HD DVD Recording

[intracube]

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which regulates cable TV and over-the-air TV in the US, periodically attempts to force cable providers to use an interface of some kind which permits 3rd party recording devices to function in a digital cable system that encrypts most channels. ...but the cable TV industry spends an enormous amount of money fighting every attempt to bring 3rd party devices back into general use for recording cable TV.

It's capitalism in full swing.

It reminds me of an interview of Peter Jennings by Charlie Rose on the antics of the drug industry:
Jennings: The drug industry has more lobbyists in Washington, than there are members of the House and Senate put together.

Rose: That would be 535.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/2530 @24mins

Most OTA (terrestrial) channels in the UK are unencrypted. Satellite has a significant number of channels scrambled with Sky's proprietary system - NDS Videoguard. If you want to watch/record any of these channels, you need a Sky STB*. Don't know about cable.

The BBC have spread misinformation about the 'encryption system' used for their HD content:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/04/welcome_to_some_new_initials_d.html
"At the moment, within the UK, it is impossible to record from HD to unprotected devices or recorders, or to connect to them."
As far as I know the BBC's HD channels have never been encrypted, and post #4 on that page is entirely correct. There's a typical BBC response of deliberate avoidance on post #5.

*Sky's encryption system was partially reverse engineered some years back, which meant as long as the viewer had an official viewing card, they could use it with some receivers (with non OEM software loaded onto them), and watch/record Sky channels. Sky later re-issued new cards to try and block this - but the last time I heard, the non Sky boxes were able to decrypt the channels again.

[intracube]

FYI - Here is the mediainfo data for ESPN2 over IEEE-1394. Note the 720p @59.94 fps. Also the 17.1 video bit rate. That is high quality.

It seems a bit on the low side. But I'm still envious :

BBC HD (earlier this year):
Video
ID : 5500 (0x157C)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Duration : 2mn 22s
Bit rate : 6 109 Kbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : MBAFF
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.157
Stream size : 104 MiB (92%)
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

It's h264 video... but even so. This bitrate isn't that low because the content is static or easy to compress either. It's a hand-held camera with a guy on a boat surrounded by water.

[Dr_Layne]

My Motorola cable box also passes all but the premium movie channels and VOD via firewire. The problem is, to record those streams to a PC, you need windows XP and specific drivers. When I had XP, I was able to record two HDTV music programs off of Paladia in 1080i and 5.1AC3.

A_L

[edDV]

My Motorola cable box also passes all but the premium movie channels and VOD via firewire. The problem is, to record those streams to a PC, you need windows XP and specific drivers. When I had XP, I was able to record two HDTV music programs off of Paladia in 1080i and 5.1AC3.

A_L

The drivers also work in Vista and probably Win7. My HTPC's are currently using Vista. Drivers are also available for Mac.

PS: I forgot I have the drivers also working on a Win7 (32 bit) machine.

[edDV]

FYI - Here is the mediainfo data for ESPN2 over IEEE-1394. Note the 720p @59.94 fps. Also the 17.1 video bit rate. That is high quality.

It seems a bit on the low side. But I'm still envious :

Over here all over the air broadcast and most cable systems still use MPeg2. ATSC maximum channel bit rate is 19.4 Mb/s but most broadcasters divide that over 2 to 5 subchannels.

Cable 256-QAM digital modulation achieves ~36 Mb/s in the same 6 MHz RF channel bandwidth. This is usually divided into three HD channels averaging 12 Mb/s each but "statistical multiplexing" allows bit rate sharing amongst the 3 subs. ESPN is our premiere cable/sat sports channel and uses 720p@59.94. I'm glad to see they are applying reasonable 17 Mb/s bit rate.

2012 is the target year to update our ATSC system to version2. Among the proposals are use of h.264 codecs, 1080p@59.94, 3D and other services. The primary ATSC channel will remain MPeg2 for backward compatibility. Reception of the new ATSC2 services will require a new tuner. The full set of proposals are described here.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/340097-Discuss-advanced-ATSC-broadcasting

[ledishis]

My opinion is a bit scrambled. I know Toshiba announced that they drop the hd-dvd video format for the sake of the consumer market, because sony and Philips had other plans and got to focus on hd

My ambiguity is upon size of hd video. Isn`t dvd format naturally 480 ?aka hd ? if dvd is 480lines then your question has nonsense when recording hd.

If you wish to record true hd1080; then dvd formatting lays at your hand. Have you tried uploading a mpeg2 file at 1080lines in a common dvd?

[usually_quiet]

My opinion is a bit scrambled. I know Toshiba announced that they drop the hd-dvd video format for the sake of the consumer market, because sony and Philips had other plans and got to focus on hd

My ambiguity is upon size of hd video. Isn`t dvd format naturally 480 ?aka hd ? if dvd is 480lines then your question has nonsense when recording hd.

If you wish to record true hd1080; then dvd formatting lays at your hand. Have you tried uploading a mpeg2 file at 1080lines in a common dvd?

HD video files on DVD would need to be played using a PC drive, a Blu-Ray player, or a HD recorder, not a DVD player. I have some 1080i .mpg data files on DVD that play correctly on a PC using only a DVD drive. I don't have a Blu-Ray player to test with, but I have seen some LG blu-ray players which can do it, according to their specs. AVCHD DVD discs use H.264 for video, and Blu-Ray players can often play those.

[edDV]

My opinion is a bit scrambled. I know Toshiba announced that they drop the hd-dvd video format for the sake of the consumer market, because sony and Philips had other plans and got to focus on hd

My ambiguity is upon size of hd video. Isn`t dvd format naturally 480 ?aka hd ? if dvd is 480lines then your question has nonsense when recording hd.

If you wish to record true hd1080; then dvd formatting lays at your hand. Have you tried uploading a mpeg2 file at 1080lines in a common dvd?

The DVD standard and DVD players are limited to 720x576 resolutions and 1x play speed. But it is possible to save HD formats to DVDR data discs and play back on PC, Blu-Ray or other media players.

For PC or media players there are few standards. You need to test each player for compatibility.

Blu-ray players have a somewhat loose AVCHD standard DVDR disc. Audio is officially limited to AC3 but other formats may play. Video uses standard Blu-ray codecs (MPeg2, h.264 or VC-1) but bit rate is restricted (18 Mbps min). Some players handle higher 24 Mbps but few can reach 28 Mbps (required for Panasonic's 1080p60). Future players will accept higher bit rates and 1080p60. BDR discs can play at >35 Mbps.

From a practical standpoint DVDR media needs to play at 2x speed for 18 Mbps and ~3x for 24 Mbps. Expect player noise when playing at these spin rates.