Hot deal ending soon

theacoustician

Flaccid Member
Sep 30, 2004
12,781
4
0
Marklar
₥0
at www.meedio.com

If you're into HTPC and haven't used it, all I have to say is WTF. Soooo nice. And for only $20, its a steal. Deal ends tomorrow. If you're thinking about building an HTPC within the next 6 months, you should pick up a copy.
 
theacoustician said:

ahhh, I used to use that when I was playing around with my htpc. Never could get it to work well with my directv box though.
 
smileynev said:
ahhh, I used to use that when I was playing around with my htpc. Never could get it to work well with my directv box though.
now that they've moved from free to pay, support is a lot better. some of the plug ins are badass. there's even a mame plug in.
 
theacoustician said:
now that they've moved from free to pay, support is a lot better. some of the plug ins are badass. there's even a mame plug in.

I would sure hope so. I really wish directv would loosen their grip enough to allow technology similar to the cablecard stuff they're putting in some hidef tvs. It would be badass if they offered a PCI or 3 1/2 drive bay device that would allow direct directv input.
 
smileynev said:
I would sure hope so. I really wish directv would loosen their grip enough to allow technology similar to the cablecard stuff they're putting in some hidef tvs. It would be badass if they offered a PCI or 3 1/2 drive bay device that would allow direct directv input.
Your STB will be broken as soon as they swich from MPEG2 to MPEG4 streams sometime next year. Maybe then they'll have a PCI card. Doubtful though. Best bet is to get a box from 169time.com or the like and use the firewire output for recording.
 
theacoustician said:
Your STB will be broken as soon as they swich from MPEG2 to MPEG4 streams sometime next year. Maybe then they'll have a PCI card. Doubtful though. Best bet is to get a box from 169time.com or the like and use the firewire output for recording.

I remember seeing boxes several years back that had firewire in them.

They're switching from mpeg2 to mpeg4? How does that affect hidef broadcasts
 
smileynev said:
I remember seeing boxes several years back that had firewire in them.

They're switching from mpeg2 to mpeg4? How does that affect hidef broadcasts
It will allow for more hidef channels to be offered (mostly the local HD affiliates). It will, however, require all new STBs. It will also mark the point where Direct ditches Tivo and goes with their own DVR solution. Current DVR boxes will not work with the new streams. It also means that most pirates out there will also no longer have DirecTV (at least for a little while).
 
theacoustician said:
It will allow for more hidef channels to be offered (mostly the local HD affiliates). It will, however, require all new STBs. It will also mark the point where Direct ditches Tivo and goes with their own DVR solution. Current DVR boxes will not work with the new streams. It also means that most pirates out there will also no longer have DirecTV (at least for a little while).

I thought they were going to stick with tivo until their contract ran out in 2007?

I would assume that they will replace all STBs free of charge, otherwise they are going to have some pissed off customers.

And forgive my ignorance. but from my own personal experience mpeg2 is prettier and less artifacty then mpeg4.
 
smileynev said:
I thought they were going to stick with tivo until their contract ran out in 2007?

I would assume that they will replace all STBs free of charge, otherwise they are going to have some pissed off customers.

And forgive my ignorance. but from my own personal experience mpeg2 is prettier and less artifacty then mpeg4.
end of 2006 is about when they expect the mpeg4 switchover based on satellite launch schedules.

and mpeg-4 can look hot. wmv-hd is based off mpeg4. hell, even apple has an mpeg-4 hd variant.
 
theacoustician said:
end of 2006 is about when they expect the mpeg4 switchover based on satellite launch schedules.

and mpeg-4 can look hot. wmv-hd is based off mpeg4. hell, even apple has an mpeg-4 hd variant.

Are over the air HD broadcasts encoded in anything?
 
smileynev said:
Are over the air HD broadcasts encoded in anything?
North American OTA signals are broadcast using ATSC standards. An ATSC stream is always 19.28Mb/s and uses MPEG2 compression. The compression ratio is about 50:1. Also, all ATSC broadcasts are given about 6MHz of bandwidth. This means you can basically fit 1 HD and about 2 SD streams into one transmission.
 
Last edited: