Options for playing HDV video (other than through the camcorder)...

[Sal C]

I've been looking for options to play back my video shot on a HDV camcorder until an affordable HD DVD / Bluray recorder hits the market not to mention affordable media (probably years away ). Someone mentioned to me they think a device with a hard drive is available, anyone know about this device? Are there a few different ones available? If so which one is the best quality?

Thanks...

[edDV]

Play HDV on what?

[racer-x]

I just ordered one of these:
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/tvixm4100sh.asp

It hasn't arrived yet, but I've heard great things about it. I also bought a 500 GB HDD for it.

[Sal C]

racer-x COOL! That must be what my friend was talking about. Reading the blurb on it sounds like the ticket and more! Does anyone have one and does it work as advertised? I guess I'll have to do some searching for feedback...

THANKS!

[racer-x]

Well, once it comes in I'll quickly test it out. My main concern is that it will play back my m2t's (full res HDV) edited from my HV20 footage. I also have multiple other formats to test like 1920x1080p mpg, 720/60p mpg, mp4/H.264, avi/H.264, 720/60p wmv and numerous other sources. I also have lots of pictures from my DSLR's to test in various sizes. Last but not least is multiple audio formats.

I bought the 500 GB HDD for $90 from Frys. It's all loaded up with videos, pictures and audio ready to be installed when the Tvix 4100SH arrives. I'll be using the HDMI to my HDTV. Hopefully, it will live up to my expectation.

[Sal C]

Is this TVIX box available anywhere commercially other that online? I've searched all the big boys (Best Buy, CC, Fry's, etc.) to no avail. I'd really like to see it live...

The demand for something like this must not be that popular yet...

[yoda313]

I'd try a high end computer store. But those media enclosures seem to be online only. They are a bit of niche product right now. I don't think the population at large would get into the idea of having to format a harddrive and then install it themselves. A lot of people seem to like things preconfigured so they don't have to mess with it much.

I would look into something similar but there isn't one designed just for my purposes apparently - specifically designed for audio only. SO I ended up buying a used dell 30gb mp3 player instead. Oh well.

Good luck with the tvix though - the concept is excellent.

[ronnylov]

I have the older model TviX 4000 but unfortunately it is not powerful enough for the raw m2t files from my new Canon HV20. But I have been able to fix the files for playback by reencoding to MPEG2 with a limited maximum bitrate of 22 Mbit/s and using HCEnc as encoder. Unfortunately HDV is 25 mbit/s... I can see at computer playback that the quality gets a little bit lower than the original files by the reencoding but at least it plays 1080i in MPEG-2 without problems by limiting the max bitrate.

So my advice is do not fall for the temptation to buy the cheaper TviX 4000 if you want playback of raw m2t files. However does anybody actually know that the new TviX 4100 will work with 25 mbit/s HDV format? In that case it may be worth an upgrade.

[racer-x]

My new Tvix 4100SH came in yesterday and I had a chance to try it out. I was relieved to find it can handle the original m2t (25mbps) Transport Stream files from my Canon HV20 perfectly fine. It can also play back AVCHD files (downloaded MTS and M2TS clips) just fine. It can't handle the full sized images (10 MP jpgs) from my DSLR's, but it works great when I crop them to 1920 x 1080.

Here are some things I tried so far:

HDV 1440 x 1080 (m2t 25 mbps)----------- Works great
AVCHD 1440 x 1080 (MTS 13 mbps)------- Works great
XVID 1280 x 720/60p (5 mbps)------------- Works great
WMV 1280 x 720p (6 mbps)----------------- Works fine @ 30fps, but poorly @ 60fps.
H.264 1280 x 720p (4 mbps)---------------- Works fine w/ avi container. Not mp4 container.

[ronnylov]

What audio format did you use in the mp4 container?
With my TviX 4000 it does only play mp4 with AAC audio (when created in MeGUI) and then I use XviD in the video stream because my player does not support h.264. If I create mp4 with MP2 audio it will not play the audio, only video.

XviD 1280x720/50p @ 5 Mbit/s worked for mee too when I tried yesterday evening. But I have problems with XviD at bitrate peaks above 15 Mbit/s. I get best XviD performance with MP2 audio in avi files. MP3, AC3 and AAC seems more demanding. Of course the TviX 4100 is different but it is a good idea to test different audio formats if you have video playback problems.

I have no problems with 5 MP jpgs, not sure how it works with 10 MP. It is probably best anyway to downscale to 1920x1080 which is the maximum output resolution of the player. My player is rather slow when loading high resolution jpg files.

AVCHD is h.264 transport stream? I do some recordings of HDTV transmissions in h.264 720P 50 fps format at 16 Mbit/s so it would be very interesting if it could handle these directly. I have to convert them to XviD to make them work in my TviX 4000. Your h.264 file may work as well in transport stream format but I do not know how to mux into h.264 ts format... You may get problems with avi files when the file size is above 2 GB. I get seeking problems with avi files above 2 GB (the player freezes when using goto function). So I have to split my big avi files to less than 2Gb size.

[satviewer2000]

My XBox360 plays all my HDV video/audio without a glitch. It seems to be able to play the MPEG2 files directly and smoothly over a network (after the HDV is imported into the computer).

[edong]

My XBox360 plays all my HDV video/audio without a glitch. It seems to be able to play the MPEG2 files directly and smoothly over a network (after the HDV is imported into the computer).

Can you please tell me the basic steps to do this? Thanks.