# A Tivo HD unit for Satellite or IPTV service



## vtek63 (Apr 25, 2008)

I would like to see a Tivo HD unit that can support input from a HDMI or component source which would work with satellite or iptv providers.

Thanks!


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

The uncompressed digital stream from the HDMI port can have a bit rate as high as 3 Gbps. That would fill up a 1TB hard drive in less than 45 minutes, that is if there were any drive on Earth capable of writing a sustained 3Gbps. There isn't. That means the device in question would have to compress a 3Gbps stream to some reasonable number, like 20 Mbps - a compression ratio of over 150:1, in real time. That would be some major heavy duty hardware, and I doubt it could be put together for even $50,000. I don't think there are a lot of people out there who want to pay over $50,000 for a DVR.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Hauppauge has a consumer level device (sells for $300 or so, I think) that can record HD component and digital audio. It stands to reason TiVo could build the same technology into a future TiVo. Whether they can get the rights to adapt that to HDMI with HDCP would remain to be seen.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

classicsat said:


> Hauppauge has a consumer level device (sells for $300 or so, I think) that can record HD component and digital audio. It stands to reason TiVo could build the same technology into a future TiVo. Whether they can get the rights to adapt that to HDMI with HDCP would remain to be seen.


There is a *HUGE* difference between an analog HD stream and an uncompressed digital HD stream. 'Not that recording a full 1080i analog stream is a piece of cake, mind you, but it is at least an order of magnitude easier than a real-time 150:1 compression on a 3 Gbps digital stream. The HDCP issue is of course real, as well. I suppose one could take the HDMI inpput, convert it to analog and then convert the analog back to compressed digital, but the results might not be the best on Earth.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

There are HDMI capture devices that can record 1080i HD signals from HDMI in realtime, encoding into H.264. It can be done, and it isn't '$50,000'. They're under $1,000. And, of course, there are HDCP limitations. There are more devices that can record component video, up to 1080i, again into H.264. Those devices range from ~$300 to ~$1000. It would make for a more expensive TiVo. Adding the hardware to do component capture would probably add at least $100 to the cost of a TiVo HD, probably at least $200. So TiVo has to weigh the costs of developing such a product with the market demand - is there enough ROI? Considering it'd be reduced to being a single tuner - unless you added two sets of hardware, and that's more cost - that will constrict demand.

So it is certainly possible for TiVo to create such a product. The technology is here now, but it is still somewhat pricey. But those prices will come down rapidly as more chip vendors produce real-time HD encoders and competition takes effect. In the next year or two it should become affordable for TiVo to produce a reasonably priced DVR with component input. I don't think HDMI is worth it really - while technically fully possible, HDCP makes it highly problematic.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

And of course, such a TiVo would likely be single tuner.


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