# Why doesn't the Premiere record in Mpeg4??



## WebHobbit (Jan 9, 2005)

I know we are still waiting for TiVo to fix all the bugs with the Premiere but I have always wondered why did they continue with Mpeg2 when they designed the Premiere?

Was there ever an official explanation? Mpeg2 is getting pretty ancient now and sure isn't very efficient for HD. Is the hardware up to the task? Is this something that could "One Day" come via software then we would all gain 2-3 times the recording capacity? Or will this not happen until the TiVo 5th generation box?


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

WebHobbit said:


> I know we are still waiting for TiVo to fix all the bugs with the Premiere but I have always wondered why did they continue with Mpeg2 when they designed the Premiere?
> 
> Was there ever an official explanation? Mpeg2 is getting pretty ancient now and sure isn't very efficient for HD. Is the hardware up to the task? Is this something that could "One Day" come via software then we would all gain 2-3 times the recording capacity? Or will this not happen until the TiVo 5th generation box?


The problem is, for most people, that would require converting the incoming signal, since almost all cable companies still use MPEG-2.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

WebHobbit said:


> I know we are still waiting for TiVo to fix all the bugs with the Premiere but I have always wondered why did they continue with Mpeg2 when they designed the Premiere?
> 
> Was there ever an official explanation? Mpeg2 is getting pretty ancient now and sure isn't very efficient for HD. Is the hardware up to the task? Is this something that could "One Day" come via software then we would all gain 2-3 times the recording capacity? Or will this not happen until the TiVo 5th generation box?


Because the premiere does not do the encoding. It simply copies what comes down the cable to the hard drive. Cable systems have not started a transition to MPEG-4 yet. When they do, I suspect the Premiere will be up to playing the MPEG-4 content back if the cable companies decide to use a format it supports.


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## WebHobbit (Jan 9, 2005)

OK, that makes sense.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

WebHobbit said:


> Why doesn't the Premiere record in Mpeg4??


The TiVo HD/Premiere doesn't "record" digital TV. It simply stores the original digital stream on the hard drive and that stream is (almost always) Mpeg2. It is not at all feasible to try and transcode to something else like H.264.... with hardware like the TiVo, it would take several days per hour to process.

Now, if you are more correctly asking if the TiVo Premiere can store and playback incoming H.264 from cable sources.... well... I don't know. I don't think any cable company does that. And all OTA is MPEG2 video.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

If I recall correctly, Netflix is MPEG-4 and it plays that, so if cable were to send down the same format, the DVR would be able to play it after a minor software update. Don't worry though, cable doesn't seem to be moving very fast in that direction.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

CuriousMark said:


> Don't worry though, cable doesn't seem to be moving very fast in that direction.


Nope, they would much rather make life much more annoying with SDV.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

The Premieres (and really TivoHDs as well) can play back H.264 video very well. There are many of us that have been pushing H.264 streams back to our tivos for about a year now. I thought I read that some of the Australian content was H.264, so there may be some proof of concept of storing a H.264 encoded stream (although I could be mis-remembering the Australian content stuff). At any rate, the Tivo shouldn't care how the video is encoded when it is writing to disk. The problems would come during playback.


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## gamo62 (Oct 12, 2002)

Well, it appears that Cincinnati Bell Fioptics is converting to MPEG4. I had issues with the newly added channels, because THEY were transmitted in MPEG4. The channels would not come in unless the encryption was removed. Since they were incorrectly assigned, they hve reverted to MPEG2 for the time being.

The problem is that when it does convert over, there is going to be an encryption issue. I am using a Cisco PKM800 cable card. Hope that they can get this addressed.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

I'm not sure if all the necessary standards have been developed for the deployment of h.264 over QAM in the U.S., or if they have, whether they've been implemented in current TiVo software. But it works in New Zealand, yes (with standard TiVo HD hardware, AFAIK, but their own software version -- 11.3).


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Cox is experimenting with H.264 in the 850-1000MHz frequency range for some HD channels and supposedly Premiere units can handle them:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8876838#post8876838
(It's not clear from that screen dump if that channel is encrypted or not but I would guess it is).


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

Satellite is quickly moving to MPEG-4 (all DirecTV and Dish network HD programming is MPEG4, and they are now even putting non-profit SD programming on MPEG-4 and some SD locals). 

Cable is a little different in that they have a LOT of legacy support still built into their system (think about how many analog systems are out there). Plus, there are dozens of cable companies (medium size and larger) and they're not even uniform across their companies much less cable as an industry.

I think, though, that they're getting close to a pretty big jump all of a sudden. With DOCSIS 3 and 100mbit internet packages, they need to free up a lot of bandwidth, not to mention the push for HD, on demand, and "start over" type services. The only holdup is a) support for analog customers and b) replacing all of their equipment in the field. Analog support is slowly going away, it's just a matter of dealing with customer pushback when it happens. It will happen, though. The main problem however is that if they want to migrate to h.264, they will have to replace ALL of their own equipment. 

With corporations sitting on mountains of cash, they may be getting close to the point of investing in that, though. When they do, I expect all of the mish-mash of stuff to kind of work itself out. You'll see systems completely dump analog, put everything on h.264, invest crazy in SDV, and maybe even drop SD simulcast. Drop analog and go straight HD only, and provide SD customers equipment that can downconvert.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

moyekj said:


> Cox is experimenting with H.264 in the 850-1000MHz frequency range for some HD channels and supposedly Premiere units can handle them:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8876838#post8876838
> (It's not clear from that screen dump if that channel is encrypted or not but I would guess it is).


Cox Arizona is having problems with "Authorizing" these MPEG4 (H.264) channels on TiVo Premieres. I have yet to find any TiVo Premiere owner that has them Authorized yet.

There is one report from a Ceton InfiniTV4 that got them Authorized on his first attempt.


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## TooMuchTime (Jun 29, 2008)

This discussion is very strange. About 2 years ago, when speaking to TiVo support, I was told that all HD programming was recorded in MPEG-4. Well, actually anything recorded as *best quality.*

Guess I wasn't told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.


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## gconnery (Mar 31, 2006)

Tivo HDs/Premieres/Elites record the video in whatever format the cable company sends the video out as. In most cases with live TV on cable or FiOS that is MPEG-2. The major reason of course is that cable systems have distributed cable STBs that don't support MPEG-4. 

However, with 3D channels for example Comcast has used MPEG-4 (h.264) and requires you to get one of the newer STBs that support both MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 if you want to watch one of these channels.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

gconnery said:


> Tivo HDs/Premieres/Elites record the video in whatever format the cable company sends the video out as.


Technically (to me anyway), the Premiere doesn't "record" anything that is digital. It simply stores it. It is not like the old analog days where it would "tune" into a station and digitize and THEN store it. Guess it is semantics, but it helps people to understand that the TiVo usually just grabbing what is available and placing it on the hard drive.



> In most cases with live TV on cable or FiOS that is MPEG-2.


And also over-the-air, freely broadcast, ATSC, too.



> The major reason of course is that cable systems have distributed cable STBs that don't support MPEG-4. However, with 3D channels for example Comcast has used MPEG-4 (h.264) and requires you to get one of the newer STBs that support both MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 if you want to watch one of these channels.


I am pretty sure the Premiere can also store and playback H.264 encoded video, but it has to be at very specific settings. At the time the Premiere was being designed, there were few, if any, standards for pushing anything across cable that was not MPEG 2 (and NOTHING for over-the-air). There are lots of signaling issues and such that would have to be worked out, but I think the Premiere has support for accelerated playback of H.264, so it is theoretically possible for TiVo to add support for such systems in the future, through software updates.


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## Mike Pfeifer (Mar 17, 2011)

I can't even imagine the headache it would be for Comcast (or any cable co) to completely switch over to a new (different) format system wide. What a disaster that would be.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Mike Pfeifer said:


> I can't even imagine the headache it would be for Comcast (or any cable co) to completely switch over to a new (different) format system wide. What a disaster that would be.


It will not be a disaster once they deploy mpeg-4 capable boxes to the entire market. Many cable companies have been deploying these boxes for the last couple of years. Once they get to a point where the boxes that aren't capable are such a small percentage, then they can replace those boxes and be ready. Of course dealing with a cable company and their legacy equipment means this is going to take a long time.

In fact, many markets are seeing mpeg-4 already for some sports packages (NHL Center Ice, etc). Over the next few years, it will not be that shocking to see more and more packages moving to mpeg-4. I don't think you will see mass switches to mpeg-4 at first, but more likely slow conversions so they can sample the issues that come up.


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## zowwie85 (Jul 25, 2010)

CoxInPHX said:


> Cox Arizona is having problems with "Authorizing" these MPEG4 (H.264) channels on TiVo Premieres. I have yet to find any TiVo Premiere owner that has them Authorized yet.
> 
> There is one report from a Ceton InfiniTV4 that got them Authorized on his first attempt.


Well, count me in (or out, as it were) to the no H.264 channel authorizations on my two Premieres. I'm getting the runaround from Cox about it - FCC complaint filed.

Going to get a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime tomorrow and retire my TiVo HD - be interesting to see if those H.264 channels pop right up on that thing or what.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Mike Pfeifer said:


> I can't even imagine the headache it would be for Comcast (or any cable co) to completely switch over to a new (different) format system wide. What a disaster that would be.


Well according to what I've read online, Verizon FiOS is already rolling out MPEG4 switchovers. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28071533-Channels-changing-to-MPEG4-


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Mike-Wolf said:


> Well according to what I've read online, Verizon FiOS is already rolling out MPEG4 switchovers. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28071533-Channels-changing-to-MPEG4-


You are responding to a thread that started 3 years ago.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

There are already cable companies broadcasting some channels in H.264 and the Premiere boxes support them just fine.

It'll still be a while before we see this across all channels though. Cable companies have a LOT of equipment in the field that is not H.264 compatible. It would cost a lot of money to replace it all at once.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

Cox has an HD Plus pack that is mpeg and before the tivo's could play it they needed a software update, so they don't play mpeg 4 channels without updated software.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yes, but since all TiVos are automatically updated to the latest version everyone now has the update required to record/play H.264 channels.

S3/HD units, while capable of decoding H.264 video, will never be updated so they will not support these H.264 channels.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Yes, but since all TiVos are automatically updated to the latest version everyone now has the update required to record/play H.264 channels.
> 
> S3/HD units, while capable of decoding H.264 video, will never be updated so they will not support these H.264 channels.


So, does that mean that S3 boxes will have little value then? Only value they would have would be for OTA, right?


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> Yes, but since all TiVos are automatically updated to the latest version everyone now has the update required to record/play H.264 channels.
> 
> S3/HD units, while capable of decoding H.264 video, will never be updated so they will not support these H.264 channels.


I completely agree which is why I'm nervous about if a TiVo 5 comes out that the TiVo 4 will become EOL soon after and become obsolete since I'd guess software updates will never be made for the S4 immediately after the S5 release day.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

magnus said:


> So, does that mean that S3 boxes will have little value then? Only value they would have would be for OTA, right?


No cable provider I know is all mpeg4 so the S3's and 1st genHD would still have value.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

ajwees41 said:


> No cable provider I know is all mpeg4 so the S3's and 1st genHD would still have value.


Well, If they take your favorite channel and make it mpeg4 then they are going to be pretty worthless to you.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

moyekj said:


> Cox is experimenting with H.264 in the 850-1000MHz frequency range for some HD channels and supposedly Premiere units can handle them:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8876838#post8876838
> (It's not clear from that screen dump if that channel is encrypted or not but I would guess it is).


WHOA... that is not cool, as standard tuners can only go up to 860. VOD or DOCSIS 3 would be fine though.



ajwees41 said:


> No cable provider I know is all mpeg4 so the S3's and 1st genHD would still have value.


Yeah, most are still all MPEG-2.

And why does everyone act like FIOS is not cable? FIOS literally is cable with no internet, VOD or phone eating up bandwidth on the QAM 256 system. It's a pure one-way cable system. Where they change from fiber to coax isn't really relevant to the cable part, even though it very much is for the internet, and indirectly affects the cable by moving a lot of the traffic to IP over fiber... FIOS is also regulated as cable, since technically and legally, it IS cable.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Bigg said:


> WHOA... that is not cool, as standard tuners can only go up to 860. VOD or DOCSIS 3 would be fine though.


All current generation STB Tuners are 1GHz, which include the TiVo Premiere, (even the TiVoHD has a 1GHz tuner, but not the SW to display H.264), only legacy Moto and Sci Atlanta STBs and TiVo Series 3 OLED are limited to 860MHz. The Ceton InfiniTV4 is 1GHz, so is the SD HomeRun Prime.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Mike-Wolf said:


> I completely agree which is why I'm nervous about if a TiVo 5 comes out that the TiVo 4 will become EOL soon after and become obsolete since I'd guess software updates will never be made for the S4 immediately after the S5 release day.


Completely untrue, the S3s still got a few updates after the S4s were released.

Don't spread FUD.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

CoxInPHX said:


> All current generation STB Tuners are 1GHz, which include the TiVo Premiere, (even the TiVoHD has a 1GHz tuner, but not the SW to display H.264), only legacy Moto and Sci Atlanta STBs and TiVo Series 3 OLED are limited to 860MHz. The Ceton InfiniTV4 is 1GHz, so is the SD HomeRun Prime.


Interesting. I didn't realize that the Ceton cards and TiVo could do 1ghz. I know that all halfway modern boxes can go 1ghz.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

slowbiscuit said:


> Completely untrue, the S3s still got a few updates after the S4s were released.


Glad to hear I'm wrong and that we'll still have updates after the S5 release. I've never had a TiVo prior to the S4 so it was only an assumption based off what I was told by TiVo on their past experiences with software rollout practices by the company.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> Completely untrue, the S3s still got a few updates after the S4s were released.
> 
> Don't spread FUD.


they just didn't get the same upgrade the Premiere's did to get all the Mpeg 4 channels from Cox.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't think we'll see a S5 any time soon. I think the next gen Premiere units will be more like the upgrade from S3 OLED to the TiVoHD. They'll run the same software as the current Premiere units they'll just have faster chips and probably more tuners. So the current S4 units should continue to get software upgrades for a while.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> I don't think we'll see a S5 any time soon. I think the next gen Premiere units will be more like the upgrade from S3 OLED to the TiVoHD. They'll run the same software as the current Premiere units they'll just have faster chips and probably more tuners. So the current S4 units should continue to get software upgrades for a while.


 I don't think S3 OLED to TiVoHD "upgrade" is a good analogy as that was more of a cost-cutting initiative by TiVo and the THD was actually slower than the S3 OLED unit for most everything. However I agree the next hardware will likely be in the Premiere line but hopefully with faster SOCs similar to what the Mini got. If they do make it a 6 tuner unit I sure hope they choose better tuners than the current Maxlinear ones in 4 tuner units which are a POS that has caused issues for many users posting here.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I haven't had any trouble with the tuners themselves. But I agree that they really need to upgrade the SOC. if they can make the UI for the apps at least as snappy as they are on my TV then I'd be happy. And if they added HBOGo and Vudu I'd never have to leave the TiVo UI.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

It would be nice if the new units had on the fly transcoding to mpeg4 for recordings, which would effectively double your storage cap for shows. Not as big an issue in the days of 2TB drives, but still a nice feature for lower end models.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> It would be nice if the new units had on the fly transcoding to mpeg4 for recordings, which would effectively double your storage cap for shows. Not as big an issue in the days of 2TB drives, but still a nice feature for lower end models.


That would degrade the video quality. Yet another reason to be jealous of FIOS.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

slowbiscuit said:


> It would be nice if the new units had on the fly transcoding to mpeg4 for recordings, which would effectively double your storage cap for shows. Not as big an issue in the days of 2TB drives, but still a nice feature for lower end models.


It's much cheaper to add hard drive space then it is to add the encoder chip required to transcode 4 tuners at once.

If the next gen unit has an H.264 encoder it will be used for built in Stream capabilities, not for transcoding recordings before they go to the disc.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Well, that's kind of what I meant - you already have an mpeg4 transcoder onboard in the new boxes, so why not use it if it's not being used for external streaming. I'm assuming that any chip they get will have enough cap to do at least 4 streams (or tuners).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The current boxes have an H.264 "decoder" but not an "encoder". They can only play H.264 streams that were encoded before being transmitted to the TiVo. 

I looked through the offerings at Broadcom and their transcode capable chips are only capable of encoding 2 streams at a time, not 4. And adding a secondary chip to do the transcoding like they did with the Stream would be too expensive. If TiVo uses one of those Broadcom chips the transcode ability will be used to provide Stream like transcoding for portable device playback, not for recoding recordings on the fly. Like I said it's easier for them to just add hard drive space if they want to add recording capacity. A 3TB hard drive would hold about 500 hours of HD MPEG-2 content, that's more then enough for most people. And if you need more you could double it by adding an eSATA drive.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

If they are building a new box, they should throw in H.265 support.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

morac said:


> If they are building a new box, they should throw in H.265 support.


Indeed they should include H.265 if Broadcom (or maybe somebody else) will soon have a chipset that can decode it properly. That might be a legitimate reason for pushing back the release of Series 5 TiVos for a while. In fact, H.265 sounds so promising that suggestions of another broadcast transition would begin to sound much less insane.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

H.265's main purpose is for 4K. We aren't going to start seeing 4K in this country for at least another 5 years, probably longer. On the broadcast side they still haven't even completely switched over to 1080p/H.264 yet. No way TiVo is going to go out of their way to add support for a standard that is still so new and not widely used.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> H.265's main purpose is for 4K. We aren't going to start seeing 4K in this country for at least another 5 years, probably longer. On the broadcast side they still haven't even completely switched over to 1080p/H.264 yet. No way TiVo is going to go out of their way to add support for a standard that is still so new and not widely used.


H.265 apparently provides dramatically better compression across the board. But leapfrogging the competition by supporting H.265 ASAP would be rather farsighted. Corporations usually don't look that far down the road. Planned obsolescence is more the norm.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I know it provides better compression across the board, but we're unlikely to see it adopted for lower resolution stuff any time soon. At present the processing requirements to encode/decode it are two high for most consumer level equipment and on the broadcasting side they haven't even full switched over to H.264 yet and that was ratified in 2003.

H.265 is most likely going to be adopted industry wide for 4K, but everything else will most likely continue to use MPEG-2 or H.264 for the foreseeable future.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> H.265's main purpose is for 4K. We aren't going to start seeing 4K in this country for at least another 5 years, probably longer. On the broadcast side they still haven't even completely switched over to 1080p/H.264 yet. No way TiVo is going to go out of their way to add support for a standard that is still so new and not widely used.


For TiVo's purpose, yes, we won't see H.265 for a LONG time. DirecTV, however, will probably start using it within a year or two to serve a couple of 4K channels. They have the advantage that they could use a new satellite location or upgrade existing satellite capacity for the few customers who want 4K.


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## celtic pride (Nov 8, 2005)

I have read that directv plans to have 4K channels by 2016,and may even have one as soon as 2014.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Came across these pdf specs and other info. http://mysite.verizon.net/~fiosdvr/prem_review_01.pdf


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Mike-Wolf said:


> Came across these pdf specs and other info. http://mysite.verizon.net/~fiosdvr/prem_review_01.pdf


That PDF says it was created by K. Fowler (bkdtv), which was a valued contributor for a long time here and AVSF. Does anyone know what happened to him?

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?u=39640
Original TiVo Premiere FAQ

http://www.avsforum.com/u/49084/bfdtv
The Official AVS TiVo "Series4" Premiere topic


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> H.265's main purpose is for 4K. We aren't going to start seeing 4K in this country for at least another 5 years, probably longer. On the broadcast side they still haven't even completely switched over to 1080p/H.264 yet. No way TiVo is going to go out of their way to add support for a standard that is still so new and not widely used.


From what I've read H.265 will also be popular for Smart Phones and tablets. They already plan on incorporating it into their chip sets. Since H.265 would further reduce the bandwidth to stream content to smart phones. And since most phone data is metered, it would be a win for the consumer and the celullar carrier.

http://www.filothea.com/blog/qualcomm-demonstrates-the-power-of-next-gen-h-265-video/


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

At this time the processing requirements to decode H.265 are a lot higher then H.264, so unless someone can create a chip that can decode H.265 while not sucking any more power then current H.264 chips I don't really see that happening. Battery life is still king in the phone/tablet space. I bet it takes at least 2 years.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> At this time the processing requirements to decode H.265 are a lot higher then H.264, so unless someone can create a chip that can decode H.265 while not sucking any more power then current H.264 chips I don't really see that happening. Battery life is still king in the phone/tablet space. I bet it takes at least 2 years.


Agreed. It will be for 4K only for a while. The STBs and Blu-Ray players can suck the power.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> At this time the processing requirements to decode H.265 are a lot higher then H.264, so unless someone can create a chip that can decode H.265 while not sucking any more power then current H.264 chips I don't really see that happening. Battery life is still king in the phone/tablet space. I bet it takes at least 2 years.


That's what Qualcomm intends to do. They have a strong incentive to get it out so they might get it ready much faster. But only time will tell. The market for cellphones and tablets that could use H.265 is many orders of magnitude larger than the 4K market will be any time soon..


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Perhaps, but this stuff still takes time. The core standard was just ratified in January and they're still working on extensions. Throw in the time to develop the chip, sell that chip, then build whatever device is using the chip and I still think it's going to be 2 years minimum.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

CoxInPHX said:


> That PDF says it was created by K. Fowler (bkdtv), which was a valued contributor for a long time here and AVSF. Does anyone know what happened to him?
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?u=39640
> Original TiVo Premiere FAQ
> ...


Yeah it's from here http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=444083

I don't think I've seen him around lately though I've seen others from other forums on here.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

I feel like the conversation has sorta gotten off topic from MPEG4 and more onto H.265 and mobile devices for some reason?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Because the original topic has already come true. The Premiere supports MPEG-4 encoded broadcasts right now. So we wandered off into speculation about future standards.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> Because the original topic has already come true. The Premiere supports MPEG-4 encoded broadcasts right now. So we wandered off into speculation about future standards.


Possibly however until most important cable providers such as Comcast are broadcasting in MPEG4 in place of MPEG2 (such as the issues people are having with Cox) I don't know if it can be considered "true"


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

The subject of the topic has nothing to do with whether mpeg4 is being broadcast by anybody, but we already know that Cox is doing it and Premieres handle it just fine.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Since none of the Premieres except the original model even have analog tuners and future ones won't have analog tuners base on the waiver TiVo filed to the FCC, the original question isn't valid.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

That's what happens when someone revives a 3 year old thread for no real reason.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah the era of TiVo encoding video as it's being recorded is over. The quality selection box has gone the way of the Dodo. If any future TiVo has transcoding capabilities it will be used for TiVo Stream like functionality not for saving disk space. The only way we're going to get MPEG-4 recordings on the disk is if the cable companies start broadcasting in that format.


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## celtic pride (Nov 8, 2005)

For what its worth verizon fios already has some mpeg4 channels on nba league pass channels 1450-1454,and are switching some of the HBO,cinemax and some other channels next month.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Hopefully more providers follow suit. Switching to H.264 encoding will increase available bandwidth making it possible for more channels to be HD and increasing available bandwidth for internet connections. 

Plus it will drive demand for the H.264 version of VideoReDo.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Hopefully more providers follow suit. Switching to H.264 encoding will increase available bandwidth making it possible for more channels to be HD and increasing available bandwidth for internet connections.
> 
> Plus it will drive demand for the H.264 version of VideoReDo.


Or better quality HD. I'm looking at you, Comcast!


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## P42 (Jan 7, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Switching to H.264 encoding will increase available bandwidth making it possible for more channels to be HD...


Or just more channels of the same junk


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

P42 said:


> Or just more channels of the same junk


The problem is, they have no concept of prioritization. They skip over some of the few good channels, and load dozens of channels of garbage on there. I'm hoping a-la-carte pricing will come out of that lawsuit, and then most of the crap will implode on itself, and we'll be left with a dozen or two really amazing channels, kind of like back to the original analog cable. Then, we'll have enough bandwidth for everything in 4k!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think most of the crap channels are bundled with the more popular stations and the cable cos are required to carry them just to get the popular stations they actually want. The 300 channel lineup is more the fault of the content providers then the cable companies, because they have these ridiculous bundling requirements just to carry a few of their more popular stations.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Or better quality HD. I'm looking at you, Comcast!


we all are :up:


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> I think most of the crap channels are bundled with the more popular stations and the cable cos are required to carry them just to get the popular stations they actually want. The 300 channel lineup is more the fault of the content providers then the cable companies, because they have these ridiculous bundling requirements just to carry a few of their more popular stations.


Absolutely right. It has always been a bundling issue between the content providers and the carriers, which always end up hurting the customer either by forcing the payment for channels they don't actually want just to get the *few* channels they do, or when the contracts are to be renewed and someone gets greedy, suddenly we find ourselves losing either one of the big 5 networks, or a popular network that no one can live without. This has happened numerous times with both satellite and cable providers alike.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Or better quality HD. I'm looking at you, Comcast!


 Instead of cramming 3 HD channels per QAM, with H.264 they will just cram in 6 instead.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

P42 said:


> Or just more channels of the same junk


That seems like that is what FiOS will be doing. 

I read they plan on adding more of the .TV channels. Which are some of the most worthless channels they have have.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

moyekj said:


> Instead of cramming 3 HD channels per QAM, with H.264 they will just cram in 6 instead.


Yeah, unfortunately they might do that. Hopefully they have the sense to do 5 and decide that good enough (in terms of capacity) is good enough. Cable used to have by far the best HD, and now DirecTV is blowing them out of the water quality wise.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

From what I was told by TiVo support tonight, the TiVo Premiere does support MPEG4 through the coaxial tuner, however the Series 3 and HD doesn't. They said that they do monitor the threads and are hoping that an OTA functionality isn't brought back in future models due to it being a nightmare for technical support. That "the OTA reception of a four or more tuner model would be of poorer performance due to the degradation of the signal strength being split to each tuner when compared to the performance of a two tuner model resulting in less channels being found on the four tuner model then on the two tuner model. " Plus the whole issue of less then technical customers accidentally screwing the coaxial cable into the antenna F port instead of the cable F port and vice versa resulting in support calls.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Mike-Wolf said:


> Plus the whole issue of less then technical customers accidentally screwing the coaxial cable into the antenna F port instead of the cable F port and vice versa resulting in support calls.


Yeah, that would really be a great reason to eliminate all support for OTA. Assume that your customers are too stupid to connect a cable.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

L David Matheny said:


> Yeah, that would really be a great reason to eliminate all support for OTA. Assume that your customers are too stupid to connect a cable.


Sadly, and not joking, sometimes they are. I do a lot of service calls with this very problem either with the coaxial in cable being connected to the TV out on cable boxes, or other similar situations. With the OTA and cable coax inputs being next to each other it's easy to connect to the wrong F connector if you aren't paying attention. People sometimes are in such a rush to hook everything up they don't actually look at what they are doing and because it's such a simple thing to do, that when they troubleshoot they don't bother to check _that_ and assume there's something more major wrong like the equipment or the outside wiring.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

L David Matheny said:


> Yeah, that would really be a great reason to eliminate all support for OTA. Assume that your customers are too stupid to connect a cable.


Almost same exact reason given for not supporting the Mini on the 2-Tuner Premieres, the customer is too dumb.

*TiVo:* "The core DVR experience for TiVo is built on the idea of recording one show, while being able to watch another. If the TiVo Mini was used with a 2 tuner box, the person who may be using the 2 tuner unit would be forced to watch what they are recording. This is not an experience generally liked among DVR customers."
http://www.facebook.com/TiVo/posts/10151297075310178?comment_id=25440547&notif_t=feed_comment_reply​


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

CoxInPHX said:


> Almost same exact reason given for not supporting the Mini on the 2-Tuner Premieres, the customer is too dumb.
> 
> *TiVo:* "The core DVR experience for TiVo is built on the idea of recording one show, while being able to watch another. If the TiVo Mini was used with a 2 tuner box, the person who may be using the 2 tuner unit would be forced to watch what they are recording. This is not an experience generally liked among DVR customers."
> http://www.facebook.com/TiVo/posts/10151297075310178?comment_id=25440547&notif_t=feed_comment_reply​


Apparently no one liked their Series 2 boxes...


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Apparently no one liked their Series 2 boxes...


That's a bit uncalled for and I'm really surprised at you.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

CoxInPHX said:


> Almost same exact reason given for not supporting the Mini on the 2-Tuner Premieres, the customer is too dumb.
> 
> *TiVo:* "The core DVR experience for TiVo is built on the idea of recording one show, while being able to watch another. If the TiVo Mini was used with a 2 tuner box, the person who may be using the 2 tuner unit would be forced to watch what they are recording. This is not an experience generally liked among DVR customers."
> http://www.facebook.com/TiVo/posts/10151297075310178?comment_id=25440547&notif_t=feed_comment_reply​


I was given the suggestion that if you use a 4 tuner model to setup the mini that it could then be used on a 2 tuner model without any problems if you don't live stream to the mini.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

crxssi said:


> Nope, they would much rather make life much more annoying with SDV.


Cox in Omaha will be doing both SDV and Mpeg 4


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

ajwees41 said:


> Cox in Omaha will be doing both SDV and Mpeg 4


Sorry to hear that. Would have thought it would be better to up the frequency to 1GHz and MPEG4


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Mike-Wolf said:


> Sorry to hear that. Would have thought it would be better to up the frequency to 1GHz and MPEG4


Cox is 1GHz, but Cox still has a full line-up of duplicate analog channels, (most all basic and expanded are digital and analog still), with no current plans to abandon analog.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

What a waste of bandwidth. Comcast is doing it right IMO by ditching analog even if they subsequently started charging people for DTAs that they handed out for free. Now they have tons of channels for HSI upgrades or more HD (even though they haven't added much HD lately). Mpeg4 conversion down the road will get them even more, and all without the SDV crap.


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## Loach (Jan 11, 2013)

CoxInPHX said:


> Cox is 1GHz, but Cox still has a full line-up of duplicate analog channels, (most all basic and expanded are digital and analog still), with no current plans to abandon analog.


It seems like Cox is very gradually phasing down analog, albeit not yet phasing it out. I see they are moving CSPAN and CSPAN2 to digital in my market. It seems like every couple months another analog channel or 2 disappears.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

According to the first post in the waiver thread:

*"One model of TiVo' s new all-digital DVRs would include ATSC over-the-air reception capability"*

I didn't read the entire thread. Unless something is changed tivo will still be offering a "basic two tuner?)" model with ATSC tuners.

There was a discussion as to how many ATSC tuners vs how many digital tuners specific broadcom chipsets could support.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> What a waste of bandwidth. Comcast is doing it right IMO by ditching analog even if they subsequently started charging people for DTAs that they handed out for free. Now they have tons of channels for HSI upgrades or more HD (even though they haven't added much HD lately). Mpeg4 conversion down the road will get them even more, and all without the SDV crap.


 Which is why they compress the heck out of the HD channels and cram in 3 per QAM in many cases. Unfortunately I was told a while back that part of the HD channel distribution Cox uses it taps into the Comcast feeds so Cox gets crappy HD channels as well.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Comcast doesn't have to cram 3 per QAM now because analog is gone, and the most popular channels were never more than 2 per anyway. I've never had an issue with their PQ on any HD channel here in the ATL.

I'm sure everyone here stuck with SDV loves the TA nonsense, on the other hand.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

I know I for one am hoping for more HD channels and/or better, sharper, clearer looking video and crisper audio with the use of MPEG4. http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/comcast-hd-significantly-worse-than-verizon-fios/
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1008271/comcast-hd-quality-reduction-details-screenshots This is the best info I could come up with and wish it was more updated.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> Comcast doesn't have to cram 3 per QAM now because analog is gone, and the most popular channels were never more than 2 per anyway. I've never had an issue with their PQ on any HD channel here in the ATL.
> 
> I'm sure everyone here stuck with SDV loves the TA nonsense, on the other hand.


It depends on what area you are in. IN my area Comcast looks like crap with all the macroblockng and pixelation going on. There is a big difference between watching FiOS and watching Comcast in this area.


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## 241705 (Mar 9, 2010)

Same in my area: many of the Comcast HD channels look really bad. Especially compared to FiOS (or OTA for that matter).


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

For the most part Comcast looks pretty good in my area, with the exception with very fast movement (things like explosions and the like) which macroblock pretty badly.

The sad fact is though that many people consider streaming video "good" which is around 5 to 6 Mpbs. A QAM channel has 19.4 Mbps of bandwidth. Divided evenly by 3 that's about 6.5 Mbps per channel. Granted that's MPEG-2 and not H.264 like most streaming, but I'm fairly certain Comcast doesn't divide channels equally. Some channels get more bandwidth than others. 

Oddly enough HBO gets very little bandwidth and still looks pretty good. That's likely because HBO broadcasts in MPEG4 so it's already pretty compressed as it is.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

morac said:


> A QAM channel has 19.4 Mbps of bandwidth. Divided evenly by 3 that's about 6.5 Mbps per channel. Granted that's MPEG-2 and not H.264 like most streaming, but I'm fairly certain Comcast doesn't divide channels equally. Some channels get more bandwidth than others.


Actually your math is off. 64-QAM has about 27Mbps and 256-QAM has about 39Mbps. Most MSOs have upgraded to 256-QAM at this point. 19.2Mbps is the max for an ATSC channel.

With 39Mbps divided 3 ways the average bitrate is about 13Mbps. That's barely adequate for realtime encoded MPEG-2 at HD resolutions. For H.264 they can cut that down by about 1/3 allowing them to fit 5 HD stations per QAM at about 8Mbps per channel.

The reason streaming services like Netflix can get away with lower bitrates is because they pre-encode the video using high quality, multi-pass, encoders. When you do a real time encode like the cable company you have to set the average bitrate higher to prevent artifacts.

They can also balance QAMs by mixing SD and HD. Like putting two HD streams at 15Mbps and using the remaining bandwidth for 2-3 SD channels instead of trying to cram 3 HD channels into one QAM.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Actually your math is off. 64-QAM has about 27Mbps and 256-QAM has about 39Mbps. Most MSOs have upgraded to 256-QAM at this point. 19.2Mbps is the max for an ATSC channel.
> 
> With 39Mbps divided 3 ways the average bitrate is about 13Mbps. That's barely adequate for realtime encoded MPEG-2 at HD resolutions. For H.264 they can cut that down by about 1/3 allowing them to fit 5 HD stations per QAM at about 8Mbps per channel.
> 
> ...


Yup. You should tell Comcast that. They still don't get it. When doing offline encoding, you can get pretty good 720p video at 4 mbps average, but in a file you also have the option of going to some serious VBR to deal with fast motion scenes.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Yup. You should tell Comcast that. They still don't get it. When doing offline encoding, you can get pretty good 720p video at 4 mbps average, but in a file you also have the option of going to some serious VBR to deal with fast motion scenes.


Yeah I've seen the Comcast set top boxes using "VBR" for the video encoding.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Mike-Wolf said:


> Yeah I've seen the Comcast set top boxes using "VBR" for the video encoding.


It's different. Comcast recent STB's don't encode. Period. The older ones that do are only encoding analog SD, and even they don't use it anymore, and everything is digital. Moving to HD, Comcast's encoders are dynamic in that they balance bandwidth between the three QAM's, so that the bitrate between the three channels combined is always 38mbps, HOWEVER, it's not true VBR, as it can't surge bandwidth for fast motion in the same way that a downloaded file can, where you have a buffer.

Offline encoding always yields better results, as you can "massage" the video quite a bit.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Bigg said:


> It's different. Comcast recent STB's don't encode. Period. The older ones that do are only encoding analog SD, and even they don't use it anymore, and everything is digital. Moving to HD, Comcast's encoders are dynamic in that they balance bandwidth between the three QAM's, so that the bitrate between the three channels combined is always 38mbps, HOWEVER, it's not true VBR, as it can't surge bandwidth for fast motion in the same way that a downloaded file can, where you have a buffer.
> 
> Offline encoding always yields better results, as you can "massage" the video quite a bit.


Cool. I wonder how the TiVo with a cablecard does what you described.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Tivos just write the digital stream to the drive on digital channels. They do have to encode analog to digital for analog channels, that's why there are quality settings for them.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Mike-Wolf said:


> Cool. I wonder how the TiVo with a cablecard does what you described.





slowbiscuit said:


> Tivos just write the digital stream to the drive on digital channels. They do have to encode analog to digital for analog channels, that's why there are quality settings for them.


Correct. The exact same thing the cable company boxes are doing. The 2-tuner Premieres can also encode analog channels (if you have any that aren't broadcast digitally, which is exceedingly rare in 2013), and I think those are CBR with selectable quality, just like the old S2's, so in any scene with motion, especially water, the picture will just break into a bunch of giant macro-blocks, as the on-line encoders in a TiVo aren't nearly as good as what a cable company is doing, due to cost.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Actually the encoding done by the TiVo isn't too bad. But mainly because they use really high bitrates. At Best quality the use ~9Mbps to encode a 720x480i/29.97fps stream. At that resolution/bitrate combo you'd be hard pressed to see any macroblocking. By contrast the average cable company SD stream is the same resolution (or 704x480) but only 2.5-3Mbps.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Correct. The exact same thing the cable company boxes are doing. The 2-tuner Premieres can also encode analog channels (if you have any that aren't broadcast digitally, which is exceedingly rare in 2013), and I think those are CBR with selectable quality, just like the old S2's, so in any scene with motion, especially water, the picture will just break into a bunch of giant macro-blocks, as the on-line encoders in a TiVo aren't nearly as good as what a cable company is doing, due to cost.


Cool. I hope this isn't something can wear out over time with use


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> Actually the encoding done by the TiVo isn't too bad. But mainly because they use really high bitrates. At Best quality the use ~9Mbps to encode a 720x480i/29.97fps stream. At that resolution/bitrate combo you'd be hard pressed to see any macroblocking. By contrast the average cable company SD stream is the same resolution (or 704x480) but only 2.5-3Mbps.


I have to say that TiVo's image quality is absolutely the best I've seen to date with my Comcast service when compared to other devices on the exact same HDMI cable, exact same television, exact same coax cable in A/B and multivariate testing, with the same recorded and live content and the difference was noticeable. I'm pleased. :up:


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## stahta01 (Dec 23, 2001)

P42 said:


> Or just more channels of the same junk


I have faith; I believe it would result in more channels of *different* junk.

Tim S.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Actually the encoding done by the TiVo isn't too bad. But mainly because they use really high bitrates. At Best quality the use ~9Mbps to encode a 720x480i/29.97fps stream. At that resolution/bitrate combo you'd be hard pressed to see any macroblocking. By contrast the average cable company SD stream is the same resolution (or 704x480) but only 2.5-3Mbps.


Did they just throw more bits at it on the Premeire? Or a better encoder? I remember the S2's were downright ugly in anything with water, the whole screen would turn into moving squares.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Bigg said:


> Did they just throw more bits at it on the Premeire? Or a better encoder? I remember the S2's were downright ugly in anything with water, the whole screen would turn into moving squares.


It depended on the quality setting. I used High on my old S2 and thought the picture looked fine. I never had a problem with macroblocking.


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## Mike-Wolf (Feb 25, 2013)

http://www.homeboxoffice.com/to/Recently_Updated/HBO_MPEG4_HD_Tech_Summary_B2B_20080916.pdf came across this.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Mike-Wolf said:


> http://www.homeboxoffice.com/to/Recently_Updated/HBO_MPEG4_HD_Tech_Summary_B2B_20080916.pdf came across this.


Why dredge up a 4 1/2 year old press release? HBO has been transmitting in MPEG-4 for years now.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

morac said:


> It depended on the quality setting. I used High on my old S2 and thought the picture looked fine. I never had a problem with macroblocking.


Same experience here on our S1's. I don't recall any real issues with macroblocking either using High as our default recording quality.

Scott


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> Did they just throw more bits at it on the Premeire? Or a better encoder? I remember the S2's were downright ugly in anything with water, the whole screen would turn into moving squares.


They use higher resolution. On the old S2 units they used 480x480 for best. On the HD units they switched to 720x480 and slightly higher bitrates. The extra resolution, coupled with the better decoding circuits, probably contribute to better perceived quality.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> They use higher resolution. On the old S2 units they used 480x480 for best.


544x480.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

480x480 was the old DirecTV SD resolution, wasn't it?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> They use higher resolution. On the old S2 units they used 480x480 for best. On the HD units they switched to 720x480 and slightly higher bitrates. The extra resolution, coupled with the better decoding circuits, probably contribute to better perceived quality.


Makes sense since they had bigger drives.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmcbrine said:


> 544x480.


Only when connected to a DSS receiver via S-Video and recording at Best. For direct cable or composite video they used 480x480 for Best and High and 352x480 for Med and Basic



Arcady said:


> 480x480 was the old DirecTV SD resolution, wasn't it?


The reason they used that is because that's roughly the resolution of an analog NTSC signal. It doesn't translate directly to digital pixels but 480x480 was close.

The DirecTV signal was 544x480 which is why TiVo used that when recording from a DSS receiver connected via S-Video.


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