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To: gzubeck who wrote (207928)	8/8/2006 3:16:37 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Dear Gzubeck: We are not talking apples and oranges. The link was to a site that talks about Windows, HDTV and H.264 decode cards. Yes many of them use Linux, but some still use Windows. There are some points to be found here. 1) Most ATSC HDTV uses MPEG-2 type decoding. 2) Most HDTV tuner boards just capture a ts stream from the 45Mbps ATSC channel (there are more than one) and send it to the PCI bus. 3) With SDTV, a good deal of tuner boards also included a MJPEG, MPEG and/or MPEG-2 encoder that took the 720x480i stream and encoded it to use less disk or BW. 4) Some PVR type boards also included a MPEG-2 encoder/decoder to allow use in older (<1GHz) CPUs. 5) Discussion was on when a H.264 encode/decode board would be available to do the same thing as (3) or (4). 6) Some chipsets do (5), but are not in volume manufacturing yet and are not available in normal retail channels. 7) Talk of using a portion of a GPU to do (3), (4) and (5). 8) Nvidia and Ati appear to have some of the decode available. Their next gen GPUs appear to have enhanced functionality in this area. I will also note a few things not discussed. All of the Tuners with Linux support, support Windows. Some even include HDTV record/playback Windows software. Under Linux, the software is free (Myth, Mplayer, Xine, Ogle, viewtv, etc). Many of these are also available for Windows. One of the reasons that Linux is better is that you can compile your kernel, libraries and tools to be optimal for your exact CPU, HW and environment. You can skip anything not needed for your precise setup. Gentoo compiles everything with the switches you want (-march=athlon64 -m64 -O3 etc). Short of onhand asm tweaking, you get the fastest kernel, drivers, tools, utilities and applications for your exact environment. With Windows you seem to get the lowest common denominator with tons of stuff you don't want or need. The problem is that many Windows developers have never heard of KISS and fill their apps with tons of unnecessary garbage that just eats resources and cycles. That is why you should use HW and SW that has Linux versions. Their stuff has been run through the gauntlet against a very critical audience. And since many in the Linux community also use Windows, you can get their help to get your hardware to work and you can get their help with the software they use. You might use the bloatware on Windows for the fancy looks, but when ever it fails and the HW & SW available for Linux on Windows works, you will use the latter more and more. Then the jump to Linux will be smooth and easy as you know how to work the software and hardware to do what you want and that won't change under Linux. If you are really gun shy about the command line, you can boot Linux straight into the windows manager of your choice and that will build your desktop just like you see with say Windows 98 (fv95wm) or tell KDE to use XP style. IT will even drop you into the applications of your choice say MythTV showing CBS-HD with PVR running (pause, play, FF, REW, record, file, delete, next, prev, up, down (channel), etc.) and K3b prepped to transcode and burn to DVD. Pete