Upgrade to support HDTV, HDDVD & Blu-Ray (1 Viewer)

[Flerbizky]

This remembers me of the Creative Dxr3 DVD Decoder
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/10836266/Creative_Dxr3_DVD_Decoder_PCI_Mpeg2_DTS_Card_Only_With_TV_Out.html
Back in time when DVD Playback started on the PC, many PCs were not powerful enough to playback mpeg2.
The card had a rather short time on the market because soon PCs were powerful enough to handle mpeg2 playback.

Ohh man - That brings back some memories - both good and bad I have one of those cards in a box in the basement. Kept only for nostalgic reasons. Back when I started out with DVDs, and very expensive (and sucky) DVD drive were purchased along with the DXR3 card.. The horror of Regional settings still gives me nightmares The picture quality was far from bad though. The output when playing DVDs rivaled that of pretty expensive players at the time....

Sorry.. That was quite OT

Cheers,
/Steff

 

[RoyH]

@ Dman,

Please dont get me wrong on this, i like the basic idea (just that you know this )
Just trying to deduct it to the core questions, and in my opinion they are the following:

-does mediaportal need to be able to play hddvds/bluray from the MP GUI shell (with an internal player or external one on the background?)
I and many others, including you, think it should.

-how long will it take for the average computer to NOT need an extra h/w accel pci card to decode hddvd/bluray? i think h/w accel cards will live a short life personally.

-what percentage of MP users that want to play HDDVD/Bluray from within MP need a h/w accel card to do this because their CPU/GPU is not up to this yet?
I wouldnt know, but as time will progress they will decrease in numbers.

-do people want an extra card in their pc?
Hence this poll. Of course you dont force us to use this, im just saying maybe a software solution ONLY for people that already own the right h/w and want to use MP cause its the best HTPC software around is the minimum.


So in my opinion the best strategy is to develop:

A graphic shell within MP around an external programm which can handle HDDVD/BLURAY, like PDVD ultra

or

an internal player, AACS compliant,
-which can use h/w accel of a Nvidia/ATI GPU and use a softdecoder of choice (this softdecoder of course being HDDVD/BLURAY compliant)
-or which can use a pci h/w accel device with its own codec

Keep on brainstorming

 

[joboehl]

I googled Faroudja. Maybe to high end and force the price too high. Lets start with the basics first ;-)

Sorry dman. What I ment is that if Sony and others are choosing different video processor chips, it seems to me that there are alternatives that provide at least a good if not better image processing than what ATI and nVidia has to offer. Faroudja was just an example.

The decoder will have nothing to do with MPV etc. It will have it's own directshow decoders leveraging the hardware capabilities. Nice de-interlacing etc - yummy. HDCP protection is whats delaying this. I'm thinking or a Lite board without HDCP and a Pro version with HDMI or DVI (&SPDIF) out which has HDCP... soo many options...

Good to hear that. Would be interesting to understand how it would work with the graphic card in order to provide the HDCP protection.

Encoding is under consideration - how would you use it?

I just think that today, encode and reencode streams are way too CPU demanding, generate a lot of noise and taking a lot of time. Some examples of solutions that could benefit from it are:

- Encode videos for other devices (iPod, Palm/Pocket and etc).
- Reencode streams to record on DVD (for MyBurner for example).
- Reencode streams for remove viewing, so TVServer could for example replace a slingbox trough realtime reencoding a stream to lower resolution/bitrate.

 

[jdrom17]

Well my Athlon XP 2800+ with NVIDIA GeForce FX5900 Ultra video card struggles to do 1080p in x264 contained in .mkv It is totally unwatchable. Assuming this card was cheap, less than a video card with similar abilities, I would probably consider getting one.

However, my HTPC just gets whatever old stuff I have lying around, and it's probably going to get a hefty upgrade soon to a AMD X2 4400+, so then it probably won't struggle with 1080p.

If said card does HDMI with HDCP at 1080p along with audio (perhaps DTS/DD real-time encoding as well?), then I'd still probably get it since the video card I use in my soon-to-be upgraded HTPC will be quite low-end. Probably a 7100GS or something cheap.

 

[ThaClown]

I am in doubt about that my HTPC will need to play 1080p...
My LCD TV is FullHD so I would love to be able to, but I just don't know what I need to get (I think a new graphics card would be my best option, anybody got suggestions?)
I don't have the bigest specs in the world so maybe and upgrade would be in order, but I am not sure what. to get and of course space is very limited in my LC11 case...

I do know that I would want the HD contect to play inside MP to use it, and personally I am not prepared to invest a really big amount of money for a small quality improvement, I am already very happy with the quality as it is, but of course full use of my 1080p TV would be fantastic!

 

[Inker]

I would consider one (PCI only though), if its cheaper than a new GFX card with decoding capabilities. But even then.....I kinda like FFDshow and the upscaling and other general enhancements it provides. If the card "simply" decodes mpeg4 (xvid/divx), I certainly wouldnt use it for that purpose, but would only use it for HD h264. But throw in a good upscaler (tweakable), maybe some denoising and you got yourself a customer.

Another thing, if the card does x264 ENcoding, at fast speeds, it will certainly be a hit, but probably lots more expensive. If you intend to do that, I suggest hoping over to doom9 and ask those folks.

 

[DarkWader]

The poll's question is missing one choise. An optical HD-playback device.
My HTPC is allready able to play HD material of any kind, with HDDVD hardware decoder, and software.
What's next for me, is a BR/HDDVD combo-burner.

 

[dman_lfc]

The poll's question is missing one choise. An optical HD-playback device.
My HTPC is allready able to play HD material of any kind, with HDDVD hardware decoder, and software.
What's next for me, is a BR/HDDVD combo-burner.

Yes I'm awaiting that too. Pioneer was supposed to have developed a solution but it hasn't come out...

DMAN

 

[revs]

THeres the LG BR/HDDVD drive... but its very expensive! Also its a burner as well as a reader - id much rather pay less and just have a reader!

My DVD collection is on hold while i patiently wait for HD/BR combo drive so i can start buing HD disks instead.

 

[kerpow]

I am just a little bit concerned here for you guys. How willing are you to walk away from this idea if people genuinely aren't interested enough. It seems opinions are mixed, but does the poll show it?

The poll only asks about "if you were planning" which leaves no room for anyone who does not need to upgrade. Think about this, IF 90% of users had no need for this hardware solution, then only 10% of users could possibly answer the poll, so IF that was the case the poll results would not mean much, not to mention there is no choice for the ‘I don’t know’s. But with the current question, we don’t know the answer to these ‘IF’s.

So DMAN, when you say "The poll suggests people would need to upgrade or look to a h/w decoding solution thus suggesting something like this is worth investigating further." I don't see how you can be so sure, it sounds like you guys might be getting a bit carried away, which is easy to do (I know) when dollar signs are floating in the air.

The introduction of a commercial link in this way (much more direct than any I have seen before with MP) needs to be thought of very carefully so that MP doesn’t loose any of the qualities that people have grown to love. And I personally don't think that this poll will help much in that huge decision.

Me? I can’t answer your poll, because I am already using HDTV, and I don’t see any reason that my box wouldn’t run high def content from any source.

I hope my opinions are received in the constructive way they are intended.