[NCLUG] MythTV Questions

[Chad Perrin]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 08:47:38AM -0700, DJ Eshelman wrote:
> 
> First off-  never since the day I moved to Fort Collins eight years ago, 
> have I gotten an over-the-air signal, SD or HD.  I've just never been 
> motivated enough.  Are you people seriously telling me that you are not 
> only able to get the whopping 3 English speaking channels we can 
> actually get here, and you're miffed that the gov'ment is taking that away?

I'm not sure what your point is, here.


> 
> Second, this move has been put off three times that I can bring to 
> memory.  I remember reading about Digital over the air TV and the myriad 
> of benefits (better signal quality, longer signal range and of course 
> better picture and sound)... back in the late 80s as a theory, then 
> again as an adopted standard in the mid 90s, and in the late 90s the 
> promise that all TV would be digital by, if I recall correctly- 2003.  
> I'd have to check my source on that, but I believe what happened is that 
> people threw a fit because pretty much all they could buy at the time 
> were SD TVs without spending a ton, and even though there was even then 
> the offer of making set-top boxes available for free or cheap, they 
> still caved and said, I thought- 2007.  Then it got pushed to 2009.
> This is like Y2k all over again.  People wait until the last minute and 
> panic.  But frankly, I can't see the reasons.

The problem is that government shouldn't be trying to legislate
technology advances.  It's asinine, and serves as little more than an
underhanded means of subsidizing certain corporate members of certain
industries.


> 
> Fourth- if you've bought an HDTV in the past year or so, you know the 
> price isn't much different, the technology is much more Earth-friendly 
> and frankly there is a noticeable difference in quality.  Even DVDs seem 
> archaic on bigger screens.  The reality is that the more progress is 
> hindered, the longer prices stay high.  How can we be the nation that 
> developed the internet, yet be one of the last first world nations to 
> adopt DTV broadcasts?

I haven't bought *any* TV in the past year or so.  The problem, in my
case, isn't that an HDTV would cost more than an SDTV -- it's that an
HDTV would cost more than not having to buy new equipment at all.


> 
> Now, there is a problem that I have currently, and it's a bigg'n-  You 
> can't just take a true HD recording from a source like DirecTV HD or 
> Cable HD and put it on a Myth box.  You also have no way to extract 
> (digitally) recordings from the Linux-based DVR's these companies 
> provide- trust me, they're encrypted drives with the decrypt hard-wired 
> into the box.  It just can't be done by removing the hard drive and 
> hooking it up to your Media Server.
> So, with that I can see some bummer about not being able to use Myth for 
> recording these broadcasts, and it would be very nice if these DVRs had 
> half of the brains of MythTV and the myriad of sub-products developed 
> around it.  But for me anyway, watching SD content on that screen makes 
> me want to cry; it just looks crappy.  I also understand that it's 
> getting really hard to find HDTV hardware that will allow you to record 
> over-the-air DTV in HD; can anyone confirm/deny that?  Though I have to 
> agree with Brian- Desperate Housewives isn't funny at any resolution.  
> And aside from shows like Heroes and Lost... *meh* I say to broadcast 
> television in general.

It's nice that you're okay with using HDTV to replace choice.  I'm not.


> 
> That said, a recent update to the PS3 has made it possible to play 
> Divx/xviD movies in upscaled HD that look surprisingly good; so it could 
> be that there's still hope for going the MPEG4 route... but for me; I 
> bought my system mostly as a social thing- I make it a point to invite 
> people over to experience /300/ in 7.1 surround sound with a 65" 
> screen.  Otherwise it just wouldn't have been worth it; because once you 
> go HD, trust me when I tell you that there is no going back.  I tried 
> watching /Planet Earth/ in SD the other day and a single tear formed 
> because I knew it could be so much better...

There's more to life than having the highest-resolution sitcoms you can
get.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Marvin Minsky: "It's just incredible that a trillion-synapse computer could
actually spend Saturday afternoon watching a football game."