Planning for BeyondTV with HD support

[dlandrum]

As I look forward to a new setup with HD, I have determined that I will need a new computer. Currently I record in my office and watch via Link in other rooms. My SFF box that currently serves as my BeyondTV server only has 2 pci slots.

To support dual tuner SD and dual tuner HD, I will need a computer that supports 4 PCI cards. With 4 sources, I should also have more drives in play to reduce throughput issues. The list of motherboards is short that supports more that 2 SATA, 4 or more PCI, and on-board video. Before I start dropping coax for OTA signals in my office, buying hardware, building the computer, migrating BeyondTV ....

Can anyone confirm that the future BeyondTV product will treat SD and HD streams the same and be supported via Link?

[davefred99]

Can anyone confirm that the future BeyondTV product will treat SD and HD streams the same and be supported via Link

I would be happy just to get a timeline from SS for any HD support ?
I feel your pain, I am in the same boat. I am nearly ready to upgrade my HTPC setup and HD support is the most important feature requirement to me. In my case I have pretty much decided to go ahead and get MCE since I need another operating system for my new box anyways and just try it out until BTV offers HD support. I am actualy thinking of keeping my current BTV server online for all SDTV recording and putting BTV link on the new MCE machine. I dont know if anyone else has tried tried this or not. One thing that has me concerned is that OTA HD is not looking good for me (60 miles from the transmitters and some hills) as I will likely need QAM cable support and only MyHD or Divco-Fusion support it, but only in there own software.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by dlandrum

To support dual tuner SD and dual tuner HD, I will need a computer that supports 4 PCI cards.

I would assume that using an Hauppage PVR-500 would cut down your requirement to 3 PCI slots, which is much easier to find...

[dlandrum]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

I would assume that using an Hauppage PVR-500 would cut down your requirement to 3 PCI slots, which is much easier to find...

True. One would need a case with at least 4 PCI "slots", but the motherboard would only need 3 PCI slots. It would add $200+shipping to the cost of the build. Is recording quality of the 500 better than the recording quality of two 250s?


You spark another option for SFF boxes ...
trash my current 250's and replace them with two USB capture devices. This would open-up the PCI slots for the HD tuners.

The Diamond USB devices ( Diamond XtremeTV PVR600 ) are on sale in the snapstream store, but I find zero posts about them and no documentation on their recording specs. This is a bad sign. Yet I like that it does not have the cable tuner reducing its size and they appear to be fairly new.

The Hauppage WinTV PVR USB2 seems to have a larger user base.

[dlandrum]

Originally Posted by davefred99

One thing that has me concerned is that OTA HD is not looking good for me (60 miles from the transmitters and some hills) as I will likely need QAM cable support and only MyHD or Divco-Fusion support it, but only in there own software.

Is there a way to test the quality of the OTA signal at one's home without making the investment of an antenna, coax drop, tuner card, and software? ... maybe some device one could take up to their attic and see signal strength? (I know this is a poor place to ask such a question)

[cyberpsycho]

Im dumping BTV for MCE 2005, Ive had nothing but frustration with this software and recording shows right, I just added a HD OTA card and the pic is WAY better that the local stations over Dish Network. The lack of any mention about an upgrade for HD in BTV is primaraly the reason for freeing myself from BTV.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by cyberpsycho

The lack of any mention about an upgrade for HD in BTV is primaraly the reason for freeing myself from BTV.

http://blogs.snapstream.com/

[Rich A]

I've been steadily changing my case in the pursuit of the perfect solution. IF you intend to keep up with things (technology wise) I have to say that you might as well start out with an ATX main board with all the PCI slots you can get. Yeah the shuttle x-box was cute. And some of the larger cases only capable of using your typical 3-slot main board was an improvement.

But with SS software being able to handle multiple tuners, and an FM radio and sometime down the pike HDTV, you will soon be looking to get more slots. It's kinda like boats and motocycles. Newbies start with a small dingy or 100 cc Honda and almost always end up with larger, faster and more featured boats and motocycles. I say skip the "in between" updates and save yourself the grief.

My "next" unit will be an ABIT NF7-S main board .. with lots of room for expansion.

[davefred99]

My "next" unit will be an ABIT NF7-S main board .. with lots of room for expansion

Rich A

Just currios why you would perfer the Abit NF7-S over the ASUS A7N8X-DX since you already have the little brother to it. Also if you are looking to upgrade to the latest stuff why not an AMD 939 Mobo/CPU. Seems like you logic of skipping over the little stuff and just getting the bigger one is a little flawed.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by davefred99

Rich A

Just currios why you would perfer the Abit NF7-S over the ASUS A7N8X-DX since you already have the little brother to it. Also if you are looking to upgrade to the latest stuff why not an AMD 939 Mobo/CPU. Seems like you logic of skipping over the little stuff and just getting the bigger one is a little flawed.

I already have the Abit Fatality (939 socket)s with an AMD 64 (90 nm) running around 4K. That's in my editing machine.

That's way over-kill for any HTPC IMHO. When I was talking about keeping up to technology, I was referring to the number of slots available for PCI cards for expansion. You "really" don't need a super board for a dedicated home theater pc. Just a reliable one that can handle processors in the 2K and up range and also has lots of PCI slots for things like TV and FM tuner cards.

By the way. Another reason for the need (for me anyway) for more PCI slots is that I want to someday use an FM radio tuner only card. My final goal is to have 1 HDTV OTA tuner, 2 or possibly 3 PVR-250 type tuners, and one FM Radio tuner.

Why did I opt for the NF7 board?

I already HAVE the NF7 board. That's what the Fatality board replaced..

For HTPC concerns all I'm interested in is getting more PCI slots for more tuners. So for a zero $ investment .. the NF7 meets my needs.

But then again .... who knows? Maybe this won't be the end of my "Musical case and board" game?

[davefred99]

Rich A

OK that all makes sense to me. I just wondered because I too think that a lot of people are way to concerned about geting the latest and greatest CPU speeds when they could do just fine with something less. The real issue seems to be post processing with ffdshow and you can never have enough processing power for it. With the current generation of Video cards haveing hardware assist(DXVA) for playback and using a hardware SDTV capture card you can do just about everything else.
I have concerns about HDTV playback though. I have tried playing some short clips on my current underpowered sytem using Zoomplayer and Windows Media Player and get jerky performance. I think I am using the Nvidia codec in Media player and I am not shure in zoomplayer. I also downloaded the latest Divco Fusion Demo Player and its the same. I am pretty sure in my case I am just asking to much from my little P3 cpu.
My wallet says that something along the lines of your rig with an AMD Mobil processor would be just fine but over on the other (HTPC News Forums) they seem to say get a faster rig. Anyways in about 30 days or so I will be building a new one and continue my quest for more information.

[Rich A]

Yup, Dave we are pretty much on the same page as far as that goes. Some information for you Re: High def. That stand alone box that I put together just for OTA HD recording works VERY nice. It is a Shuttle Xbox with only 1 PCI and 1 AGP card slot. I went with the ATI HDTV Wonder card and a 3rd party ATI Radeon 9600. I found the Xtasy 9600 Radeon to be the best suited. Has the needed full DX9 support on card. Also 256 DDR RAM. With a 325 Mhz VPU. ATI recommends nothing less than a Radeon 9500. This 9600 I got seemed to be the best fit AND has a substantial passive cooler .. large heat sink. No fans.

I have no trouble viewing live or recorded HD up to 1920x1088 at nominal bit rates around 19 mbps. I've seen peaks to 35 or more. Never a hiccup.

One thing is you need a GOOD signal. With digital I've found that it's a go or no-go thing. If your signal is at all marginal, the video doesn't "degrade" but rather completely goes away. At best you loose a frame or two and the video looks like it's stuttering during that weak signal. At worst your decoder just flashes a blank screen noting, "Signal lost". I've found you really need to get a solid signal above the 80 percent mark if you want error free viewing.

I don't do any transcoding or encoding but rather just use the ATI's native transport stream. This card uses software encoding if you want to do regular mpeg. As such it loads down the CPU quite a bit. But just writing the raw transport streams directly to the hard drive is very easy. And of course the playback is stunning.

I haven't confirmed this yet, but it's possible that the higher bit rate and larger frame size of say 1920x1088 versus something like standard digital (720x480?) would require a stronger signal. The nature of the digital to analog would make me think it shouldn't matter. Like I said, it's either full decode or NO decode.

I think it's important to use the capture card manufacturer's recommendation for pairing up the capture card and video display card. I tried running an NVidia card .. with same specs as the ATI, and had trouble with jumpy playback and such. It was a pain to get it working and then had some playback issues. When I paired up the ATI HDTV Wonder with thier recommended Radeon card, things sorted out much better.