming, you are likely to update drivers or components.

The device from Elgato might faulted for demanding so much CPU but I'd bet the result is it just works, tinkering not required. Whenever I hear low CPU requirements for software rendering on the PC, I think it is important to warn people that their results really will vary. I'm happy with my Fusion I board, but I have a 2 GHz Athlon and I know I have to avoid launching other video apps even if they aren't loaded at the same time. It will cause XP to reset.

Not to mention the power consumption.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone list the typical power costs of a modern PC/Mac running 24/7 compared to a consumer DVR?

I don't get good reception

[Biff Stu]

If I lived 15 miles to the west, on the other side of a hill, I would have great TV reception and this would be wonderful. As it is, I'm stuck with Comcast, and all their scrambled DRM bullshit, and it sucks to be me :-(

eye tv unit is a POS

[Anonymous Coward]

- i have one sitting in the box on a shelf...pretty bad piece of Mac-related gear... the software never worked correctly and the resolution was awful...

Re:I don't have a TV :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy all my TV shows from some Russian site called alloftv.com. My money goes to the Russian mob, but I get open formats like XviD that I can play on all my computers!

Plus, if you pay money for something, it's perfectly legal!

Re:Broadcast flag

[t_allardyce]

dope, lower drinking ages, legal prostitution, gay marriage, data protection act? hell yeah, atleast it was more free until the US corps start sticking their little copyright noses in and screwing things up...

The broadcast flag is a Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

This may sound as troll, but hear me out:

Times have changed since the days when VCRs were introduced. Back then, we had a few channels to choose from, and even fewer good programs. E.g., there were 2 or 3 sci-fi shows a week and if they were shown at the wrong timeslot you were SOL. Worse, video rentals hadn't been invented and tapes of TV shows even less. So back then, recording TV shows for time-shifting was quite useful.

Nowadays, the good shows come out on DVDs which you can rent from the corner store or through the net, and the not-so-good shows, well it's not the end of life if you miss one or two episodes. So there's really not so much urgency to time-shift. Furthermore, we're moving away from the one-way TV, using the internet and interactive entertainment more and more, which is good.

The broadcast flag will make it harder for us to watch TV. This'll force us to move away from TV even more, move away from commercials and the social pressure of watching certain "must-see" shows. It'll force us to be more picky about the shows we watch (through DVDs) and open the market to independent shows released on DVDs only. So while this will have a serious effect on the life of some people, it'll be a good effect in the long run.

EFF does reviews?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is utterly ridiculous .. i was intending to donate to the EFF .. (donated to tsunami relief instead) .. Anyway .. I was planning to donate later this year.

But I'm asking .. why the hell are they doing REVIEWS? what the heck is their problem. Even worse, the review comes off as highly biased .. what's the deal with writing off all the Windows and Linux hardware hdtv solutions as shit WITHOUT EVEN DOING A COMPARISON STUDY?

I'm very disappointed in EFF for making this move.

Re:EFF does reviews?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I smell angry corperate shill?

Sloooow torrent!

[Sandor at the Zoo]

Would some other people please hop on the torrent for the HD LoTR sample? I'm getting a whopping 1.5 K/s down and 6.8 K/s up. :-)

Re:Broadcast flag

[node 3]

How's that different from the United States?

interfaces to hardware accel

[dioscaido]

When I asked EyeTV why it did not take advantage of the hardware acceleration included in the graphics cards installed in modern Macs, they explained that Apple has not made those interfaces easily accessible to third party developers. Enabling hardware acceleration is thus not likely to be in the cards for EyeTV's software in the near future.

What exactly does this mean? Does OSX not export an API for 3rd party software to leverage video card's hardware?

Re:interfaces to hardware accel

[TheMediaWrangler]

Not sure, but I think that Apple is holding off until the release of Core Video with Tiger this year.

No G5 needed now...

[AaronD12]

Elgato Systems updated their software and it only requires a reasonably fast G4 system. My EyeTV 500 works perfectly on my Powerbook G4 1.25GHz laptop at full screen.

-Aaron-

Re:No G5 needed now...

[justinstreufert]

Yeah, but.. the screen on your 12" PB is only 1024x768, which is way smaller than "full frame" for HDTV. Have you tried outputting to a larger monitor or (ideally) an actual HDTV?

Aldo, Elgato's site says Dolby Digital 5.1 sound output is only possible on a dual G5. Does anyone know if any other machines (esp. an iMac G5) can simply pass the DD stream somehow?

Thanks
Justin

Re:No G5 needed now...

[skufy123]

I'm curious, how do you know he doesn't have a 17" PB?

Rick

Re:No G5 needed now...

[justinstreufert]

Oops.. sorry, my mistake. I had 12" Powerbooks on my mind. :) He didn't say.

In fact I don't think a 1.25GHz 12" was ever produced. He probably has a 15" or 17". Mea culpa!!

Justin

Re:No G5 needed now...

[skufy123]

Now watch him come back and say he does have a 12"! At any rate he has my interest up for running this on my 15", especially when I get my 20" CD. Rick

Re:No G5 needed now...

[brasten]

Which would instantly make the rumored headless iMac G4 a VERY interesting device for this purpose... ... assuming it exists... which we'll find out tomorrow. You'd still be talking something just under $1,000, but given the capabilities, someone might find that worth it.

Re:No G5 needed now...

[AaronD12]

I just tried outputting it to my Viewsonic G810 monitor at 1920x1080 and still have no problems displaying full HDTV resolution. Granted, CPU usage is over 60% at this point, but still not bad.

By the way, I have a 15" Powerbook, which is slightly higher resolution than the 12" Powerbook.

-Aaron-

In other words, you are a TOOL???

[Anonymous Coward]

Too easy, you must use Linux.

There is No Reason For an FCC Mandate of Flags

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason for FCC to mandate broadcast flags! The FCC mandate is to keep broad casters spectrums form overlapping, and in the good old days it made sure news coverage of elections was actually fair and balanced note sarcasm here. Their purpose never was and never should be to impose big brothers will of what we watch and when we watch it. I'm sick of the government forcing the will of a large corporation on individual citizens. I'm just waiting for trusted computing to delete this before I can post it. Well that is my rant for today. Someone else get off the ass a take back out government will you. I've signed EFF until I'm blue in the face and it seems liek no matter what the corperation layer have more money and energy and find a new way around.

MythTV on OSX - Soon

[GameGod0]

I'd just like to throw in that over the past few months there have been TONS of patches added to MythTV that add OSX compatibility.
I'm not sure how close Myth is to working completely on OSX, but I don't doubt that once it's working on OSX, it will be a formidable entry into the world of PVR software for this operating system.

QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component.

[Yaztromo]

I'm somewhat interested whether playback using Apple's QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component makes a significant difference here. It's only $30 CDN ($19.95 US -- I guess they haven't changed their pricing since the Canadian dollar gained on the US dollar), and doesn't require QuickTime Pro, so I imagine a non-dual G5 user who wanted to use this system to watch their captured video could just buy this.

I'm tempted to buy this to test it out and post the results here. Does anyone here have the MPEG-2 playback add-on for QuickTime who can comment on this?

Yaz.

Re:QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component.

[TheRaven64]

I've used the MPEG-2 component to allow me to import some footage from DVD into Final Cut Express and found it to be incredibly buggy. It has about a 50% chance of crashing FCE when previewing the video clip. I don't think this is a file size limitation for FCE, since I regularly deal with 10GB DV files using it, and this was only a 2GB MPEG-2 file.

Re:I don't have a TV :-)

[moz25]

Well, I do suppose that you deserve some praise for giving your raping habit a break ;-)

Misread

[tm2b]

"As a mohel, I constitute a circumcision device." It's late.

Well, if you're so worried about the damn flag...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple tries to enforce the broadcast flag with Tiger, just keep an older Mac on Panther hooked up to the EyeTV box, and pull the streams off to whatever - it's just a mpeg2.

You can of course always dump to Divx/Vid/3vix/etc. and playback on whatever computer you want.

EFF 500MB file vs. QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback

[XavierItzmann]

So... I have the QT MPEG-2 decoder.
OS X 10.3.7
1.5Ghz PB
1GB RAM


Finder.... restarts if one hits "play" on preview window
QT... opens huge yyyyy x 1080 window, no audio, no video, crashes, sends report to Apple
iDVD... can't import the file
iMovie... starts to import the file, then interrupts import

VLC Player... works, but image choppy when camera pans. Still, they do a lot better than Apple. Paused image quality is amazing.

Cheers,

OT: Anyone use Interact-Tv Telly?

[martin_b1sh0p]

I know this is OT, but I've been keeping an eye one the Telly by Interact-Tv.com....it has come down in price and looks real appealing (features, open HW/SW and SDK).

Does anyone have one, or know of any reviews / comparisons?

DVHS over firewire?

[Anonymous Coward]

How will the broadcast flag affect DVHS over firewire?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=386740&perpage=20

http://mac_hdtv_timer.home.comcast.net/

Dual G5 procs?

[slot32]

What?!?!?!? My Mobile phone can display video... Orange SVP 500. Got a 512MB SD card in it... so I get over 4 hours of 15fps video and stereo sound... Not bad, for a mobile phone...

Bad Moderation! VERY on topic.

[JonTurner]

Don't mod something as offtopic just because you're ignorant. GNURadio is VERY "on topic" since GNURadio can be used to receive over-the-air HDTV and stream the data to disk, for later demux and rendering.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/hdtv-sample s.html
GNU Radio - HDTV Snapshots Below are some single frame snapshots captured February 15, 2003. The source station was KSBW-DT, channel 10 (195 MHz), Salinas, CA. The program was "Law and Order", and the recording was made between 8 and 9 PM Pacific Standard Time.

is that awesome, or what?

More information about using GNURadio to receive hdtv at: http://comsec.com/wiki?HowtoHdTv