Wide screen output?

[mchomicz]

I was wondering if any of the popular FTA receivers have the ability to:

1. Receive and decode HD transmissions
2. Output such transmissions in their native 16:9 wide screen aspect ratio to a 16:9 TV (not necessarily in high def; S-video quality would be plenty good for me)

Thank you,
Michael

 

[Rick in MD]

I believe most use PC based cards for HD, however there is one HD Receiver that I am aware of, that is pretty pricey. I am trying to remember the name, but I can't seem to recall.

 

[lsat]

QualiTV 1080 or Integra912S.

 

[BFG]

Most HD is on C-band and there is 2 kinds

4DTV (digicipher II) uses the motorola box and HD-200 decoder
DVB you can use the Integra 912, but it will only receive QPSK 4:2:0 Signals.

Most DVB HD is 4:2:2 or 8PSK and to use that you'd need a pci card like the twinhan and a superdouper fast PC, or you can have a mediocre PC and send the data streem to a roku that will decode it on the TV nicely.

 

[mchomicz]

Thanks for all the info. Of course - I have more questions...

1. What exactly will happen if I tune, say, a Coolsat 4000 Plus, to an HD feed? I believe PBS is broadcast in clear on one of the satellites? Will it not display anything at all or give me just sound? Or not event hat?

2. Why is a super duper PC needed for HD received over the satellite? I have a terrestrial HD tuner in my PC and when receiving a terrestrial HD signal - CPU usage on my Athlon XP 1800 is around 20% and hardly ever jumps over 30%. This is with the use of Nvidia decoder with MPG2 acceleration done in hardware. Terrestrial signals in my area hover around 11Mbps. Are satellite HD signals broadcast at significantly higher bit rate? Or is hardware acceleration of MPG2 streams not possible with existing PC based satellite applications?

Thank you,
Michael

 

[Mr Tony]

Thanks for all the info. Of course - I have more questions...

1. What exactly will happen if I tune, say, a Coolsat 4000 Plus, to an HD feed? I believe PBS is broadcast in clear on one of the satellites? Will it not display anything at all or give me just sound? Or not event hat?

it doesnt do anything...just gives you a scrambled screen and no audio
On the Pansat it whacks the unit up so I have to do a master power off (switch on back)

 

[timmy1376]

2. Why is a super duper PC needed for HD received over the satellite? I have a terrestrial HD tuner in my PC and when receiving a terrestrial HD signal - CPU usage on my Athlon XP 1800 is around 20% and hardly ever jumps over 30%. This is with the use of Nvidia decoder with MPG2 acceleration done in hardware. Terrestrial signals in my area hover around 11Mbps. Are satellite HD signals broadcast at significantly higher bit rate? Or is hardware acceleration of MPG2 streams not possible with existing PC based satellite applications?

Thank you,
Michael

Your terrestrial HD tuner has a chip on it for decoding the HD stream. The satellite tuner cards do not have a chip for the HD streams.

 

[TuxCoder]

On the Pansat it whacks the unit up so I have to do a master power off (switch on back)

The Pansat 2500A just shows garbled video and gives garbly chirpy audio. The video usually starts out as a mosaic type scrambling of the last image from your previous channel's video. It's kinda a cool effect. But on the 2500A you don't have to cycle the master power.

 

[Mr Tony]

interesting
on the 1500 I have to because the on screen menu is gone, and when I hit menu there is none

 

[PSB]

On the Fortec Lifetime Ultra the screen goes green when you hit a HD feed, but no lock up : )

 

[BFG]

2. Why is a super duper PC needed for HD received over the satellite? I have a terrestrial HD tuner in my PC and when receiving a terrestrial HD signal - CPU usage on my Athlon XP 1800 is around 20% and hardly ever jumps over 30%. This is with the use of Nvidia decoder with MPG2 acceleration done in hardware. Terrestrial signals in my area hover around 11Mbps. Are satellite HD signals broadcast at significantly higher bit rate? Or is hardware acceleration of MPG2 streams not possible with existing PC based satellite applications?

The raw feed on the satellite is much higher bit rate. In the 30 - 50 Mbps range. so that's mainly it

 

[mchomicz]

Your terrestrial HD tuner has a chip on it for decoding the HD stream.

I don't believe it does. It's the ATI HDTV wonder and it requires external MPG2 decoding. With or without hardware acceleration - which in my case is provided by the video card - courtesy of the Nvidia MPEG decoder. Also, I tested a downloaded TS stream (around 20Mbps) and it plays back just fine as well also hardly going over 30% CPU utilization.

What is the usual bit rate of satellite HD broadcast?

Thank you,
Michael

 

[mchomicz]

In the 30 - 50 Mbps range.

Thank you for the info!

Michael

 

[timmy1376]

I don't believe it does. It's the ATI HDTV wonder and it requires external MPG2 decoding. With or without hardware acceleration - which in my case is provided by the video card - courtesy of the Nvidia MPEG decoder. Also, I tested a downloaded TS stream (around 20Mbps) and it plays back just fine as well also hardly going over 30% CPU utilization.

What is the usual bit rate of satellite HD broadcast?

Thank you,
Michael

Your right. The ATI one doesn't, neither does one or two others. Most of the rest do I believe.

Sorry.

 

[Wayn23]

Most HD is on C-band and there is 2 kinds



Most DVB HD is 4:2:2 or 8PSK and to use that you'd need a pci card like the twinhan and a superdouper fast PC, or you can have a mediocre PC and send the data streem to a roku that will decode it on the TV nicely.

Most DVB is 4:2:0 not 4:2:2 and a Twinhan can't do 8psk, if you find 4:2:2 HD
good luck trying to decode it on your PC. Most FTA DVB signals are 4:2:0 qpsk and look awesome, with 720P signals I usually see about 36mbps rates and my XP3000 computer plays them just fine with about 35% cpu usage, 1080I i see around 42mbps or so, when HDNet was FTA it was around 19mbps like OTA HD. Most video cards are capable of mpeg2 hardware acceleration when using a decoder that supports DXVA(direct X video acceleration) as far as I know from the decoders I have tried none can do
4:2:2 hardware acceleration only 4:2:0