HDTV encoding

[beenboardin]

Has anyone tried any of the software and hardware HDTV encoding? I am looking at getting the M.I.T. MyHD MDP-120 but wonder if a software encoding will be good enough. Here is a good webpage that shows some screen captures and why I want to do this.

http://sydneybr.home.comcast.net/

 

[rbV5]

I use the MyHD MDP-100 for my decoder, The question isn't whether software encoding is good enough, as software encoders are superior to hardware encoders in quality. The real question is: Is there software that makes encoding a simple/painless process, and can the reulting file be played back flawlessly, while retaining as much quality as possible. The answer is that when I was playing with it a little while back, WME9 and Divx do a great job of compressing the files, and the files can be played back smoothly on a relatively stout rig. The process is (or was) a PITA however, with file conversions and MPEG-2 and audio codec conflicts that prevented a smooth workflow. IMHO, WME is the best encoder for HD material if you get the right combination of codecs, conversion utilities and time. At least you get perfect material to work with. The best part is that the "capture" from the MyHD card is a perfect digital copy of the original HD transport stream (OTA only), a plays back locally exactly like the original broadcast with little CPU use using the cards hardware support. The transport streams also convert to MPEG-2 easily. I'll be playing around with it again soon myself

 

[beenboardin]

thanks for all of the great info! A couple follow up questions:

- Did you hook the capture card up to your video card for output to an LCD (DVI)? If so what video card?
- How was the software for scheduling captures?

regards,
beenboardin

 

[rbV5]

Did you hook the capture card up to your video card for output to an LCD (DVI)? If so what video card?

I don't use an LCD, nor DVI. I hook the MyHD directly to my RPTV (before I got my RPTV display I hooked into my CRT the same way) via VGA for watching OTA HD/Digital material. For encodings, I use my AIW connected via VGA to the same display (I just manually plug the VGA cable into the AIW or MyHD cards, depending on what I'm doing for now)

How was the software for scheduling captures?

Dunno, never tried it.

 

[Eagle17]

Hello ,

I use the accessDTV card for HDTV and it works great for recording to your harddrive none of the cards support encoding the data yet the processor speed would need to be very high... the stream from an HD source is upwords of 20Mbs and would generally a 1 hour show is several gigabytes. I would highly recomend you check out the avsforums HTPC section for lots of good info you can search for myhd 120 to find good info on that card as well as some deals..

here is the web site.
AVSFORUM find the HTPC section (home theatre PC)

Also if you plan on outputing the image from your vga card to a HD system you really want to use an ATI based card.... there are a ton of reasons all can be found in the above forums...