PVR on PC and future ATI AIW (theater2) products?

[LightningJay]

I was hoping the current AIW Radeon (8500DV) would have Mpeg4 decoding and maybe (partial)
hardware Mpeg2 encoding. Turns out it doesn't. Now, I have been waiting a couple of years for a decent
video recording/gaming card combo, and I'd like to get one really soon. But if ATi is thinking of realeasing the
next gen Radeon (R300) in six months time, I think I might keep my money in my hands until then.
I am already thinking of abandoning the analog tuner idea, and just going for a video in but then I would like to know how long it will take for digital television to be used in Europe. On the other hand, sattelite television
is already digital, but I am not awre of the connections available on a usual Sattelite Tv decoder. If they have a video out, or a digital video out I would really reconsider buying a nice, cheaper VIVO Radeon8500 (if they'll make one). And then of course there is the issue of decompression and decoding of the unstrandard Mpeg2 stream. Now I am aware of solutions like the Hauppage DVB or something like that for branching sattelite directly ot your TV. Are there some people with user experience with this card?

 

[Soccerman]

first of all, if you're expecting MPEG4 decoding in hardware anytime soon, prepare for a long wait.

second of all, don't expect MPEG4 decoding to apply to Divx (it's most common application) at all, unless the codec used to decode your MPEG4 file is specifically written to take advantage of hardware features of your video card.

as for MPEG2 ENCODING, you'll most likely not find that on a normal consumer video card in the near future, but there ARE some cards (they're addons similar to the Hollywood Plus if I remember correctly) that do MPEG2 encoding in hardware (again, most likely requiring software written specifically for the card).

As for the tuner questions, I have no experience with them, so I'll just have to give you a friendly bump! I could hazard a guess though that the TV signal being sent from a Satellite TV decoder box is most likely NTSC (analogue, though I don't know if it requires a tuner or if it's like an S-Video, or component signal).