Na?ve question for FreeView HardWare requirements on PC

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pstar008

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#24815 3-Aug-2008 20:40

I just know today that there are options with a TV tuner and UHF antennas which enable me viewing FreeView HD on my PC, and are pretty exciting about it. But with my currently five years plus old PC, is it a good idea to rush out tomorrow to buy tuner and antenna?

I know there are list of compatible videocards lists in the forums, but I don't mind have a high CPU usage with soft encoding and as my PC can play back h.264 encoded video (backups of DVDs made by myself with 712*480) with CPU usage under 30%. I don't see why my system couldn't handle HD contents from FreeView using same encoding, or did I missed something ?

My system is a AMD Althon XP 2500+ with 1G Ram and ATI Radeon X800 GTO AGP and I am using mostly Linux, but with dual boot with Windows XP pro.

Many thanks in advance.

eXDee

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#153879 3-Aug-2008 21:14

Your system definitely won't play Freeview HD smoothly. DVD's are less detailed and lower resolution than HD, so don't require as much power to decode. Also Freeview HD is essentially a live stream so your computer has to be able to keep up with it, or you'll get dropped frames.
Theres a pretty good reason why you use a h264 video card, im going to be using an 8500GT with my Athlon 5200 because otherwise it won't be smooth.

You could however play Freeview Satellite SD fine, if you don't want to upgrade.

pstar008

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#153882 3-Aug-2008 21:24

Thank you very much for your information.

But I am downloading FreeView samples now to see if my PC can keep up with simple playing back HD contents. If in that case, can I assume it is going to fine?

PS: It going to take a while to download samples, I wouldn't see the result until tomorrow.

sbiddle

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#153886 3-Aug-2008 21:34

pstar008: Thank you very much for your information.

But I am downloading FreeView samples now to see if my PC can keep up with simple playing back HD contents. If in that case, can I assume it is going to fine?

PS: It going to take a while to download samples, I wouldn't see the result until tomorrow.

You can try the samples but the reality is your system simply isn't going to cope. You might get away with the regular 576i channels but TV1, TV2 and TV3 will not work with such a low spec system.

eXDee

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#153903 3-Aug-2008 22:45

I see you say you are using mostly linux - currently i don't think theres any solutions for playing Freeview HD under mythtv or similar. If you want to use linux to watch tv rather than windows maybe talk to the user 'openmedia', but i dont think you'll get Freeview HD going, only SD satellite.

itey

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#153912 3-Aug-2008 23:39

I had a pc with better specs than yours (still agp though), and freeview hd was unwatchable.

pstar008

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#154109 4-Aug-2008 20:07

Thanks for all the reply, yes indeed neither my CPU nor my video card is up to that task, finally got a reason to update my old box.

To build a new upgrade box, looks like I should pick a Nividia card as apparently Ati card user get more issues?

To eXDee, after skim through some information, I think as I do have a Windows xp partition, I should try to get FreeView HD working on Windows first. I use Linux mostly because most of the time I can use it to get things done faster, but not in this case I believe

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eXDee

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#154166 5-Aug-2008 00:04

Yeah go nvidia. 8500GT is good, go for the 8600GT if you want to give newer games a go.
If you want a cheap upgrade then go for AMD, for high end go for Intel.

If you're wanting to upgrade and aren't sure on what to get, give an estimate budget and what you want to upgrade and i'll spec one up for you. If you choose to upgrade you'll need to get a PCI-E motherboard for the videocard, which then means a new CPU and RAM. Possibly power supply too if yours is very old.

pstar008

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#154179 5-Aug-2008 07:36

eXDee: Yeah go nvidia. 8500GT is good, go for the 8600GT if you want to give newer games a go.
If you want a cheap upgrade then go for AMD, for high end go for Intel.

If you're wanting to upgrade and aren't sure on what to get, give an estimate budget and what you want to upgrade and i'll spec one up for you. If you choose to upgrade you'll need to get a PCI-E motherboard for the videocard, which then means a new CPU and RAM. Possibly power supply too if yours is very old.

That will be really great if someone could help me to get a list, to avoid off topic I put a new thread in Desktop area:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=50&TopicId=24855

TinyTim

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#154579 6-Aug-2008 10:44

itey: I had a pc with better specs than yours (still agp though), and freeview hd was unwatchable.

These slow machines that can't play freeview HD: can they still record the data stream ok? I'm wondering if keeping the display on to check what's coming in (but not to watch) would disrupt the recording process.

I'm considering recording on my old laptop, and transferring the recorded file to my media player to play back on the TV.

sbiddle

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#154582 6-Aug-2008 10:51

TinyTim:
itey: I had a pc with better specs than yours (still agp though), and freeview hd was unwatchable.

These slow machines that can't play freeview HD: can they still record the data stream ok? I'm wondering if keeping the display on to check what's coming in (but not to watch) would disrupt the recording process.

I'm considering recording on my old laptop, and transferring the recorded file to my media player to play back on the TV.

This would work OK. All the system is doing is dumping the TS stream straight from the capture card to the HDD.

What sort of player do you plan to use? I'm not aware of any that support H.264 + AAC Audio.

TinyTim

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#154594 6-Aug-2008 11:09

sbiddle:

What sort of player do you plan to use? I'm not aware of any that support H.264 + AAC Audio.

You're right, it doesn't support H.264, it'll require an overnight conversion to DivX. (As discussed in another thread, I have conversion working on Fossie's progressive samples but not interlaced samples so that'll require investigation.)

Not the simplest process I know, but it's more to satisfy my curiosity than anything: spending cash on Freeview isn't a high priority for us because we get good reception on analogue here, and I'd rather spend my money on blu-ray and/or wait till later when there is more choice (e.g. HDD recorder) (and perhaps Prime goes Freeview??).

$140 for a HVR900 is probably enough to satisfy my curiosity at the moment.

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seriouslycgi

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#155584 10-Aug-2008 12:28

sbiddle:

You can try the samples but the reality is your system simply isn't going to cope. You might get away with the regular 576i channels but TV1, TV2 and TV3 will not work with such a low spec system.

not to disagree with you but just to throw a spanner in the works, what are the specs of the hardware on a decoder (set top box) that _CAN_ decode hd content? surely, even though different hardware platforms, that machine would out spec a set top decoder? just a matter of embedded software or firmware, something could be made, just by a better person than me.

sbiddle

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#155586 10-Aug-2008 12:39

seriouslycgi:
sbiddle:

You can try the samples but the reality is your system simply isn't going to cope. You might get away with the regular 576i channels but TV1, TV2 and TV3 will not work with such a low spec system.

not to disagree with you but just to throw a spanner in the works, what are the specs of the hardware on a decoder (set top box) that _CAN_ decode hd content? surely, even though different hardware platforms, that machine would out spec a set top decoder? just a matter of embedded software or firmware, something could be made, just by a better person than me.

The simple requirement is a GPU capable of H.264 decoding.

pstar008

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#155742 10-Aug-2008 23:08

Hi guys thanks for the info, and there is an update.

I have a laptop with Pentium M 2.0 GHz (Thinkpad Z60) and intergrated (Intel 940G?) with HVR-900h,
and ALL the channels are watchable using PowerCinema comes with my TV tuner, but not perfect.

My CPU is constantly on high load which is obvious, switch channel iskind of slow but works fine, and
even better TV 3 are not too bad as well during the few minutes I am watching, but I notice some lag
during fast action scenes. I just watched Sports Extra for a couple of hours tonight and am very happy
with that so far, and on all the channels the picture quality are just superb!

I just got my UHF arial installed today and that is my experiences on the watching TV side so far. My
old desktop are getting its age anyway and I am busying build an upgrade box and have no plans on
testing my old desktop box. But I would suspect it will be a little bit worse than my laptop but still barely
watchable with most channels but TV3.

TinyTim

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#155822 11-Aug-2008 10:53

pstar008:

I have a laptop with Pentium M 2.0 GHz (Thinkpad Z60) and intergrated (Intel 940G?) with HVR-900h,
and ALL the channels are watchable using PowerCinema comes with my TV tuner, but not perfect.

My CPU is constantly on high load which is obvious, switch channel iskind of slow but works fine, and
even better TV 3 are not too bad as well during the few minutes I am watching, but I notice some lag
during fast action scenes. I just watched Sports Extra for a couple of hours tonight and am very happy
with that so far, and on all the channels the picture quality are just superb!

I have a similarly specced laptop to you, and I got my HVR-900H late last week. I too have had surprisingly good results - I might even try connecting it up to the TV.

The only problems I've had are I can't watch TV at the same time as recording - I need to turn off the TV viewing to get a decent recording - and playback of a TV3 recording is jerky (though I haven't tried with only PowerCinema running).

How am I going to get any work done with the Olympics on?