HD HTPC recording on the fly

[Marcis]

Hey.

I have quite a bit of experience when it comes to building systems but in the past 2 years, the only systems I've had to build were office rigs, so no high-end video parts.

However, I'd like to look at setting up an HTPC machine in my living room that could handle recording of shows on the fly from my cable box (it's a pace terminal with HDMI and component out). I don't change system every year so I'd like it to be future-proof enough to handle h264 encoding on the fly as well but at the lowest cost possible. I don't care about either HDDVD or Blu-Ray burners for now so that step can be skipped. I'll just get a big HDD.

I'd like to know what spec this syetm would need to have since I'm so out of the loop on these kind of things. I'll also do some light web browsing with it and some downloading from time to time so I'd need to be able to record and do something else at the same time so a multi-core solution would be nice. How many cores needed, I have no idea though.

For equal price/performance I tend to favor AMD but if price/performance for these things are not the same, the best bang forthe buck is my prime choice no matter the company. I'm also not looking to have the best rig on the block, just the minimmum for what I need to do and I don't overclock. I'd also rather use the component than the HDMI for recording the shows on the computer as I'd continue using the HDMI on the TV itself (I don't want the HTPC to need to be open at all times). The cable-box has optical-out for the sound. If video cards with compnents aren't price efficient, HDMI is fine, I'll just reverse the setup.

Also, even though I'd like to concentrate on the system specs here, I'm not spitting on having a nice case. I don't want to shell out a 100 bucks for it though so a nice looking cheap HTPC or SFF case would work very well here if you have any suggestions. Look is the primary factor here (after price) since I won't be likely to modify the system more than once or twice in its lifetime.

Also, I'm in Canada. For the hardware I know I can get anything : I still have accounts open with parts supplier. But for the cases it might be more difficult so if you have a suggestion on who could provide nice cases at a reasonable price in montreal, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks.

 

[arcas]

I think you'll need dedicated h.264 hardware to do real-time encoding at HD resolutions.

On a whim, a few weeks ago I transcoded a standard def MPEG2 file (captured over firewire from my DVR) using the x264 tools package on an 8-way box (3.2ghz xeons...older netburst architecture but still it's a speedy machine). x264 software encoder supports multi-threading and throughput scales roughly linearly with # cores. As I recall, I was able to get around 80fps encoding speed. Keep in mind that this was a SD file. I seem to be unable to extract an HD MPEG2 file from my DVR but I have to assume that even this machine would encode at well below real-time speeds.

I figure if 704x480 yielded 80fps, 720p would yield around 26fps. 1080i would absolutely crawl.

I do remember reading about a cheap ($100) h264 coprocessor for Macs that plugs into the USB port. Maybe something similar exists for the Windows world.

 

[Ruptga]

Well, an X2600 or 8600 would help a lot for playback, but I really don't know how it would affect encoding.

Nvidia accelleration

AMD (ATI) accelleration

The Q6600 is still at US$266 and its TDP is 95W, I imagine you'd need a processor similar to that to do real-time encoding.

info on Q6600 performance

edit: almost forgot, it may very well be worth waiting for Penryn because of SSE4

 

[Marcis]

So bacically real-time H.264 encoding isn't feasible yet without dedicated expensive professional hardware as of yet ?

I know this is a far fetched question, but given the pace of development of the hardware and software industry, how long do you think it would take for this to become feasible at a reasonable price ?

Basically the question is, I don't mind waiting another 6 months to a year if that would make this setup a possibility but 3 yeras would be out of the question.

Unless people would know of a windows based USB co-processor. The only one I found was something from ADS (http://www.everythingusb.com/a...ideo_to-go_12252.html) which seems geared toward mobility much more than full fledged H.264 HD on the fly encoding.

 

[XMan]

There's not really a way to do what you want to do. The available capture cards that are compatible with commercial HTPC apps do QAM or ATSC. You could use an NTSC card, but then you're going to be capturing at 480i. Your best bet is going to be something along the lines of a CableCard tuner, which isn't available to home builders. So given the fact you'd have to buy a complete system, I'd say go with an HD TiVo.

 

[Marcis]

In short, you're saying there are no parts on the market which would accept an HDCP protected HD source ?

edit : after some quick research it would appear that you were right and that there's no current product able to do this through HDMI. One was announced but still not released and DHCP support is doubtfull.

The only solution I would see to this problem would be components then. I suppose there are no video cards that support this out of the box so an add-on "component-in" card would be required I guess ?

 

[Marcis]

Sorry for the double posting but I had a further question.

So far it seems I'd need to drop the on the fly h.264 encoding requirement as no affordable system could do that. It would seem that if I want to do this encoding, I'd have to do it "offline" after the file is already on my HDD.

This would then push me towards on-the fly recordings of HD program but using the mpeg-2 protocol instead. This seems to be the protocol in use by my cable station now anyway so I wouldn't loose any quality given good settings.

Plus, the input issue also crops up as no input cards currently support hdcp (except for broadcasting uses which is NOT in my price range!). This would leave me with component input cards as my only recourse.

I seem to have found a card that would seem to satisfy my needs, the WinFast PVR3000 Deluxe (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Section...ils.aspx?NewsId=19356) since this card has both a built-in mpeg-2 encoding chip and component inputs.

However, does anybody know this product and if it is any good ?

And even more important, how would this affect the system needed to properly do this ? As far as the CPU is concerned, I figure a dual-core could now easily do the job but what about a video card ? Would a very basic video card work ? For example, would an ATI 2400 with UVD be enough or would I need a 2600 Pro ?

Anybody would have a suggested setup incorporating this card then ?

PS : I know UVD is only for playback, so the question here is would the encoder chip be enough to handle the HD (1080i) load on its own or would it need a good CPU+GPU combo to back it up ?

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Marcis
In short, you're saying there are no parts on the market which would accept an HDCP protected HD source ?

The whole point of HDCP is to prevent exactly what you're trying to do - capture the uncompressed digital feed. However, there are some "HDCP strippers" available that will yank HDCP off the feed. They're illegal in the US, but that's how it goes.

The PVR-3000 will only capture component at 480i. You need to get something like this:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

... to get HD from your HDMI and component ports. However, that's only going to help you so much, because that device isn't designed to work for HTPC scenarios - it's more designed for professional video editors, and has system requirements to match. It also outputs uncompressed video, which is insanely taxing on your storage and IO systems.

Long story short: there aren't any products on the market that will do what you want, and if there were, people would be singing its praises far and wide (eg, people would know about it). Your only real solution, assuming you're in the USA, is to buy one of those "Cablecard-ready" computers.

 

[Marcis]

Its not HD quality ? I was sure I had seen somewhere it was an HD receiver. This sucks.

I find it surprising there's no equipment out there that can make a PC become an HD PVR since I have no interest in paying over 500 bucks for a limited functionality 20-hours maximum PVR like the cable company offers.. I guess it's only a mater of time until these kind of systems come onto the mnarket because I,m sure there's a demand for such systems.

As far as pre-built systems with these fucntionality, some of you have mentionned those. Are there any good ones that are actually reasonably priced or are they just all overpriced POS ?

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: Marcis
Its not HD quality ? I was sure I had seen somewhere it was an HD receiver. This sucks.

I find it surprising there's no equipment out there that can make a PC become an HD PVR since I have no interest in paying over 500 bucks for a limited functionality 20-hours maximum PVR like the cable company offers.. I guess it's only a mater of time until these kind of systems come onto the mnarket because I,m sure there's a demand for such systems.

As far as pre-built systems with these fucntionality, some of you have mentionned those. Are there any good ones that are actually reasonably priced or are they just all overpriced POS ?

Ding.

Read AT's CableCard Dell PC review. Your best bet is to get an HD TiVo, and the hard drive can always be upgraded if 20 hours of HD isn't enough for you.

 

[Marcis]

I found and read the review and that doesn't seem at all interesting as a CableCard because of all the hurdles. I wouldn't be looking at the cablecard anyway since I wouldn't want the PC open 24/7 but rather an output from my HD cablebox.

I guess I'll have to revisit this idea in about a year to see if things change along with mainstream HD adoption since I'd rather have a full fledged HTPC than a TiVo.

Thanks for everybody's help.

 

[zig3695]

Originally posted by: Marcis
I found and read the review and that doesn't seem at all interesting as a CableCard because of all the hurdles. I wouldn't be looking at the cablecard anyway since I wouldn't want the PC open 24/7 but rather an output from my HD cablebox.

I guess I'll have to revisit this idea in about a year to see if things change along with mainstream HD adoption since I'd rather have a full fledged HTPC than a TiVo.

Thanks for everybody's help.

ding.

right now the best you can do off hdtv cable is over firewire, so its better then dvd quality but nothing HD really about it and even then you are still goin through the cable box which is a bitch. and slow.

for now the best you can do realistically is just plain ole OTA HDTV. its the same HD as cable, but you need a good antenna. i like it though- most HD content is on the local channels anyway. all important sports are still in HD.... and since its OTA there isnt any encoding/decoding going on so any pc can run it basically. if your pc runs mce2005 it will do OTA HDTV

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: zig3695
right now the best you can do off hdtv cable is over firewire, so its better then dvd quality but nothing HD really about it and even then you are still goin through the cable box which is a bitch. and slow.

Plus, I don't think Firewire supports live streaming. I agree that it's the best compromise if you're just trying to record shows, and you manage to get a box which works well with the firestb drivers.

If you can live with just unencrypted QAM, you may want to look into buying an HDHomeRun from SiliconDust. It's an absolutely excellent tuner, very high quality, and it's the de facto standard for doing QAM stuff on MCE.

 

[arcas]

You can do live streaming over firewire, at least with some DVRs. I can do it with my Moto 6416III. What I can't do is grab recorded shows in bulk or in anything other than real time. That is, I can't treat the DVR as a firewire hard drive and grab stuff at 400mbps or 800mbps. I can only retrieve what it's currently playing (either live or recorded) and only in real time. Similarly, I can't control the DVR from the firewire port so it really doesn't make a very good HTPC component. I suppose you could rig up some sort of infrared emitter to the HTPC to send commands to the Moto's IR receiver but that'd be flaky too.