Originally posted by Alan Gouger


I do not have a printer hooked to the PC im using but I do do everything else at the same time including serf the net and run my XM radio and nothing has interfered with each other. From my standpoint this is a very simple and easy to use and it just plain does what they claim. I made a numerous. I have made several HBO archives from Direct and they are flawless. This brings back memories of the good old days of the Dish 5000 with the modulator.


Great info - that was my biggest fear - that the USB bus would get overloaded with other devices.

Moved from the 169 to the R5000-HD thread... -R

Originally posted by mkerdman
R5000-HD

Instinctively, it seems a clip from The Soprano's or some other clearly HBO HD programming might have been preferable.

Yet, I can agree that if it was transmitted at 1080i by HBO-E*/D* a glitch would be glitch, no matter what was on the screen.

I viewed the Empire clips on a 1280 x 720P DLP projector as well as a 1366 x 768 (WXGA) Plasma and used a MyHD 120 DVI output as the playback source.

I found the black level deeper, the contrast sharper and the color better saturated on the E* version of EmpireRecords.

Another user independently confirmed to me he felt the same when viewed on his CRT HDTV.

Similarly, I prefer the 169Time results from a Dish 6000 to a DTC100.

However, the PQ debate as between E* and D* will never end, and, the difference is small to be sure.

On balance, I would like to see 30 minutes of a 1:78 "full" screen HBOHD film like Terminator 3, or similar, to best appreciate the R5000-HD.

Murray,
I'm currently uploading a 5 min. clip from hbo / D* (begining of a movie) so you can see something in original hi-def, not up-rez'd promos. I do have several Sopranos, all of which came out perfect (you'll have to take my word for it for now!) Also I beleive Alan has been very successful with his R5000 D* recordings from hbo so far. I don't know what the problems were in the past but I yet to see any with my hbo tests.

-R

Originally posted by mikey p

Concur, please start a thread for such debate, don't hijack existing threads 169Time or R5000-HD , just a opinion, which vary...... ;-)

Hmmm - it has become eerily silent since we stopped discussing off topic... perhaps because Alan and "R" are the only (?) people that have these things and most of the interesting questions have been asked....

It is going to be a long wait until August. Hopefully DIRECTV will have added more channels and there will be much rejoicing amongst the archive enthusiasts when we get our modded receivers! :)

Cheers!
DAve.

Actually, I have a new (I think) question...

Has the system been tried using USB through a USB extender/regenerator type cable?

I can't see why there would be any issues, but I am curious about USB performance through hubs and other such things, particularly extenders since the PC might not be close to the receiver in my set up.

Cheers!
DAve.

Originally posted by Phloyd
Actually, I have a new (I think) question...

Has the system been tried using USB through a USB extender/regenerator type cable?

I can't see why there would be any issues, but I am curious about USB performance through hubs and other such things, particularly extenders since the PC might not be close to the receiver in my set up.

Cheers!
DAve.

Dave,
As long as the hub /extender, etc., supports USB 2.0 there shouldn't be any problems. However, bear in mind that a hub can only communicate to and from the pc at 480Mb/s, max. so if you have numerous high through-put devices that require real-time transfers all connected to that hub you could potentially loose data.

-R

Originally posted by R5000-HD

Pricing and Availability
MSRP $999
AVS Forum discount available for members registered before 2/11/04.


R5000,

Has the above mentioned AVS Forum members discount been determined?

TIA

Sorry to ask again but... will the software have a command line interface? How about the likelyhood of this mod being done to the cband HDD-200 box?

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Moved from the 169 to the R5000-HD thread... -R



Murray,
I'm currently uploading a 5 min. clip from hbo / D* (begining of a movie) so you can see something in original hi-def, not up-rez'd promos. I do have several Sopranos, all of which came out perfect (you'll have to take my word for it for now!) Also I beleive Alan has been very successful with his R5000 D* recordings from hbo so far. I don't know what the problems were in the past but I yet to see any with my hbo tests.

-R


-R

I'll download it today.

I downloaded the file a few nights ago, and got a corrupted file when I tried to unzip it.

R5000-HD

I was able to successfully download the latest file, and also ran it through the hash check program.

I played it back only through the Roku decoder. There were three audio glitches noted. Two were during the trailers, preceding the movie, and one was during the HBO "Feature" intro. Also, the audio was in surround and not 5.1.

I played it twice, and got the glitches in exactly the spots each time.

Can someone else confirm my findings?

Originally posted by Ron Tobin
R5000-HD

I was able to successfully download the latest file, and also ran it through the hash check program.

I played it back only through the Roku decoder. There were three audio glitches noted. Two were during the trailers, preceding the movie, and one was during the HBO "Feature" intro. Also, the audio was in surround and not 5.1.

I played it twice, and got the glitches in exactly the spots each time.

Can someone else confirm my findings?

Ron,
Thanks for the eval. I'll look into it. The location where we do the Directv sample recordings does not have a roku so it was only checked on MyHD. I'll download it and check it out. MyHD seem to be the most picky for video. On the other hand, the roku is very picky about audio timing. Early recordings (including some on kevin's site) had audio glitches on the roku, but adjusting the re-muxer parameters fixed the problem. I'll verify that the parameters on the latest build are correct. Also note that the roku will cause a glitch whenever the audio switches from 2.0 to 5.1 and back.

Just so we're on the same page, what file did you use?


-R

Originally posted by HookedOnTV
Sorry to ask again but... will the software have a command line interface? How about the likelyhood of this mod being done to the cband HDD-200 box?


It is possible that we may support the HDD-200 box, but at this time we haven't seen it nor have we done any testing with it. As far as a command line i/f, it won't be available in the first version sw but we may add it at a later time if there appears to be enough demand. The same holds true for the c-band box (obviously there would have to be enough interset to warrant the additional r&d time). So I guess the answer to both questions is "Possibly, at a later time". Thanks for the interest.

-R

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Ron,
Thanks for the eval. I'll look into it. The location where we do the Directv sample recordings does not have a roku so it was only checked on MyHD. I'll download it and check it out. MyHD seem to be the most picky for video. On the other hand, the roku is very picky about audio timing. Early recordings (including some on kevin's site) had audio glitches on the roku, but adjusting the re-muxer parameters fixed the problem. I'll verify that the parameters on the latest build are correct. Also note that the roku will cause a glitch whenever the audio switches from 2.0 to 5.1 and back.

Just so we're on the same page, what file did you use?


-R

-R

I used HBOHD061504. Also, as reported above, the audio never switched to 5.1. My audio processor (B&K Ref 50) stayed on Prologic through the entire clip.

Originally posted by mkerdman
-R

I'll download it today.

I missed something along the line here.

Where are you downloading these samples from and what thread was this discussed in?

I thought this was the official 5000 thread.


Joe

I believe they may be beta testers.

Here's some graphs of the objective picture quality of the same movie from
both Dish and DirecTV. The plot is of average quantization per frame, where
lower numbers mean better picture quality.

Note that the Harmonic/Divicom encoder used for both clips has the minimum
quantization for I-frames set at 3.5, which tends to dominate the graph.

There's no doubt that the Dish clip has better encoding quality. However,
this material is pretty easy, so it would be difficult to tell the
difference visually.

The DirecTV clip does have inverse telecine enabled. However, the encoder
is losing the cadence a lot. There are still quite a few interlaced frames
in the sequence.

Ron

The DirecTV graph.

Ron

Ron,

Thanks for the graphs.

For those of us who are not as technically knowledgeable as you, could you please explain why lower average quantization per frame means a better picture?

In addition, what is the significance of your observations about inverse telecine encoding (or lack thereof)? How does it affect those of us who intend to deinterlace/scale our recordings to 720p or 1080p?

Originally posted by Ron Tobin
R5000-HD

I was able to successfully download the latest file, and also ran it through the hash check program.

I played it back only through the Roku decoder. There were three audio glitches noted. Two were during the trailers, preceding the movie, and one was during the HBO "Feature" intro. Also, the audio was in surround and not 5.1.

I played it twice, and got the glitches in exactly the spots each time.

Can someone else confirm my findings?

Ron,

Doh! You're right, I downloaded it and checked it out. I found 6 audio glitches when I played it on the roku->SPDIF->Sony 4DAES. It plays fine on MyHD. It turns out that the clip was recorded in compressed mode. Compress mode automatically strips out the null packets. The resulting TS file is variable rate. Many decoders don't like to play null stripped files. We're wokring on a minimum bitrate version that will reduce the number of null packets, but still produce a constant bitrate TS file. I'll ask kevin to rename file file to indicate the clip was null stripped. We'll upload a clip on Monday that is constant bit rate. Sorry about the confusion.

Thanks for taking the time to evaluate our test clips.

-R

I was looking at my computer's cpu usage today while recording with MyHD and the CapDVHS Program.

I noticed the CapDVHS program took a very minimal cpu usage (around 2%-3%) While MyHD took cpu usage for itself and the system upwards of around 27%-30%. As MyHD is hardware based in the computer, 9t clearly takes more processing power than just a firewire feed.

My HTPC is an Intel 3.2G with 1Gig of Ram.

Out of curiosity, what kind of cpu usage do you see on your system when using the R5000-HD to capture a stream and which processor/ram are you using?

HDTVFanAtic--

It sounds like you have MyHD's desktop preview overlay window active during your capture. With a 3+GHz system, you should see a lot lower CPU use if you turn off the overlay to give a more apples-to-apples comparison with CapDVHS, etc.

Don't get me wrong - I understand the card is in the computer on the main bus so I know it's going to be higher than having a firewire feed from the outside....or I would hope so.

I am really not trying to get comparison of MyHD - only to find out what type of CPU this option usually takes up.

Capturing plus writing to HDD with MyHD should take only a few percent of CPU using typical current hardware--iff the overlay is off.

Does the R5000-HD modification contain an IR emitter port & IR emitter cable that changes channels on the STB in accordance with the program scheduled for recording through Zap2it.com on the PC?

If so, is the code able to address Dish 6000 IR code addresses 1-9?

Murray

What are the effects to the captured stream when you change from one HD channel to another while recording? I'd hate to ruin a recording if I changed channels by accident.

Is it possible to allow all of us to download clips? John

I guess its time to answer a few questions...

Originally posted by HDTVFanAtic
Out of curiosity, what kind of cpu usage do you see on your system when using the R5000-HD to capture a stream and which processor/ram are you using?

I am using a P4, 1.8G, 640MB. The R5000 alone uses about 25-30% cpu usage. Starting MyHD to timeshift (playback while recording at the same time) makes the total 40-50% usage (overlay off) or 91-100% (overlay on). No data loss was evident through the 100% usage peaks.

Originally posted by mkerdman
Does the R5000-HD modification contain an IR emitter port & IR emitter cable that changes channels on the STB in accordance with the program scheduled for recording through Zap2it.com on the PC?

If so, is the code able to address Dish 6000 IR code addresses 1-9?

Murray

The R5000-HD has ir sending and receiving capability. It will be integrated into the STB (no external IR diode or detector). The R5000 will respond to events scheduled on the STB or from zap2it via the "rec" links. A separate PVR app will hadle the zap2it requests and will be available soon for beta. We will be supporting the multiple remote address codes as well.


Originally posted by taz291819
What are the effects to the captured stream when you change from one HD channel to another while recording? I'd hate to ruin a recording if I changed channels by accident.

The re-muxing sw should recover and restart the stream. However, playback will most likely be broken (several second black hole). This is an unpredictable situation and different decoders will respond to it in different ways. You should avoid doing this!


Originally posted by ctdish
Is it possible to allow all of us to download clips? John

That is up to the owner of that server. We do not currently maintain a server for this purpose.

Originally posted by ctdish
Is it possible to allow all of us to download clips? John

John, I just sent you a PM with the info on downloading the sample clips. I don't want to post the site info publicly. If anyone else wants to download the sample clips, just send me a PM.

kevin

Originally posted by R5000-HD
I guess its time to answer a few questions...

I am using a P4, 1.8G, 640MB. The R5000 alone uses about 25-30% cpu usage. Starting MyHD to timeshift (playback while recording at the same time) makes the total 40-50% usage (overlay off) or 91-100% (overlay on). No data loss was evident through the 100% usage peaks.



-R

Are Atholon XP 2500+ processors and Motherboards with VIA chip sets likely to work as trouble free host PC's for the R5000-HD application and USB connection?

Originally posted by TPeterson
Capturing plus writing to HDD with MyHD should take only a few percent of CPU using typical current hardware--iff the overlay is off.

The comparison for throughput requirements I like to use now is the new HD-TIVO.

It has dual sat and OTA tuners.

The drive in it is a 5400 Maxtor 250 GB drive. It uses a Mips processor but I do not know the speed but it certainly is nothing like the P4 3 Ghz CPU cause the fastest MIPS processor gets smoked by the P4 in single CPU benchmarks.


The HD-TIVO can simultaneosly record 2 High Def def shows AND playback a pre-recorded one. Except for the red record light being on, you can not tell that it is doing all 3 things at the same time.

Originally posted by R5000-HD
I guess its time to answer a few questions...





Before I start down the path of 'allowing' my HD-TIVO to do the same thing as your modified STB (Which I can do for around $100 but invalidates the warranty), have you settled on a price for avsforum memebrs?

I have almostall the required stuff - PC,MYHD,MITS D-VHS,firewire and 2 spare leads on the Directv dish so I am only talking about the price for what YOU will be selling.

I know this has been answered but this thread has grown too long to find it so 1) who supplies the STB and 2) which Directv STB is the recommended one?

Joe

Originally posted by Joe Q
I know this has been answered but this thread has grown too long to find it so 1) who supplies the STB and 2) which Directv STB is the recommended one?

Joe

First post.

Originally posted by R5000-HD
I guess its time to answer a few questions...



I am using a P4, 1.8G, 640MB. The R5000 alone uses about 25-30% cpu usage. Starting MyHD to timeshift (playback while recording at the same time) makes the total 40-50% usage (overlay off) or 91-100% (overlay on). No data loss was evident through the 100% usage peaks.




Thanks - is it running that high due to error trapping in the beta software or do you expect the R5000 to use that much overall in the final release?

Originally posted by HDTVFanAtic
Thanks - is it running that high due to error trapping in the beta software or do you expect the R5000 to use that much overall in the final release?

I don't think that is very high. We were very happy to see it averaging below 30%. Code optimized for final release will probably run a little cooler, but not by a lot.

I have a question.

What is the life expectancy of the receivers listed on the first page, I mean what is preventing Dish or Directv from shutting those receivers down in a year?

With respect to DirecTV, I have not heard of them shutting down any of the early receivers. If someone else has better information, please let us know.

Here is a question: Since you are able to change channels and receive a stream from this modification, have you considered writing a BDA driver (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/directx9_c/directx/htm/bdafilterinterfaces.asp) for the interface? That would allow it to plug directly into applications like Windows Media Center edition, which would be amazingly cool.

Short of a full BDA driver wrapper, are there DirectShow interaces for the MPEG stream?

Originally posted by stgdz
I have a question.

What is the life expectancy of the receivers listed on the first page, I mean what is preventing Dish or Directv from shutting those receivers down in a year?

Short answer: absolutely nothing. Long answer: E* swithced over their modulation scheme recently to get more bandwidth so they should be set for quite a while. Any change for them at this point would require a major (and unecessary) $$ outlay. D* is not using 8PSK so if they run out of room on their transponders they may contemplate changing modulation. However, their customer base is much larger than E* and while it is possible for D* to have been shipping boxes capable of demodulating 8PSK for the last 6+ months, that still leaves millions of older STBs that would need to be swapped out. If they do it, I would think it would have to be phased-in or co-exist (they may add new HD channels that are 8PSK, but it wouldn't be easy to just switch everything over).

Originally posted by jamesmil
Here is a question: Since you are able to change channels and receive a stream from this modification, have you considered writing a BDA driver (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/directx9_c/directx/htm/bdafilterinterfaces.asp) for the interface? That would allow it to plug directly into applications like Windows Media Center edition, which would be amazingly cool.

Short of a full BDA driver wrapper, are there DirectShow interaces for the MPEG stream?

We have thought about DirectShow /DirectX interfacing. I am not familiar with the "BDA" terminology but it seems like they both offer similar results (allowing other apps to access the R5000, e.g. like a tuner/capture card). It is on our list but is probably further down the road in terms of development. PVR functionality and other things that a lot of folks have asked for are getting higher priority.

We have thought about DirectShow /DirectX interfacing. I am not familiar with the "BDA" terminology but it seems like they both offer similar results (allowing other apps to access the R5000, e.g. like a tuner/capture card). It is on our list but is probably further down the road in terms of development. PVR functionality and other things that a lot of folks have asked for are getting higher priority.

The thing is, allowing Directshow interfacing means that other people can do the work of getting other apps to access it and interfacing with it like a capture card. Once it has Directshow capability, it should be much less work to get it working with SageTV, BeyondTV, etc.

Please don't build an independant stand alone PVR application. This is the route most of the OTA HD capture cards have taken, and the results in my mind are suboptimal. Allowing other applications (such as the above) to interface with it means your card can leverage the significant development these companies have put into their software. As a bonus, the consumer gets to have one application control HD, SD, DVD, etc.. It's the Holy Grail of HTPCs as far as I'm concerned.

Originally posted by jjarmoc
The thing is, allowing Directshow interfacing means that other people can do the work of getting other apps to access it and interfacing with it like a capture card. Once it has Directshow capability, it should be much less work to get it working with SageTV, BeyondTV, etc.

Please don't build an independant stand alone PVR application. This is the route most of the OTA HD capture cards have taken, and the results in my mind are suboptimal. Allowing other applications (such as the above) to interface with it means your card can leverage the significant development these companies have put into their software. As a bonus, the consumer gets to have one application control HD, SD, DVD, etc.. It's the Holy Grail of HTPCs as far as I'm concerned.

I don't use SageTV, BeyondTV, or any of those, but I see your point, it would be nice to allow Directshow interfacing.

Unless of course they are working on something with MIT and the MyHD software, though I'm biased since I have a MyHD card. Hopefully Cliff or Kei can pursade the guys at MIT to incorporate the PVR functions.

Originally posted by taz291819
I don't use SageTV, BeyondTV, or any of those, but I see your point, it would be nice to allow Directshow interfacing.


If Nextcom makes the R5000-HD accessible for development and porting to other PVR front-end software/hardware and EPG services, they would be wise to do so in an agnostic way so that many such products/services (i.e. MyHD, accessDTV, SageTV, BeyondTV) could be made to be R5000-HD enabled.

Originally posted by mkerdman
If Nextcom makes the R5000-HD accessible for development and porting to other PVR front-end software/hardware and EPG services, they would be wise to do so in agnostic way so that many such products/services (i.e. MyHD, accessDTV, SageTV, BeyondTV) could be made to be R5000-HD enabled.

Agreed.

Originally posted by mkerdman
If Nextcom makes the R5000-HD accessible for development and porting to other PVR front-end software/hardware and EPG services, they would be wise to do so in agnostic way so that many such products/services (i.e. MyHD, accessDTV, SageTV, BeyondTV) could be made to be R5000-HD enabled. second'd

This would definately be a great thing for the HTPC.

Originally posted by jjarmoc
The thing is, allowing Directshow interfacing means that other people can do the work of getting other apps to access it and interfacing with it like a capture card. Once it has Directshow capability, it should be much less work to get it working with SageTV, BeyondTV, etc.

Please don't build an independant stand alone PVR application. This is the route most of the OTA HD capture cards have taken, and the results in my mind are suboptimal. Allowing other applications (such as the above) to interface with it means your card can leverage the significant development these companies have put into their software. As a bonus, the consumer gets to have one application control HD, SD, DVD, etc.. It's the Holy Grail of HTPCs as far as I'm concerned.

Too late! But if you think about it from a developers point of view it makes sense NOT to build in a Directshow i/f, at least not initially. You want to have a platform with as few layers as possible so that it is robust, easy to test and debug. With Directshow you have to specify that the user has the proper Windows components & version installed in addition to one of the apps you mentioned. With our stand-alone app the requirements are much simpler. For beta testing it would spell disaster - are the problems coming from improperly installed DirectX components, incompatabilities with SageTV, etc, etc. More things must work successfully in concert. So, that's why we have left Directshow development for later. IMHO I think our stand alone app is pretty good -It may not look fancy but its easy to use and does what its supposed to! But by no means are we closing the door to using Directshow. We do hope to be supporting it at some point...

R5000-HD:

Any idea as to when you will have your Website up and running?

Originally posted by R5000-HD
You want to have a platform with as few layers as possible so that it is robust, easy to test and debug. With Directshow you have to specify that the user has the proper Windows components & version installed in addition to one of the apps you mentioned. With our stand-alone app the requirements are much simpler.

-R

I have to agree.

As much as I would like options described above, I would vastly prefer the reliability of a single-purpose Linux-like appliance when scheduling and firing a string of back-to-back recording events, which is essentially what the D* DirecTivo and E* DVR's are.

Having multiple front-end schedulers is far less important that having rock solid predictable scheduled recording execution.

Simple, reliable, every time.

The emphasis on file compatibility makes the possibility of a wide variety of the R5000-HD's transport streams playback and archival alternatives on all industry standardized software/hardware.

Originally posted by RickD_99
R5000-HD:

Any idea as to when you will have your Website up and running?

Could have something up near the end of next week. Anything specific I can help you with in the mean time? If not something you wanna share, send me a pm.

-R

Just to let people know about the playback of the recorded files, the two I tried played great. I'm not a beta tester for the R5000, but I wanted to see for myself the playback of the recorded streams. I dl'ed the EmpireDirecTv file (since I watched it on HDNetMovies) and the HBODirectv6.15 file. As I said, both played back just fine on my MDP-100 MyHD card.

I'm really looking forward to this solution, just in time for NFL season.

Edit:
BTW, FWIW, last month I dl'ed one of the HBO (DirecTv) files recorded with the 169Time solution and it would not playback via my MDP-100.

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Short answer: absolutely nothing. Long answer: E* swithced over their modulation scheme recently to get more bandwidth so they should be set for quite a while. Any change for them at this point would require a major (and unecessary) $$ outlay. D* is not using 8PSK so if they run out of room on their transponders they may contemplate changing modulation. However, their customer base is much larger than E* and while it is possible for D* to have been shipping boxes capable of demodulating 8PSK for the last 6+ months, that still leaves millions of older STBs that would need to be swapped out. If they do it,

I would think it would have to be phased-in or co-exist (they may add new HD channels that are 8PSK, but it wouldn't be easy to just switch everything over).

D* could certainly do exactly what E* did and change all current HD as well as new HD to 8PSK. Their installed HD base is probably pretty small like E*'s is. They probably could not care less if every one of their HD customers left, just like E*.

I'm glad I have E* and a couple of 6000's. I can't wait for the R5000-HD!

Mark

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Joe Q
[B]Before I start down the path of 'allowing' my HD-TIVO to do the same thing as your modified STB (Which I can do for around $100 but invalidates the warranty), have you settled on a price for avsforum memebrs?

If I may, I would like to echo the same question asked by Joe Q. Some of us just got HD Tvos and are thinking about upgrading with additional and/or larger hard drives. These upgrades will cost us money. Perhaps, if we are given an idea of how much the mods to our receivers would be, we would refrain from upgrading our Tivos. You don't have to make a commitment! Just a ballpark figure so that we can start thinking and planning what we are going to do. Thanks!

Joe, I noticed that the HD Tivo has two USB connectors on the back. Any idea what they will be used for in the future? Thanks!

MF70,

I don't think that Joe Q is doing modifications for people. However, if you want to learn about modifications to Tivos, including the HD-Tivo, a good place to look is here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/). I don't think the moderators would permit such discussion on this forum.

Originally posted by MF70
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Joe Q
[B]Before I start down the path of 'allowing' my HD-TIVO to do the same thing as your modified STB (Which I can do for around $100 but invalidates the warranty), have you settled on a price for avsforum memebrs?

If I may, I would like to echo the same question asked by Joe Q. Some of us just got HD Tvos and are thinking about upgrading with additional and/or larger hard drives. These upgrades will cost us money. Perhaps, if we are given an idea of how much the mods to our receivers would be, we would refrain from upgrading our Tivos. You don't have to make a commitment! Just a ballpark figure so that we can start thinking and planning what we are going to do. Thanks!

The member discount price has not been settled on yet, but suffice to say it not going to be significant enough that it should affect your decision. The MSRP is $1K and demand is pretty high, so I think you can draw your own conclusions!

The Tivo and the R5000-HD really fulfill different needs. While the Tivo is a great product for what it is, it really doesn't help the folks who want to be able to permanently archive material and then conveniently play it back with any decoder/monitor combination anywhere they want. The R5000 does everything Tivo does except search out and record shows based on viewing prefs. In addition the R5000 allows you to easilly archive unlimited amounts of material either to hard disk or DVHS (DVHS uses 3rd party sw). I think those distinctions should really be the driving force behind your decision, excluding of course, those comprimises that must be made for budgetary reasons :(

Originally posted by R5000-HD
The R5000 does everything Tivo does except search out and record shows based on viewing prefs.Well, two R5000s comes closer to doing what a Tivo can do from a recording perspective.

Also, I don't know if it's been discussed much, but how complex is the actual PVR software? Does it follow a show around when its schedule changes? Does it let you decide in advance what gets recorded if shows wind up conflicting? Can you configure it to skip reruns? Can it buffer live tv, and then let you convert the buffered show into a recording (and finish recording the rest of the show with the previously buffered part)? Can you extend a recording that's in progress if you see that it's going to run beyond the scheduled time? Can you set up an auto-record based upon a favorite actor, move title, sports team, etc., across all available channels?

I'm just curious how much of "everything Tivo does" is actually going to be done by the R5000.

Let's say you are recording and using a MyHD for near live playback. If you change the channel on the sat receiver does everything keep going or do you have to stop/start the recording app and/or stop/start the MyHD playback?

Originally posted by HookedOnTV
Let's say you are recording and using a MyHD for near live playback. If you change the channel on the sat receiver does everything keep going or do you have to stop/start the recording app and/or stop/start the MyHD playback?

I've asked that already, just a different way. The response was not to change the channel.:D

Originally posted by BrettStah
Well, two R5000s comes closer to doing what a Tivo can do from a recording perspective.

Also, I don't know if it's been discussed much, but how complex is the actual PVR software? Does it follow a show around when its schedule changes?

No, When I said it can't record based on user's prefs, the implication is that it isn't "smart". It can't make any recording decisions for you.

Does it let you decide in advance what gets recorded if shows wind up conflicting?
Yes, it won't let you schedule a conflict.
Can you configure it to skip reruns?
Doesn't really apply, see first answer.

Can it buffer live tv, and then let you convert the buffered show into a recording (and finish recording the rest of the show with the previously buffered part)?
Yes, you can use it to time shift. I'm not sure I correctly understand the second part, but you can join 2 clips recorded in different sessions using 3rd party editing/joining sw.
Can you extend a recording that's in progress if you see that it's going to run beyond the scheduled time?
Yes.
Can you set up an auto-record based upon a favorite actor, move title, sports team, etc., across all available channels?
No. As already stated, it cannot record based on your prefs.

I'm just curious how much of "everything Tivo does" is actually going to be done by the R5000.

Eventualy, probably everything and more. The R5000 is a product in its infancy. In the coming months after its introduction we plan on increasing its functionality based largely upon our customers suggetions. It is very possible that it will fully duplicate Tivo's intellegent recording capabilities. I have already seen apps that can automaticaly "crawl" TV schedule sites and retrieve programming info for PVRs. It wouldn't be much of a programming strech to add the ability to hunt & fetch programs based on actor, title, team, etc (if it hasn't been done already). I don't know if Tivo still requires a subscription fee for schedule info, but this, of course, would be free. A few of you out there have already suggested that we allow the R5000-HD to interface with some of these apps.

The main goal of the R5000 is to record perfect transport streams that are fully compatible and portable -playable with just about any decoder available. That was the hard part (and something Tivo will probably never provide)! Now come the fun part; adding the bells and whistles. I won't be suprised if the functionality grows to the point where it far exceeds that of Tivo!

R5000, thanks for the answers. I agree with your main goal, which I think may conflict with the secondary goal of writing PVR software. The suggestions made before about making your product compatible with existing PVR software products seems more and more like a good idea for everyone... you guys can focus on your main goal of getting your product stable in its ability "to record perfect transport streams that are fully compatible and portable", while the MythTV, SageTV, and other PVR software projects focus on the PVR stuff. I understand the need to test your product without a lot of additional layers and stuff getting in the way though.

Originally posted by stjr
MF70,

I don't think that Joe Q is doing modifications for people. However, if you want to learn about modifications to Tivos, including the HD-Tivo, a good place to look is here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/). I don't think the moderators would permit such discussion on this forum.

Please, read my post again. Where did I imply that Joe was doing modifications for people? And why should the moderators object to my post? Upgrading the recording capacity of a Tivo unit is objectionable? Have you accessed the Tivo upgrade thread on the Tivo forum? And why did you feel that it was your responsibility to respond to my post? Because you are an "advanced member of the forum"? I suggest that we do eachother a favor: you don't read my posts, and I won't read yours!

Originally posted by MF70
Please, read my post again. Where did I imply that Joe was doing modifications for people? And why should the moderators object to my post? Upgrading the recording capacity of a Tivo unit is objectionable? Have you accessed the Tivo upgrade thread on the Tivo forum? And why did you feel that it was your responsibility to respond to my post? Because you are an "advanced member of the forum"? I suggest that we do eachother a favor: you don't read my posts, and I won't read yours!

I believe what stjr meant when he said the moderators don't allow the discussion, is the discussion of extracting video from a Tivo. I'm not exactly sure why it is forbidden, since discussions of backing up dvds is just fine (which we all know is illegal), but for some reason it is.

BTW, if you do go to that site mentioned, be sure to READ, READ, READ before posting a question, they can get kinda nasty over there.

I believe what stjr meant when he said the moderators don't allow the discussion, is the discussion of extracting video from a Tivo. That's exactly what I meant.

Out of curiosity, why do the moderators object to extracting video out of Tivo, but don't object to extracting video out of other STBs (such as the R5000 mod will allow)?

I am sorry. I did not intend to hijackthis thread nor start a word war among the members.

We all know that the R5000 will NEVER be able to come close to having the functionality you all were asking about on the TIVO.

Just look at the DISH 921 (which I did own for over 2 months). Add firewire to that (never going to happen) and you have an R5000.

The 921 took how many years to come to market?
What was released to the public was such a bug ridden product that (plus the reneging of the firewire) I sold it, bought an HD-TIVO and switched to Directv.



Those that know me, know that I am not new to these small company High Definition products and my experience has become one of extreme scepticism.

I know it is not popular but I approach the R-5000 with that same level of skepticism.
This is the HTPC forum so you all are familiar with the trials and tribulations many of us have gone through with these HD 'devices'.

About the HD-TIVO, I acomplished what I want which is to make people aware that this great piece of gear is actively being worked on and is performing the same function of the R-5000 but with all the great TIVO features that the r-5000 will never have.
Some features it will NEVER have because they are patented by TIVO.


It is not 100% perfect yet but I will say that I just watched an HD snippet from the HD-TIVO on my MYHD card in native DD5.1 and native 1080i.


It does require a mod + SW added that can be done (not by me) for $100.

By making people aware, merely look for the post by str to MF70 that has the 'here' as a link.
And yes, put on your flack jacket cause a lot of the folks in there are not like you are used to in avsforum with the friendly group we have because we are mere mortals:)

Last word on this subject but PM's are never objected to and I manged to type this whole thing without ever using the ex**** word.


Joe

Originally posted by jamesmil
Out of curiosity, why do the moderators object to extracting video out of Tivo, but don't object to extracting video out of other STBs (such as the R5000 mod will allow)? Because Tivo asked them not to, and they sponser the www.tivocommunity.com forum?

Originally posted by Joe Q
I am sorry. I did not intend to hijackthis thread nor start a word war among the members.

We all know that the R5000 will NEVER be able to come close to having the functionality you all were asking about on the TIVO.

Just look at the DISH 921 (which I did own for over 2 months). Add firewire to that (never going to happen) and you have an R5000.

The 921 took how many years to come to market?
What was released to the public was such a bug ridden product that (plus the reneging of the firewire) I sold it, bought an HD-TIVO and switched to Directv.



Those that know me, know that I am not new to these small company High Definition products and my experience has become one of extreme scepticism.

I know it is not popular but I approach the R-5000 with that same level of skepticism.
This is the HTPC forum so you all are familiar with the trials and tribulations many of us have gone through with these HD 'devices'.

About the HD-TIVO, I acomplished what I want which is to make people aware that this great piece of gear is actively being worked on and is performing the same function of the R-5000 but with all the great TIVO features that the r-5000 will never have.
Some features it will NEVER have because they are patented by TIVO.


It is not 100% perfect yet but I will say that I just watched an HD snippet from the HD-TIVO on my MYHD card in native DD5.1 and native 1080i.


It does require a mod + SW added that can be done (not by me) for $100.

By making people aware, merely look for the post by str to MF70 that has the 'here' as a link.
And yes, put on your flack jacket cause a lot of the folks in there are not like you are used to in avsforum with the friendly group we have because we are mere mortals:)

Last word on this subject but PM's are never objected to and I manged to type this whole thing without ever using the ex**** word.


Joe

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Joe. Its always nice to be condemned before even officialy releasing a product.

I heard a report on NPR a few weeks back that basically said Tivo is stuggling to survive. There are so many devices and solutions coming out that duplicate its functionality and are stealing away its market share (I guess they all must be stealing those patents). Also, hasn't D*, Tivos biggest single customer decided to drop them?

BTW, I haven't watched any "snippets" recorded via the R5000 that are "not 100% perfect" via MyHD. I have however recorded and watched full-length programs that ARE 100% perfect (in native rez & 5.1).

-R

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Also, hasn't D*, Tivos biggest single customer decided to drop them?


I was not going to reply but I can not let incorrect statements become rumors.

TIVO is not getting dropped by Directv.
Directv is making financial moves to make them more profitable so it is divesting all of it's financial interests in EVERYTHING except it's Sateliite service.




Quote from the paper:
"DirecTV spokesman Bob Marsocci confirmed the recent sale of 3.4 million shares in TiVo for $24 million, but denied it indicates a change in the companies' relationship.

"It's consistent with what we have done earlier this year in liquidating some of our portfolio of investments," Marsocci said. DirecTV sold its entire stake in XM Satellite Radio earlier this year.

"We still have a strong relationship with TiVo. TiVo is an important product for us and continues to be so," he said. "


Also, i am sorry you feel this way: "Its always nice to be condemned before even officialy releasing a product."

I have become quite cynical over these past 4 years because I have lived through the pain of owning quite a number of these 'bleeding edge' High Definition products and was merely expressing that concern.

Now back to working on my D-VHS and HD-TIVO tools

Joe

Well, there is nothing wrong with a little healthy skepticism :)

-R, I think that having the likes of Alan and other AVS members beta testing and saying good things will go a long way towards encouraging us with respect to quality and reliability on the RS5000.

Still, you are up against a history of sadness and gnashing of teeth for many with expensive aftermarket modifications by small companies to STB's... nuff said? ;)

In any case, I for one am eagerly anticipating my opportunity to get this stuff up and running.

Also, TiVo is a great company and I sincerely hope that they also are successful. They pioneered in the PVR space and showed us all what is possible. I would rank my TiVo as possibly the most "life changing" item I have purchased. I hope that any other owners of DIRECTiVo will make their feelings known if DIRECTV ever try to terminate our TiVo service.

Cheers!
DAve.

The more I think about this R5000 product, the more I like the idea of it involving the use of a PC for initial capture of the transport stream. I've got a collection of ~200 HBO/Showtime D-VHS HD tapes captured using the Dish 5000/HD modulator combo, and many of those tapes have HBO/Showtime promo materials at the beginning of the tape due to the fact that I liked to add a 5 minute buffer to the beginning record time for each event I wanted to archive. With the R5000 initially only supporting direct to PC recording, we can edit the captured streams exactly as we want them to be on the tape, and then easily transfer to tape using DVHSTools.

Plus, how many times have we eagerly anticipated an HD release on HBO/Showtime, only to discover that the so-called HD version is no better than the DVD version of the same movie? With the R5000 we can view the recorded tape via the HTPC, and then decide if the recorded material is worth archiving to a $7 tape!

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Joe. Its always nice to be condemned before even officialy releasing a product.

I heard a report on NPR a few weeks back that basically said Tivo is stuggling to survive. There are so many devices and solutions coming out that duplicate its functionality and are stealing away its market share (I guess they all must be stealing those patents). Also, hasn't D*, Tivos biggest single customer decided to drop them? -R

I don't think spreading FUD about TiVo is an effective way to promote your product. Tivo and your to-be-released product may overlap markets but I think were still talking two different groups here, those that archive and those that don't. I don't think this thread is supposed to be a pissing contest between two somewhat competing products and the mods should not allow you or any competing product to perpetuate rumors and or half-truths about competitors. IMO you were out of line.

"I don't think spreading FUD about TiVo is an effective way to......... "

I thought the mods already said just that? Actually seems someone tried to hijack this thread into a TiVo debate before. I'm sure we will hear from one or both shortly.................

Not that it matters, I do concur with Tomr on this issue, not only here but in the 169time, TiVo, or other product threads also. Could be a product debate thread is needed? Whoops that would be usergroup news. ROFLOL

Take care........ and be happy the COFDM god is not debating any of this.....

Lets keep Tivo out of this thread.

At the end of the day regardless "who says what" the 5000HD & Tivo will still have their dedicated customers.
Hopefully both Tivo and 5000HD clients will be very happy with their purchase, busy enjoying it not caring about comments from the other camp.

What is good as a whole is more options are coming to market:)

How long in terms of hours does it take you to modify a unit?

I am just curious if you are a single person operation or have several working with you?

My interest?

I am curious what kind of backlog you are planning to have with these mods?

Originally posted by HDTVFanAtic
How long in terms of hours does it take you to modify a unit?

I am just curious if you are a single person operation or have several working with you?

My interest?

I am curious what kind of backlog you are planning to have with these mods?

About all I can tell you is that we are doing what we can to have everything in place to accomodate our customers in a timely way. The actual mod to the STB does not take long to do, so the delay would be incurred waiting for a technician to process it. We will be gathering information from prospective customers via our website (up later this week), in order to guage the initial demand and be able to repsond to it accordingly.

-R

I feel like I'm camping out in front of a book store waiting for the Clinton book.

:D

Larry

For my two cents I wouldn't mind buying this if there was a simple linux tool set. Even if it was just command line to dump the TS stream. A couple 6000s with the mod + a couple pcHDTV cards and Myth would be a very cool AV Media Center indeed.

Three pages of post ago Kevin gave me access to R5000 files site. I downloaded the R-5000-glitch_free folder and decompressed them. In total there is about a half hour of video. I used DVHS tools to sent them to a JVC 30000 and a Panny HD1000 recorder. They play back on the JVC decoder, and when sent to a MITS TV via 1394 with only one visible glitch in the first file. The Pannysonic tape also plays back throught the Pannysonic DST50 tuner with the same video glitch. In all cases the sound is fine and the video corruption is limited to a small area of the screen. John

Originally posted by ctdish
...They play back on the JVC decoder, and when sent to a MITS TV via 1394 with only one visible glitch in the first file. The Pannysonic tape also plays back throught the Pannysonic DST50 tuner with the same video glitch. In all cases the sound is fine and the video corruption is limited to a small area of the screen. John

John,
What is the filename that gave you the glitch? I know that there is a reception error on "EmpireDirectv". The glitch occurs when he is playing the drum sticks on the desk (pixelation on his shoulders). Just before the name "johnny witworth"


-R

That is the one. The glitch occurs near the end when text names are being shown. It is right of center near the bottom of the screen. John

R5000-

Do you have any plan to make a 'self-install' package available for your product, as 169time has apparently done? I am a technician with 20+ years of commercial experience in component-level work (building/repair/modifying) from tube to SMD, and I would be interested in doing the work myself if possible.

In a related question, are you planning or considering any additional dealers/technicians to do installations, if the demand becomes a huge stream (as it may indeed if the product works as well as testers say it does)?

Originally posted by ChrisW6ATV
R5000-

Do you have any plan to make a 'self-install' package available for your product, as 169time has apparently done? I am a technician with 20+ years of commercial experience in component-level work (building/repair/modifying) from tube to SMD, and I would be interested in doing the work myself if possible.

In a related question, are you planning or considering any additional dealers/technicians to do installations, if the demand becomes a huge stream (as it may indeed if the product works as well as testers say it does)?

At this time we are not offering self-install packages. We are open to it, however, there are a number of issues that have to be addressed first. Someone like you would not have any problem doing a first rate job and everything would go very smoothly. Unfortunately there are people without your technical skills who would attempt an install and possibly botch things up; opening a can of worms as far as having to fix their install, damaged STBs, etc. We want to avoid this, at least for the start.

We are considering using dealers. Please PM me your info and we will keep it on hand. Thanks.

-R

ChrisW6ATV

When I see one of these "50 cents per gig" hard disk deals _without_ a rebate, then I will be excited.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In preparing my R5000-HD PC, this week I bought (4) Hitachi-IBM 250GB hard drives at Fry's for $99/ea.

Unfortunately, there are (2) mail-in rebates for each drive totaling $140.

It's good to have friends.

"ChrisW6ATV"

I find it a little odd, given your a HAM, who seems to be into to this ATV stuff, etc, etc, (read surface mount or beyond, etc), that R5000-HD does not seem to "understand" your position. (you could know as much, or more, than he does)

But then I do (kind of understand) his company position too, give that a lot of folks here do not tell the real truth about stuff! Read how the hell do they "KILL" their JVC 's D-VHS machines at such a alarming rate? Well I think you get my point.

Take care...... watch and enjoy some HDTV tonight of your choice.....

mikey-

Actually, I think R5000 made a perfectly valid point-while some people will certainly have the skills to install such a device, realistically, things can go wrong. Probably, a self-install 'kit' would not have the same warranty as the complete package, and support could become a 'can of worms' as R said. I don't mind waiting to see how the whole thing 'rolls out'-and, thanks for the compliments :)

Murray-

I bought a Fry's Maxtor 250GB drive for $140 in May (no rebates) to expand my HD Tivo... that is pretty close to the 50c/gig point, and I am sure it will be hit within weeks.

ChrisW6ATV.... rr understand, and I'd not try it myself, as I don't have the skills or the eyesight to work on the small stuff anymore. I also think 169time may have had these "self install" issues also, which helps make the point too.

Take care......

Originally posted by ChrisW6ATV
I bought a Fry's Maxtor 250GB drive for $140 in May (no rebates) to expand my HD Tivo... that is pretty close to the 50c/gig point, and I am sure it will be hit within weeks.
I was wrong. The 'under 50 cents per gigabyte' price was hit today! Fry's has a 160GB drive for $70, no rebates.

16+ hours of R5000 recordings for barely over US$4/hour!

(If this post is inappropriate, I apologize-please remove it.)

Is it ready yet?

Also, will you be selling a version already built into a DirecTV tuner (for those of us who do not have one sitting idle)? Also, which DirecTV tuner are you recommending?

Thanks

Originally posted by PeterS
Is it ready yet?

Also, will you be selling a version already built into a DirecTV tuner (for those of us who do not have one sitting idle)? Also, which DirecTV tuner are you recommending?

Thanks

Please see begining of thread, it should answer most of your questions. We are not planning on selling STBs with the mod already done. It is up to the customer to supply the STB and it must be sub'd. There are many threads on this forum discussing HD equipment, and they could most likely provide more insights into quality issues between models than I could. I do know the RCA DTC100 is one of the more popular D* HD boxes, however, the R5000 will work equally well with all the STBs listed.

-R

It is refreshing to hear about a new enterprise that is willing to communicate in a forthright and knowledgeable manner. You indicated that the product will be available in August and that your website would be operational before the end of June. What are the current targets for the above? Thanks David

If you think a fan is necessay please add it to your price and provide same. Also add enough money to cover the cost of responsive and excellent service. I am more concerned with the quality of your product and service as opposed to a discount David

Originally posted by flabingo
It is refreshing to hear about a new enterprise that is willing to communicate in a forthright and knowledgeable manner. You indicated that the product will be available in August and that your website would be operational before the end of June. What are the current targets for the above? Thanks David

David
We are still sticking with the end of Aug. launch date at this point. Website will be announced tomorrow or tues. Thanks.

-R

Originally posted by flabingo
If you think a fan is necessay please add it to your price and provide same. Also add enough money to cover the cost of responsive and excellent service. I am more concerned with the quality of your product and service as opposed to a discount David

I assume the fan referres to some of STBs out there that run hot. Our mod does not cause any additional power draw from the STB nor does it generate any significant amount of heat on its own, so we will not be adding a fan. For those "hot" boxes, I believe other folks have fan mod instructions out there (I can't remember where I saw it but I'm pretty sure it was elsewhere on this forum).

We plan to provide everybody with a high-level of service regardless if they got a discount or not. But you can always give us additional money if you like...

Thanks for the interest.

-R

I am interested in taking the output of your device and using it as input into a Windows Media 9 (WMV-HD) encoding station. Have you done any testing to determine if the Transport Stream you are creating is compatible with the Windows Media Encoder? If it is a standard HDV format stream (such as those created by the JVC HD-camera or Cineform products).

Can you please let me know if this is correct? I will hopefully be doing some testing tomorrow on some sample files, but would like to know if you plan to officially support the format.

Thanks

Originally posted by PeterS
I am interested in taking the output of your device and using it as input into a Windows Media 9 (WMV-HD) encoding station. Have you done any testing to determine if the Transport Stream you are creating is compatible with the Windows Media Encoder? If it is a standard HDV format stream (such as those created by the JVC HD-camera or Cineform products).

Can you please let me know if this is correct? I will hopefully be doing some testing tomorrow on some sample files, but would like to know if you plan to officially support the format.

Thanks

I have to imagine that the R5000 streams make very good WMV files. My 169time captures do very well and the R5000 caps should be even better.

Not sure why the R5000 would need to 'officially support' WMV in any way though, they dont have anything to do with WMV. The only thing we need from the R5000 is a good stable TS file. What we choose to do with it beyond that is our responsibility.

Originally posted by Kirby Baker
Not sure why the R5000 would need to 'officially support' WMV in any way though, they dont have anything to do with WMV. The only thing we need from the R5000 is a good stable TS file. What we choose to do with it beyond that is our responsibility.

PeterS,
Kirby is absolutely right...the R5000's goal is to provide high-quality, compatible mpeg-2 transport streams. I have not done any experimentation as far as converting to WMV format so about the only thing I can tell you is that if you have a robust process for transcoding ts to wmv, the files produced by the R5000 should give you excellent results.

That being said, I am curious to hear about the results you get with R5000 streams. I know you asked me before where you can dl the files from. They are not on my server so I have to get you permission to access them. It shouldn't be a problem, so pls standby...

-R

I've got the EmpireDirecTV file on my network here, I can push it through the WMV process later today and post results (its busy processing LOTR ROTK right now).

I'd be very interested in your results.

Both the Windows Media Encoder and the seperate Windows Media 9 Codec (using VirtualDub) cough up with a memory error when working with the sample files. I have no problems with other files.

Let me know what you find out.

Thanks

Peter,
You might try it on one of the other files in the no glitch folder. I have played the others and there is an error in the EmpireDirectTV but none noticable in the others. John

I've gotten them to play fine using the Elecard player. It just seems that they do not want to transcode into WMV HD (VC9) format.

Trying to figure it out now, but for some reason, it seems that the encoder errors out with a memory error during encode with these files. More research to come.

Originally posted by PeterS
I've gotten them to play fine using the Elecard player. It just seems that they do not want to transcode into WMV HD (VC9) format.


I will try encoding it tonight.

Additional thought for R5000-HD.

Have you tried to implement your solution into the HD-Tivo as of yet?

I would think that this would be an ideal solution as you have the stored streams which can be played back at any time, and you already have the built-in USB 2.0 ports (at least I am pretty sure they are 2.0 ports).

This would also save some of us from having both an HD-Tivo and another STB in the system.

What do you think?

PeterS and all, the EmpireDirecTV file is encoding right now.. Sorry I didnt get it sooner, massive storms last night, and had some problems with my encoding PC. Should take 30 minutes to encode, so I will post an update later.

RE: HD Tivo mods, I would guess (and I have no direct knowledge of this) that a mod like this to the HD Tivo (and any new generation HD receiver) is unlikely. I believe the extraction points for the MPEG signal are more available in older units, and in newer units, they are most likely buried inside chips, and not solder points on the mainboard. Just a guess....

Ok, encoding update:

Original file was 587MB, encoded file is 67MB. Plays perfectly. There is a video glitch at 3:18 in, and its in the TS file too. All in all, looks good.

Are you using the encoder or the VC9 codec?

Can you provide me any more info on your system, as I am unable to encode these files at this point (may be a conflict with some other driver in the sytem though and I need to see what it might be).

Any information you can provide would be helpful.

Thanks

My setup is very simply an exact setup like Pat James describes in his howto. VirualDubMod with the WM VCM. Its an encoding only PC, nothing else installed on it.

Additional Encoder Update:

I encoded Longshot (HBOHD61504), using the same exact procedure used by Kirby, and it played perfectly. It's the Windows Media Video 9 codec and VirtualDubMod v1.5.10.1. Original file size of the capture is 674mb and the encoded file is 141mb. No glitches noted when playing back the encoded file.

Ron did you simpleresize or yv12reduceby2? Mine was yv12. Am guessing from your file size you did a simpleresize.

Originally posted by Kirby Baker
Ron did you simpleresize or yv12reduceby2? Mine was yv12. Am guessing from your file size you did a simpleresize.

I used YV12reducedby2.

Originally posted by Kirby Baker
Ron did you simpleresize or yv12reduceby2? Mine was yv12. Am guessing from your file size you did a simpleresize.

I also tried encoding the EmpireDirectv capture. When run through DVD2ATI, it showed as 75% film, so I used the movie encoding script. The resulting file size was 67.2mb, just as you reported. I then encoded it using the video script, and it came out as 72mb. When I encoded the Longshot sample, I used the video script since DVD2ATI reported it as NTSC.

Based upon my encoding experience (I've encoded over 40 separate captures), the resulting encoded file size seems to be dependent on the amount of video detail. I've seen two different original capture files of equal size result in encoded file sizes that could vary as much as 1gb.

This is sort of OT for this but I know I will be doing some re-encodes so I will ask it here.

What are the typical encoding times that you guys have for a 2 hour movie and what are your system specs?

Yes, it is off topic. But just to answer your specific questions, a 2 hour movie typically takes between 6-8 hours to encode, depending on your processor speed. I'm using a P4 with a 3.2ghz processor, though you really don't need that fast of a processor.

For more information see this http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=227837&highlight=Wm9+encoding

and this http://www.patjames.com/hdtvtowmv.htm

Both Kirby and I are using essentially the Pat James method.

R5000-HD WEBSITE NOW ON-LINE

For official product information and support for the R5000-HD, please go to: http://www.r5000-hd.com

Please enter your information there if you would like to be placed on the pre-order/wait list for the R5000. Thank you.

-R

R -

I think one of the most intriguing possibilities the R5000-HD opens up is the possibility of whole-house HD PVR functionality complete with archiving capability. (I realize some have done this with tuner cards, but they are limited to OTA). I envision an XP server running the R5000-HD software, 2 or 3 Dish or Bell STBs (since all channels could be recorded, including SD and OTA), a few terabytes of disk space on a file server (probably Linux) and Roku boxes all around the house for playback. So, here are the questions this brings to mind:

- Does the R5000-HD application now (or can you forsee that it would in the future) support multiple STBs simultaneously? (Using a single copy of the application which would be multi-STB aware when it comes to timer conflicts and the like.)

- If a single instance of the R5000-HD software would not be able to handle more than one STB, is it possible to run multiple copies of the application simultaneously on a single computer?

- Have you given any thought to an HTML/XML interface to allow timer & file management as well as the entire process of Zap2It PVR scheduling to all be carried out in a browser (and therefore remotely)?

Originally posted by peterd
R -

I think one of the most intriguing possibilities the R5000-HD opens up is the possibility of whole-house HD PVR functionality complete with archiving capability. (I realize some have done this with tuner cards, but they are limited to OTA). I envision an XP server running the R5000-HD software, 2 or 3 Dish or Bell STBs (since all channels could be recorded, including SD and OTA), a few terabytes of disk space on a file server (probably Linux) and Roku boxes all around the house for playback. So, here are the questions this brings to mind:

- Does the R5000-HD application now (or can you forsee that it would in the future) support multiple STBs simultaneously? (Using a single copy of the application which would be multi-STB aware when it comes to timer conflicts and the like.)

- If a single instance of the R5000-HD software would not be able to handle more than one STB, is it possible to run multiple copies of the application simultaneously on a single computer?

Definitely possible (not with present sw) and I do forsee it happening. It would NOT be possible to run multiple copies and accomplish this in the mean time. The app is designed not to execute multiple instances and even if you could, it probably wouldn't do the right thing. At this time it is 1 STB to 1 PC. (BTW, ONLY a sw upgrade would be necessary).


- Have you given any thought to an HTML/XML interface to allow timer & file management as well as the entire process of Zap2It PVR scheduling to all be carried out in a browser (and therefore remotely)?

I have, and I think it would be kind of cool. However, most folks out there have suggested interfacing the R5000 with some of the nice HTPC apps out there. Both will probably end up happening, but which one gets priority will depend on the demand. Thanks.

-R

Originally posted by peterd
R -

I think one of the most intriguing possibilities the R5000-HD opens up is the possibility of whole-house HD PVR functionality [...]
- Have you given any thought to an HTML/XML interface [...] ? Originally posted by R5000-HD
[...] I have, and I think it would be kind of cool. However, most folks out there have suggested interfacing the R5000 with some of the nice HTPC apps out there. Both will probably end up happening, but which one gets priority will depend on the demand. Thanks.

-R May I suggest surfacing (and documenting) object automation interfaces (I'd date myself if I referred to them as OLE automation interfaces, but I haven't kept up with the latest (.NET) MS-renaming of them :D ). With that as a first step, folks could get started adding value in whichever direction they wanted...

On a different topic, do you favor any particular DirecTV STB brand (from among the list of supported boxes)?

Originally posted by peterd
May I suggest surfacing (and documenting) object automation interfaces (I'd date myself if I referred to them as OLE automation interfaces, but I haven't kept up with the latest (.NET) MS-renaming of them :D ). With that as a first step, folks could get started adding value in whichever direction they wanted...

On a different topic, do you favor any particular DirecTV STB brand (from among the list of supported boxes)?

From our standpoint there is no preferred STB brand -they all will give equally good results with the R5000. We recommend you research equipment reports elsewhere on the forum to see what quality issues people have had with a particular brand. I can only speak to my limited experience and I think the RCA DTC100 is a decent box. I have heard that some other brand models run hot and have failures associated with that, but I have no personal experience to relate...

-R

I am very confused on why people are so excited about this product especially at a $1000 cost. If someone could figure out on how to transfer and convert recorded files from a Hughes HD-TIVO to a PC it would blow away anything that can be done with this product. They have done this with standard TIVOs, so I figure with all the people buying HD-TIVOs it is just a matter of time.

Originally posted by mhfnet
I am very confused on why people are so excited about this product especially at a $1000 cost. If someone could figure out on how to transfer and convert recorded files from a Hughes HD-TIVO to a PC it would blow away anything that can be done with this product. They have done this with standard TIVOs, so I figure with all the people buying HD-TIVOs it is just a matter of time.

mhfnet


- Modifying an HD Tivo, which has DVI-HDCP, 5C and encryption protection as well, would be a clear violation of the DMCA, which is not true with the R5000-HD mod. of the STB's planned.

- efforts to extract the HD-Tivo files would likely be incompatible with standard TS and VOB playback devices which would cause audio dropouts, loss of A/V sync, and, video glitches.

- modifying a brand new $1,000 in warranty HD-Tivo by soldering in circuitry is not wise IMO.

you can do extract the files, it was talked about earlier in this thread.

I don't know how to do it I just know tivo doesn't want anyone talking about it.

edit-If your HD tivo dies you are out a grand.

A solution that produces files that do not require any further processing gets my vote.

Hooked--

Votes are OK, but what about your thousand bucks? :D

Murray,
Just curious but why would you think modifying one DirecTV STB to interface with a PC to record transport streams would any more legal or illegal than another? So long as you aren't accessing files on the hard drive, why would you say modifying an HD DirecTivo with an R5000 mod violated the DCMA whereas doing the same to a DTC-100 does not? Both action have the same intent and result. FWIW, I have no objection to the R5000 mod and in fact will possibly get one.

A solution that produces files that do not require any further processing gets my vote.


For those who want a simple and reliable system that works with repeated results I think those who purchase the 5000 will be very happy. I cant wait for others to get this system and share their experiences.

One thing no one is mentioning about the hacked tivo, I talked to one of the guys on the other forum who performs the mod and he said playback is not 100%
Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not and it can hang up your system. If im not mistaking you need a third party app as well.

Not to offend anyone but Ive been playing with stuff that doesn't work for the last 2 years and I got sick of it. Finally I have something that works. Im done with all this stuff that requires you to remux, convert to WM9, make sure this box is not to close to this box, make sure you are using ferret chokes ect just to play back a movie.

The guys gripping about the cost of the 5000 who have Tivos, you say your very happy with your Tivo and your not interested in archiving a large library so why do you even bother chiming in in this thread.
I wonder after some of the feedback hits from other users, could there be some converters in the wings :)

Originally posted by Alan Gouger
The guys gripping about the cost of the 5000 who have Tivos, you say your very happy with your Tivo and your not interested in archiving a large library so why do you even bother chiming in in this thread.
I wonder after some of the feedback hits from other users, could there be some converters in the wings :)


Actually there's a whole 'nother group of us who are planning on investing in BOTH systems for the ultimate in HD recording flexibility. I've had my HR10-250 for several days now and absolutely love it (even with its minor software glitch issues) and am eagerly anticipating participating in the R5000-HD early adopter program so that I can archive stuff I want to keep on tape just as I did for 2 years with the Dish 5000 system. It's all about choices and I'm certainly glad we now have options in the market place that we did not have back in February when Dish Network basically told all of us to shove it.

Originally posted by Alan Gouger

One thing no one is mentioning about the hacked tivo, I talked to one of the guys on the other forum who performs the mod and he said playback is not 100%
Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not and it can hang up your system. If im not mistaking you need a third party app as well.

The HD-Tivos have been available for what, 2-3 months? They've already figured out how to extract the video and how to play them back, albeit not perfectly yet. It will be interesting to see how much progress they can make over then next couple of months or so. But it may never be as easy or reliable as this 5000 system. The good news is that competition in the HD recording area should produce good equipment for us consumers!

Originally posted by RTK
Murray,
Just curious but why would you think modifying one DirecTV STB to interface with a PC to record transport streams would any more legal or illegal than another? So long as you aren't accessing files on the hard drive, why would you say modifying an HD DirecTivo with an R5000 mod violated the DCMA whereas doing the same to a DTC-100 does not? Both action have the same intent and result. FWIW, I have no objection to the R5000 mod and in fact will possibly get one.

Rick

There is a large legal difference between the two in that an HD-Tivo is a recording device which contains multiple forms of copy protection and encrypption as well as a hard disk specifically intended to only provide for enclosed system copy proteted & encrypted recording, and, by modifying it to output unencrypted copy protection-free files to a PC is the very definition of the circumvention defined as a violation in the DCMA.

A DTC100 has no copy protection, no encryption and no means to record which are being circumvented by the 169Time or R5000 modifications.

Originally posted by mkerdman
There is a large legal difference between the two in that an HD-Tivo is a recording device which contains multiple forms of copy protection and encrypption as well as a hard disk specifically intended to only provide for enclosed system copy proteted & encrypted recording, and, by modifying it to output unencrypted copy protection-free files to a PC is the very definition of the circumvention defined as a violation in the DCMA.

A DTC100 has no copy protection, no encryption and no means to record which are being circumvented by the 169Time or R5000 modifications.

Are you making these comments as someone with a legal background or just based on your personal interpretation of the DCMA?

I understand your comments with regards to modifying the encrypted files on the hard drive or the DVI-HDCP protected output but do you really believe that modifying a STB (not designed to allow you to record copyrighted material) so that it can now output raw TS to a PC could not be interpreted to be in violoation of the DMCA?

I appreciate your point, and I know it's why R5000 is doing what it's doing. But when you get down to it, it's really all just legal semantics. A person could argue that the DTC100's lack of a compressed digital output is itself a form of copy protection.

Originally posted by balazer
...it's really all just legal semantics. A person could argue that the DTC100's lack of a compressed digital output is itself a form of copy protection.

I think your argument would be considered weak, given that the analog output enforces no copy protection, e.g. macrovision.

TW

I am not a lawyer, and, the opinions I express here are my own and not based on specific passages of the DCMA.

If the MPAA and the content copyright holders were of a mind to, they could have initiated litigation against Dish for the Model 5000-HD Modulator, or, 169Time for its STB FireWire modification seeking to have those products removed from the market simply because they record HD "in the clear".

These products have merely been tolerated.

However, an HD-Tivo differs significantly from a simple STB with analog-only outputs (Dish 6000, RCA DTC100, or, equivalent) in that modifying it is a blatant attempt to circumvent a specific digitally protected output device which by its design contains a hard disk specifically intended to provide the consumer with an enclosed recording system which is copy protected & encrypted.

I believe that out of an abundance of caution, Nextcom intelligently intends to avoid modifying DVI-HDCP enabled STB's to lessen any DCMA exposure they might have in marketing the R5000-HD.

It is that same sort of thinking on which I base my opinion that commercially modifying an HD-Tivo to deliver unencrypted recordings would not be tolerated by the MPAA and the HD content copyright holders.

Additionally, to protect their relationships and the flow of HD copyrighted content, I think both DirecTV and Tivo would join such litigation as co-plaintiffs raising the potential damages, and, making any defense almost economically impossible.

This is quickly going off topic, but... I quickly glanced over the DMCA and
"By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited." I guess this means D* or BEV could file suit alleging that even though fair use allows one to record these programs, it only allows one to do it via the available outputs (composite/ component, etc.) and the fact that these analog outputs were circumvented to gain access to the 'perfect' digital stream (which they did not intend since they didn't put IEEE1394 or USB ports that tapped into this stream in the first place) means this act was violated. I don't know if they would win, but I wouldn't want to be the defendant in that trial. I guess if one was found guilty, after that the copyright holders of everything that was taped could also file suit since the copyrighted material was recorded illegally. Scary.

No, that's not what "unauthorized access" is. "Access" is getting to the work at all, i.e. just to watch it, via your subscription. Access control and copy protection are separate.

Originally posted by mkerdman
If the MPAA and the content copyright holders were of a mind to, they could have initiated litigation against Dish for the Model 5000-HD Modulator, or, 169Time for its STB FireWire modification seeking to have those products removed from the market simply because they record HD "in the clear".

These products have merely been tolerated.

The MPAA or copyright holders could have brought litigation against DISH for the Model 5000 & modulator ONLY if some contract between the content provider (e.g. HBO) and DISH specifically forbade such an in-the-clear digital HD output. Otherwise there is nothing that the MPAA or copyright holders could do, except to put some pressure on DISH - because there is nothing illegal about DISH selling a satellite receiver that doesn't enforce copy protection.

Keep in mind another factor that DirecTV's subscription agreement and the documentation included with most of their HD STB's note that they reserve the right to deliver all but DVI-HDCP outputs at reduced resolutions.

Getting back "on topic" the R5000-HD has none of these issues as the receivers they will offer to modify have no digital outputs, no copy protection and no encryption.

We'll probably add these to the web page, but we've been answering alot of the same questions... So here are the "standard answers":


Can the 169time and the R5000-HD be installed in a STB at the same time?

No. Both devices uses similar signals and it is not possible to drive both at the same time.

Is it possible to remove the 169time and install the R5000-HD in such a way that the 169time could be re-installed at a later date?

Yes, we put an additional connector on the R5000-HD that exactly matches the pin out of the 169time. So it should be possible to convert a 169time "converted" STB to the R5000-HD. However there may be TBD additional $ to do this, as it exposes Nexcom to additional warranty risk installing our product into a STB that has already been modified.

If my receiver were to die, could I send it to Nextcom with the new STB and have the R5000-HD unit removed from my broken STB and put in the new one?

Yes, $100 would cover our cost to remove, re-install, and return ship. Might be less if you let us keep the dead STB. :)

If I was to switch to dishnetwork, could I send the directv box back to you and have the R5000-HD unit installed in the dishnetwork box (or vice versa)?

It would be the same $100 price. We just need to cover our cost... Probably free if you let us keep the old STB ;)

I am interested in self-install... I've had 20+ years doing component level electronic repairs, SMT, etc. I have access to SMT rework tools and routinely work with parts as small as 0402 and 10mil pin spacings...

We have no plans to support self install... It's too costly for us. Our technicians are quite competent at doing the installs in a very short amount of time. Supporting one user can easily take twice as long. Additionally, self install usually implies a discount. So you can see that it does not make financial sense to support self installs, Sorry.

-R

While some of the points being made about digital rights management may be well taken, I think (and I'd love to hear "R" weigh in) that this is not the reason why these particular STBs have been chosen for the mods.

I believe the technical reasons have been discussed in the 169 time thread (or others). In short, the evolution of most electronic gear tends toward greater and greater integration -- which works againsts the kinds of mods done by Nextcomm, 169 Time and Immersive (who add SDI outputs to DVD players & STBs).

Whether we're talking about the progression from one generation of technology to another (numerous transistors being replaced by a single IC) or the life-cycle of a complex device like a PC (from discreet cards for I/O, disk controller, video, audio, LAN, etc. to everything being built-in to the motherboard) the trend is pervasive.

In many cases, equipment is initially designed using discreet components (since they are available off-the-shelf, and more modularity makes the design easier to debug). Later, once the design has been proven and the bugs worked out, ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) are developed to replace many of the individual components. Often, when there's a large enough market of equipment manufacturers and appropriate standards exist, 3rd party vendors will develop these ICs. (The most high profile example of this is probably Intel's development of the Centrino WiFi chip for PC manufacturers to incorporate into their motherboards.)

In the case of satellite receivers, the change has been from individual chips which handle the various aspects of signal processing (extraction of the digital datastream from the RF signal, decryption, MPEG decoding, extraction of the audio from the transport stream, video scaling, conversion to a variety of digital and analog outputs) to VLSIs (Very Large Scale Integrated circuits) which combine many of these functions.

In first generation HD satellite receiver designs, the decryption and audio/video processing (e.g. scaling) functions were handled by different chips. This meant that there was a point in the circuit where the transport stream was present "in the clear" (unencrypted) and could be intercepted as it traveled from one chip to another.

The current generation of receivers uses chips which combine these functions. Therefore, there's no place where the transport stream can be seen unencrypted on the circuit board. While concern over security of the signal might have factored into the decision to combine these particular functions into a single chip (thereby preventing interception of the signal), I'd bet the same integration would have happened anyway, and is primarily driven by manufacturing cost reduction...

Originally posted by mhfnet
I am very confused on why people are so excited about this product especially at a $1000 cost. If someone could figure out on how to transfer and convert recorded files from a Hughes HD-TIVO to a PC it would blow away anything that can be done with this product. They have done this with standard TIVOs, so I figure with all the people buying HD-TIVOs it is just a matter of time.


HD-TIVO only works on D* :(

Mark

HD Tivo is very close to PC playback, Alan posted about it early on in the thread. Pretty much the heavy lifting stages of getting the HD-Tivo to save TY Streams in an unencrypted format has been out for some time. This is not to say it's an easy process (there is a hardware aspect), or all the kinks have been worked out. From what I understand converting TY streams to usable MPEG or TS streams is another matter. But, there are other options, and I'm guessing the costs will be much less than the R-5000HD..

That being said, the R-5000HD has two big advantage, it can't really be turned off and it's not likely that it violates the DMCA. Ever since the Tivo community got into flipping firmware bits they put themselves at the mercy of D* or Tivo releasing a patch to "fix the glitch" so to speak. And certainly DMCA cases could be asserted.

Originally posted by Joe Q

I have been making noises about the HD-TIVO for 3 purposes...

Please, please, please take your "HD-TIVO noises" to another thread. or at least continue them via PM.


...
2) Hoping to get the R5000 team to add the HD-TIVO to their list of supported devices

There are no plans to ever support HD-TIVO. Just so we're clear Joe, we will not support the R5000-HD on the HD-TVIO (or any other HDCP device)


So,unless #2 is done, folks like me are not willing to spend another $1000 for an archiving capability for D* when I can have it for around $100 on the HD-TIVO with it's superior capabilities.

Joe
Well, as I said above... We're not doing #2. Additionally, the R5000-Hd is not, as you pointed out, a TIVO, therefore, please move Tivo discussions to the TIVO thread.

-R

hijacking, very common on AVS sorry to say, get over it, or quit doing it! Opinions vary............

The website has been up for roughly 2 weeks. I submitted request for mod and thus far no response.

You stated you would know demand once the website was up and running. Any idea of knowing when the public can really get this thing and how long the line/turnaround will take?

Originally posted by HDTVFanAtic
The website has been up for roughly 2 weeks. I submitted request for mod and thus far no response.

You stated you would know demand once the website was up and running. Any idea of knowing when the public can really get this thing and how long the line/turnaround will take?

Unless stated otherwise, the original target date of end of August still stands. I think the website makes things pretty clear; the form is for getting on a waiting list, and we will do our best to have product available for all of those who have registered, but we will not be accepting any boxes for modification before the official release date. It is also stated that we may require a 10% deposit. Any changes, updates will be posted on the website. When the release date rolls near, those folks who have submitted their information will be contacted and given a chance to lock in their purchase.

For those of you who want to wait until the R5000 is officially for sale, there may or may not be lead times, it all depends on how much demand there is for the R5000.

-R

Just wondering, is the usb2 portion using cypress fx2 usb controller?

When we submit a DTV or Dish box, will we need to send our own subscribed cards or will you be able to use a "virgin card" to test the unit?

My Hughes box is still "unused" and unsubscribed - would I need to get it subscribed before sending it?

Cheers!
DAve.

Originally posted by Phloyd
When we submit a DTV or Dish box, will we need to send our own subscribed cards or will you be able to use a "virgin card" to test the unit?

My Hughes box is still "unused" and unsubscribed - would I need to get it subscribed before sending it?

Cheers!
DAve.

Please get it subsrcibed and send it with the card. You're going to have to have to do it anyway, and all it takes is a short phone call. Thanks.

-R

NOOB question as I haven't mucked with the encode/decode software...

Does the current stream on the STB show up on the capture PC? I may want to work in an environment with only the capture PC as the display device. There are workarounds to this (YCrCB->RGB), Svideo->1394, etc, but it would be handy.

Edit : Already answered back around page 10 - Yes, with a MyHD card.

Thanks,
Mark

Any plans to have the service offered in Canada?

As far as feedback, initial pricing seems very high at $1300-$1400CND.
Many would probably opt for the upcoming ExpressVU HD PVR instead.

In any case, good luck, maybe over time prices will change.

If a user has 2+ hard drives with seperate drive letters (i.e. D:\ - Z:\ not in a RAID 5 array, as well as network attached drives) designated and available for R5000-HD recordings, how can he see all his recordings at a glance?

Does the current R5000-HD software allow the user to designate a specific drive and directory for each scheduled recording that later shows up in his list of recordings no matter where they are, or, does everything get globally recorded to a single user defined default directory?

Also, has the R5000-HD been successfully tested recording over a 100 Mbps Fast-Ethernet switch to a network drive attached to another PC?

Originally posted by JackLT
Many would probably opt for the upcoming ExpressVU HD PVR instead.




And how do you plan on archiving those HD movies off of the ExpressVU HD PVR? Does it have firewire ouputs to allow you to dump to a PC?

Originally posted by KevinYee
And how do you plan on archiving those HD movies off of the ExpressVU HD PVR? Does it have firewire ouputs to allow you to dump to a PC? No, it's a BEV version of a 921.

Ah, got it now, thanks.

Originally posted by mkerdman
If a user has 2+ hard drives with seperate drive letters (i.e. D:\ - Z:\ not in a RAID 5 array, as well as network attached drives) designated and available for R5000-HD recordings, how can he see all his recordings at a glance?

You can use the log function to see where all your recordings have gone.


Does the current R5000-HD software allow the user to designate a specific drive and directory for each scheduled recording that later shows up in his list of recordings no matter where they are, or, does everything get globally recorded to a single user defined default directory?

No. You pick the directory for your recordings and everything gets recorded there. Multiple target drives/dirs can be implemented but we probably won't be adding it to the PVR. There are people out there who have done a great job creating HTPC /PVR apps and we think that time would be better spent making a DirectX driver or other means for creating a universal interface useable with them. We created the PVR app to be simple and quick to get up and running using zap2it.


Also, has the R5000-HD been successfully tested recording over a 100 Mbps Fast-Ethernet switch to a network drive attached to another PC?

Its probably possible to accomplish but I don't know that I would trust doing it with Windows. Generally, Windows doesn't do a very good job sustaining real-time transfers. Whereas the avg. rate would be high enough there may latencies that would disrupt the transfers. The switch is not really the problem.

As far as feedback, initial pricing seems very high at $1300-$1400CND

seems a little high, but I still think it's a better deal then 169...with 169time I would need to output to tape so I'd need a few hundred dollars more to get the 30k/40k.

Probably more then I'm willing to spend now, but at least it's peaked my interest.

I dream of a multi-terrabyte media center with a list of all archived movies, sorted in some means on my PC (Action/comedy/sitcom/etc.) that would be simple enough that visitors could use a remote to browse through the files and select a movie they wanted to see. I wish it recorded non-HD as well (yea I know there are other solutions for that), but it'd be nice for it to do all my recording/archiving of anything I want to watch.

Originally posted by R5000-HD


You can use the log function to see where all your recordings have gone.

There are people out there who have done a great job creating HTPC /PVR apps and we think that time would be better spent making a DirectX driver or other means for creating a universal interface useable with them.

We created the PVR app to be simple and quick to get up and running using zap2it.

Its probably possible to accomplish but I don't know that I would trust doing it with Windows.

-R

For the purpose of illustration of why I asked my questions, attached are two screen captures that show the

(A) AccessDTV Setup>Directories Dialog in which the user may select (1) multiple drives/directories to designate as Record Folder Locations which the program will allocate and load-balance among the local and network drives/directories based on the parameters the user selects (i.e. the first folder, the folder with the most space, the folder with the least space); and (2) multiple drives/directories to designate as Play Folder Locations for which the program creates an XML file for each recording to keep track of the Local or NetworkFolder Location, all the programs Bookmarks, and searchable program descriptions.

SEE THE FOLLOWING POST FOR SECOND SCREEN CAPTURE

(B) AccessDTV File Dialog which recursively displays the programs folder/drive location on an unlimited number of local or network drives, program name, program description, date & time of recording, recording length.

(C) AccessDTV Program Info Dialog the show all the available EPG data for the selected recording in separate editable and searchable fields.

Will itworkwith the Zenith Directv HDTV receivers?

Originally posted by bbodin
I wish it recorded non-HD as well (yea I know there are other solutions for that), but it'd be nice for it to do all my recording/archiving of anything I want to watch.

It does. Whatever channel you tune to.

Originally posted by HookedOnTV
It does. Whatever channel you tune to.
That's only with the Dish-modified receiver. The DirecTV receivers with this mod can only be used to archive the HD channels.

Originally posted by BrettStah
That's only with the Dish-modified receiver. The DirecTV receivers with this mod can only be used to archive the HD channels.

Was it was never stated what the GB/hr. rate will be for SD recordings?

Originally posted by mkerdman
Was it was never stated what the GB/hr. rate will be for SD recordings?
My guess is that it just records whatever is coming down the satellite stream, much like the Dish PVRs and DirecTivos do. So a live sporting event on PPV will take up more room per minute than the local newscast, for example.

Originally posted by BrettStah
My guess is that it just records whatever is coming down the satellite stream, much like the Dish PVRs and DirecTivos do. So a live sporting event on PPV will take up more room per minute than the local newscast, for example.

I know the Dish 921 takes up less space for 720P than 1080i, but, some HD recording solutions use up the same 8.5GB/hr. for DTV as they do for HDTV.

Originally posted by Bill Gaw2
Will itworkwith the Zenith Directv HDTV receivers?

Do you have a model number? If it is a DTV1080, then I'm pretty sure that is a DTC100 clone and will work. Also, if it is an older generation box then the SD and HD outputs won't work at the same time.

-R

Originally posted by BrettStah
That's only with the Dish-modified receiver. The DirecTV receivers with this mod can only be used to archive the HD channels.

Correct. As for the bitrate there are 3 ways to handle it. CBR -will pad it up to the HD rate of 19.xxx Mb/s. Selectable - lower target bit rate for SD material. Automatic - switches to the lower bitrate for SD material automatically. The third is tricky to implement successfully so initially options 1 and/or 2 will be offered.

-R

Originally posted by mkerdman
I know the Dish 921 takes up less space for 720P than 1080i, but, some HD recording solutions use up the same 8.5GB/hr. for DTV as they do for HDTV.
I'm confused (or just too tired!)... I thought you were asking about SD recordings?

Originally posted by BrettStah
I'm confused (or just too tired!)... I thought you were asking about SD recordings?

I was, and, I got a two tiered answer that basically says the user has both a maual and auto-select option to reduce the bit rate for SD recordings.

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Correct. As for the bitrate there are 3 ways to handle it. CBR -will pad it up to the HD rate of 19.xxx Mb/s. Selectable - lower target bit rate for SD material. Automatic - switches to the lower bitrate for SD material automatically. The third is tricky to implement successfully so initially options 1 and/or 2 will be offered.

-R

R,
Are you also going to offer a 'no padding' option? I like to get the most material I can on a hard drive, and adding null packets to ATSC bitrate is not needed for some MPEG decoders. Thanks.

-Dylan

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Do you have a model number? If it is a DTV1080, then I'm pretty sure that is a DTC100 clone and will work.
-R

Any way to confirm this? Count me as a customer if the DTV1080 will work.

Based on the manual at this location:

http://www.directv.com/learn/pdf/System_Manuals/Zenith/Zenith_DTV1080.pdf

The Zenith DTV-1080 does not at all appear to be a clone of the RCA DTC-100. Rather, it seems to be a close cousin of the Zenith HD-SAT520, minus the DVI connector. Its menus look quite similar to the 520 (and all of the other LG-based models up through the recent Hughes HTL-HD, etc.).

This looks like an 'in-between' receiver-old enough to not have a DVI/HDCP connector, but new enough to have the DirecTV Advanced Program Guide. In fact, it might be an ideal receiver to modify, but it is not on R5000's list.

In preparation for the upcoming R5000-HD recording modification I had planned on re-starting my Dish Network (6000) subscription for just the HD package. Now that Dish Network has joined the HD-Lite crowd along with DirecTV by cramming 3 channels per transponder I’m not sure it’s worth it. For those of you that are current Dish Network HD customers can you tell me how much the picture quality has dropped? Anyone that has both that can give us a side-by-side comparison? I already pay DirecTV $100+ a month but wanted to archive with the R5000-HD with Dish Network specifically because Dish wasn’t screwing with the HD quality. Now that Dish HD is taking the same route as they did with SD I may now just stay with DirecTV. If I don’t gain picture quality with Dish there is no reason to pay for both.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Since Dish uses 8PSK, so far they do not have to re-compress the streams.

Originally posted by leszek1
Since Dish uses 8PSK, so far they do not have to re-compress the streams.

I know that 8PSK gives them more room but is it enough for 3 channels? I have read elsewhere on the forum that people are seeing a difference...

Marissadad said:

"I beg to differ with the quality still up to par. DiscoveryHD and HDNET Movies are not as crisp as they once were. I don't know if as of today HDNET has been affected but last night's viewing of The Real Cancun was not as good as it was last time it was on."

Stosinew said:

"I have to agree with Marissadad. I've been noticing some blocking lately during fast action on HDNET Movies. Picture is not as crisp. Too bad, because it's my favorite channel."

The full thread is at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=425446

There seems to be some disagreement on how much bandwidth there is per transponder and what bandwidth is being supplied by HBO, SHOWTIME, HDNET etc.

I know DirecTV is screwing with the signal because I can compare over-the-air HD CBS with DirecTV HD CBS and there is a difference. Also some time ago I compared DirecTV and Dish side-by-side and could also see a difference there (not huge but there was a difference).

Just wondering what the scoop is....

Originally posted by dahester
R,
Are you also going to offer a 'no padding' option? I like to get the most material I can on a hard drive, and adding null packets to ATSC bitrate is not needed for some MPEG decoders. Thanks.

-Dylan

Yes, there is a no-padding option.

-R

Originally posted by John Nelson
Any way to confirm this? Count me as a customer if the DTV1080 will work.

The older Zenith boxes might not be DTC100 clones but look to be close enough to be doable. If anyone wants to volunteer to be a guinea-pig please drop us an e-mail (www.r5000-hd.com). It won't cost you anything if we look it over and it can't be done. Thanks.

-R

Does the Platinum model work for the HIRD?

The specific model is HIRD-E8 Platinum

I just purchased a Platinum HIRD-E8 (ebay'd with 3 LNB dish). The manual says E86, so I believe they are the same animal, but outside confirmation would be nice. The back of the unit definitely says E8 and not E86.

Downside to E86 is that they run hot (reports of melting may be exaggerated, but I'm not so sure). Only HD output is via component (RGB would have been nice). I haven't given mine much more than a test run out the Svideo port to make sure that it was alive.

I found some component coolers available at activethermal. That jacks the price up another hundred or so. Add in the R5000 and a MyHD-120 and it keeps inching up there in cost.

Mark

Originally posted by mike greer
I know that 8PSK gives them more room but is it enough for 3 channels? I have read elsewhere on the forum that people are seeing a difference...

Marissadad said:

"I beg to differ with the quality still up to par. DiscoveryHD and HDNET Movies are not as crisp as they once were. I don't know if as of today HDNET has been affected but last night's viewing of The Real Cancun was not as good as it was last time it was on."

Stosinew said:

"I have to agree with Marissadad. I've been noticing some blocking lately during fast action on HDNET Movies. Picture is not as crisp. Too bad, because it's my favorite channel."

The full thread is at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=425446

There seems to be some disagreement on how much bandwidth there is per transponder and what bandwidth is being supplied by HBO, SHOWTIME, HDNET etc.

I know DirecTV is screwing with the signal because I can compare over-the-air HD CBS with DirecTV HD CBS and there is a difference. Also some time ago I compared DirecTV and Dish side-by-side and could also see a difference there (not huge but there was a difference).

Just wondering what the scoop is....

Not sure if this topic is "on topic" but from what I can see E* still has HDNet and HDNetMovies on one transponder (same as they did day one). I think Mark Cuban actively enforces maintaining a reasonable bit rate which is great. The other HD channels have been squeezed 3 to a transponder (from 2). This is just plain disturbing. Exactly what I feared. They will do to HD what they did to SD. This means each channel will get just over 10Mb.

It's really too bad this mod isn't being offered for the Cband receiver. I would probably switch if it did.

Originally posted by HookedOnTV
Not sure if this topic is "on topic" but from what I can see E* still has HDNet and HDNetMovies on one transponder (same as they did day one). I think Mark Cuban actively enforces maintaining a reasonable bit rate which is great. The other HD channels have been squeezed 3 to a transponder (from 2). This is just plain disturbing. Exactly what I feared. They will do to HD what they did to SD. This means each channel will get just over 10Mb.

It's really too bad this mod isn't being offered for the Cband receiver. I would probably switch if it did.

I'm not sure this is "on topic" either but why would we want to archive HDTV Lite with the R5000-HD? I really want to be able to record HD but why call it HD when it's not?

You have my vote for adapting something like 4DTV with this... I fired up my old C Band receiver last weekend just to see what TV is supposed to look like. Man I miss watching good old analog TV!

So how 'bout it Nextcom? Will you ever do the big ugly dish?

Originally posted by MarkV
I just purchased a Platinum HIRD-E8 (ebay'd with 3 LNB dish). The manual says E86, so I believe they are the same animal, but outside confirmation would be nice. The back of the unit definitely says E8 and not E86.

Downside to E86 is that they run hot (reports of melting may be exaggerated, but I'm not so sure). Only HD output is via component (RGB would have been nice). I haven't given mine much more than a test run out the Svideo port to make sure that it was alive.

I found some component coolers available at activethermal. That jacks the price up another hundred or so. Add in the R5000 and a MyHD-120 and it keeps inching up there in cost.

Mark

The so called "Platinum HD", model HIRD-E8 is definitely the same animal (E86). I am looking at the inside of one right now and it is identical to the E86 & its clones. The R5000-HD will work with this model.

Reports of melting may not be exaggerated after all. I have heard from reliable sources of cards melting into the slot and can't be removed. The ICs have heat sinks on them but still are so hot that you can't hold your finger on it for more than a few seconds. A light flow of air makes a BIG difference. The DTC100 has a fan and the same IC with a heat sink of less surface area on it can be touched indefinitely.

I also read that someone bought a fan for $18 at CompUSA where they can sit the E86 on top of it and it runs a lot cooler.

-R

Originally posted by R5000-HD
The so called "Platinum HD", model HIRD-E8 is definitely the same animal (E86). I am looking at the inside of one right now and it is identical to the E86 & its clones. The R5000-HD will work with this model.

Reports of melting may not be exaggerated after all. I have heard from reliable sources of cards melting into the slot and can't be removed. The ICs have heat sinks on them but still are so hot that you can't hold your finger on it for more than a few seconds. A light flow of air makes a BIG difference. The DTC100 has a fan and the same IC with a heat sink of less surface area on it can be touched indefinitely.

I also read that someone bought a fan for $18 at CompUSA where they can sit the E86 on top of it and it runs a lot cooler.

-R

Active Thermal Management products are the definitive, albeit not cheap, solution to consumer electronics heat and venting problems"

The Cool-It II™
http://www.activethermal.com/Cool-It_II.htm

The Cool-Base™
http://www.activethermal.com/Cool-Base.htm

Originally posted by mike greer
I'm not sure this is "on topic" either but why would we want to archive HDTV Lite with the R5000-HD? I really want to be able to record HD but why call it HD when it's not?

You have my vote for adapting something like 4DTV with this... I fired up my old C Band receiver last weekend just to see what TV is supposed to look like. Man I miss watching good old analog TV!

So how 'bout it Nextcom? Will you ever do the big ugly dish?

We are certaintly willing to look into it. I know the subscriber base for BUD is a lot smaller than D* or E* but we'd welcome having their business. Anyone in the lower fairfield cty, CT area or greater san diego CA area willing to let us test out at their location? Anyone got a spare box? PM or e-mail us. Thanks.


-R

Will it be possible to schedule recordings using TitanTV as I currently do for MYHd?

Well after 3 days I finally finished reading this whole thread. My main impression is: Boy, you guys should get outside sometimes! My HDTV-Archiveitis is in it's early stages and so far hasn't overtaken my outdoor activities (but my wife might have a different opinion).

That said I've already pretty much decided that the R5000_HD will better suit my needs than a dish 921 and am looking at specs to build my HTPC.

But first I would have to do something about the noisy fan on the 6000 OTA module. I have already done several modifications discussed in other forums and have managed to reduce the noise from jet aircraft to small plane but it is still very noticeable in a quiet room.

So while I don't expect it, if the R5000-HD mod on the dish 6000 would include (at some cost) a quiet fan it would be helpful.

-Rock

Originally posted by RockScaler
...I've already pretty much decided that the R5000_HD will better suit my needs than a dish 921 and am looking at specs to build my HTPC.

But first I would have to do something about the noisy fan on the 6000 OTA module...

-Rock

Rock,

Buy a myHD100 used on ebay for < $175. It has two antenna inputs and is easier to use than the 8VSB module in the dish6000. Then sell your unused 8VSB module on ebay for > $100.

As you have probably read, the r5000-hd was developed using a Myhd100 as the playback device.

I've also had success just removing the fan and the metal fan housing entirely, but you must make sure that the 6000 is at the top of your stack and that it has good ventilation.

+b

Originally posted by bwolf5309
Rock,

Buy a myHD100 used on ebay for < $175. It has two antenna inputs and is easier to use than the 8VSB module in the dish6000. Then sell your unused 8VSB module on ebay for > $100.

As you have probably read, the r5000-hd was developed using a Myhd100 as the playback device.

I've also had success just removing the fan and the metal fan housing entirely, but you must make sure that the 6000 is at the top of your stack and that it has good ventilation.

+b

Just a word of warning: I've also disconnected the fan on one of my old 8VSB modules but left the shielding in place. It seemed to work ok for about a year and then just died while I was away on vacation. Constant drop-outs/pixellization on all OTA channels. I think the temperatures inside the house must have gotten higher than usual without me there to run AC, etc.

Luckily Dish was giving away the modules for free at the time (just $8.95 shipping) so it didn't cost me much to replace. I found that the newer module used a quieter fan but over time it also started to get noisy. This time around, I took off the shielding and installed a larger (12V) fan bolted directly to the chassis inside the receiver. I also connected the fan to the 7.5V line to make it even quieter. The module is now very silent and still completely cool. The noisiest thing in my entertainment center is now the Tivo2.

Will Nextcom consider modifying a CableCard-capable receiver? I know there are only a few CableCard models out there, so maybe this question is premature.

With DISH recompressing HD now, I'm just thinking about ways of recording a higher quality signal.

Originally posted by balazer
Will Nextcom consider modifying a CableCard-capable receiver? I know there are only a few CableCard models out there, so maybe this question is premature.

With DISH recompressing HD now, I'm just thinking about ways of recording a higher quality signal.

Do most cable companies still send the original data? I thought BUD was the only thing left with enough bandwidth to not need recompression.

Even if cable doesn't recompress, there's still the whole 5C issue. I simply refuse to ever go back to using tapes for archival. I need a solution that gives me the freedom to use whatever media I want - DVDR, Blu-ray, etc.

Here's to hoping that either D* or E* will stop this crap once they launch more satellites...

This time around, I took off the shielding [from the 8VSB module] and installed a larger (12V) fan bolted directly to the chassis inside the receiver. I also connected the fan to the 7.5V line to make it even quieter. The module is now very silent and still completely cool. The noisiest thing in my entertainment center is now the Tivo2. [/B]
I don't want to turn this into another "6000 noise problem" thread but I thought this type of modification would be easy for R5000_HD to do. They could buy a bunch of quiet fans and install them while they have the 6000 open.
I also like bwolf5309's idea of just yanking out the 8VSB module and getting a myHD100.
Thanks for the suggestions guys.
-Rock

Originally posted by Wizziwig
Do most cable companies still send the original data? I thought BUD was the only thing left with enough bandwidth to not need recompression.

Even if cable doesn't recompress, there's still the whole 5C issue. I simply refuse to ever go back to using tapes for archival.
It depends on the cable company, but quite a few are passing through HD with no recompression. Comcast doesn't recompress. I expect this to be the norm, because cable has a lot of bandwidth compared to satellite.

There is no issue with 5C here. If you want to mess with 5C, use the HD set top box that your cable company gives you. I'm proposing that Nextcom look at adding their mod to a CableCard-capable receiver. Their mod bypasses any copy protection, providing an unencrypted USB connection.

Word is that Sony and one or two more companies are working on CableCard-capable HD PVRs. That might be a better candidate for a mod than a TV, since TVs are really big. The question will be whether these PVRs have HDCP outputs. (Nextcom is not generally willing to modify a box that has copy protected outputs, for fear of DMCA violations)

R5000-HD,

You better start selling this thing before Dish compresses their HDTV to SD levels or you won't have any customers left.

Mark

Ain't that the truth...

Darius

Originally posted by mdv
R5000-HD,

You better start selling this thing before Dish compresses their HDTV to SD levels or you won't have any customers left.

Mark

How true.... I have not recorded a single thing on my 169time setup since Dish started recompressing. What's the point when you see these annoying gray blocks on black backgrounds. Just check out the opening titles on Star Wars/AOTC to see what I mean. :mad:

Help join the fight at:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=432982

C band is sounding better all the time. No compression

dave

If only I had a place to put a big dish.

what is the bitrate of C-band HD vs. DBS HD? Is there a significant difference between DirecTV or Dish recordings made with the R5000?

It's a little bit hard to compare, because recompressing even to the same bit rate can give a big reduction in quality if the recompressor is not up to the same quality as the first compressor, or even if it's just a different compressor. The consensus seems to be that the recompressed channels look a fair bit worse than their C-band counterparts.

Any C-Band'rs come forward to be guinea pigs yet?

Originally posted by balazer
It's a little bit hard to compare, because recompressing even to the same bit rate can give a big reduction in quality if the recompressor is not up to the same quality as the first compressor, or even if it's just a different compressor. The consensus seems to be that the recompressed channels look a fair bit worse than their C-band counterparts.

I have a C-band dish that feeds a Motorola 4DTV receiver and a Motorola HD-200 decoder. Until last May I subscribed to both HBO and Showtime on the C band. One month before those subscriptions expired, I decided to subscribe to the same services on Directv. I had a whole month to compare the PW on both channels and I did indeed notice better PQ on the C-band equipment than on the Directv counterpart. However, I decided to stay with Directv HBO and Showtime for the convenience of being able to use multiple receivers with each one free to tune whatever channel is desired. On the C-band dish, HBO east and HBO west are on the same sat G9, but Showtime east is on sat C3 while Showtime west if on sat G10, and the Discovery channel is on sat C4. Complete freedom to tune different channels might require multiple dishes and multiple receivers and multiple HD decoders. Inconvenient and expensive. With Directv only one dish is required. And I now have one HD Tivo and 2 other HD receivers feeding 3 HD monitors in my house. Each one can tune to any of the services. The only thing missing is the Starz service in HD on Directv. The C-band programming brokers offer that on C band, but at a higher cost than what Directv charges for the first premium channel whidh is $144 per year. According to one broker, there were only about 700,000 C-band subscribers last May.

I repeat that the PQ I noticed on the C-band service is better than on Directv! I have no experience with the Dish PQ.

Originally posted by Capybara 320 (from the 169time thread)
Steve,

You must have terrestrial 8VSB tuner. We only have 8PSK, and are pulling opening Oympics ceremonies as special event on 9425 I believe it is. Similar proiblem to TNTHD (speaking of which, has *that* ever been resolved (ed. w.r.t 169time)).

Oh and Steve, thanks again for helping me get the archive to work properly. You really helped a great deal, and I am eternally grateful.

Cap,

Recording of TNTHD has always worked perfectly on R5000-HD.

The Olympics was a problem... but it has been fixed in the next software release.

-R

Originally posted by h2ofun
C band is sounding better all the time. No compression

dave

This C band discussion may be a little off topic, but I have noticed only recently some blocking on HBO east and west. It is definitely not as good as it once was. I get 2 HBOs, 2 Encores, and 2 Starz all on satellite G9. As mentioned by another poster, Showtime is split onto G0 and C3. PQ is still the best I have seen.

I'm not sure the investiment is worth it for a mod to the HD-200 converter. The number of C band subscribers is falling every month and analog programming is dissapearing or moving to digital. I just don't know how much more life there is in consumer C band. Here in Phoenix there was an ad in the paper for a complete C band setup with dish, 4DTV and HD-200, all for $500 dollars. That would be a pretty good deal.


Al K

Originally posted by R5000-HD
Cap,

Recording of TNTHD has always worked perfectly on R5000-HD.

The Olympics was a problem... but it has been fixed in the next software release.

-R

Is this product close to release for sale to the public?

I believe they are beta testing it now.

Any chance that the Samsung TS-160 will be supported?

Originally posted by Steven Drexler
Any chance that the Samsung TS-160 will be supported?

Steve,

Sorry, no receiver with HDCP will be supported.

-R

Keep in mind we will most likely see Cablecard-based DVRs in 6 months with large or expandable hard disks from the likes of LG.

Will these receivers also be networkable?

So is this still on track to release at the end of august?

Originally posted by kelliot
Keep in mind we will most likely see Cablecard-based DVRs in 6 months with large or expandable hard disks from the likes of LG.

My first query lacked context, so let me ask again - will these new DVR's you refer to will be addressable on a home network?

That is certainly one of the features that interests me about the PC based approach.

What kind of USB cable is required? Meaning type of end connector.

Almost have my HTPC ready for use.

Also, it is the end of the August. How does the launch date look?

New TV Season starts next month.

I also note that it is the end of August. Is there an expected release date?

I too am interested in having in time for the Football Season!

Originally posted by ralphjb
I also note that it is the end of August. Is there an expected release date?

I too am interested in having in time for the Football Season!

R5000-HD OFFICIAL PRODUCT RELEASE UPDATE
The R5000-HD release date will be pushed out to the last week of September. Due to the large response of pre-orders received through our website, www.r5000-hd.com (http://www.r5000-hd.com) we will be using this time to ramp up production and service to the levels required to properly handle our customer base. Those of you that have already registered a pre-order will be contacted soon and be asked to finalize your order status and be scheduled for an install date. Your request will be processed in the order that it was received.

Thank you for your patience and continued interest in our product.

Originally posted by R5000-HD
R5000-HD OFFICIAL PRODUCT RELEASE UPDATE
The R5000-HD release date will be pushed up to the last week of September.
That's called pushing back, not pushing up. ;)

"That's called pushing back, not pushing up."

AKA; "Vaporware" or was that "911", "superdish", "HD TIVO" (at your local store), fill in the blank, well you get the idea, which must mean this is a whole lot harder than it looks?

Interesting.

Dave

The R5000-HD from Nextcom is far from being Vaporware. I've been using the product for over a month now, and each recording has been flawless. 100% compatibility with MyHD, Roku, Fusion, and Hipix cards. I've been an HD archiver for over 3 years now, and believe me when I say this is the real deal.

Please do not post or PM with additional questions, as I am still under NDA. I was given permission for this single post only.


Kevin

I appreciate you're sharing that. What I would really like to hear is from the company itself. Football season is starting, and that is a major reason to have an HD recorder. Hope to hear something more definite soon. I have begun investigating alternatives, including modding a TIVO box.

I have one of the Nextcom R5000 mods to my Dish 6000 receiver. For me it can make nearly flawless recordings played back with software or the MPEG decoders in either my JVC 30000 recorder or played back into the 1394 input on my Mits TV. I have also tried shorter files recorded on a Panasonic recorder and played back through its DST50 receiver with no problems. I had the 169time mod that made recordings that had from a few to many defects per movie when played through the JVC. The 169 recordings were noticeable worse when viewed through the TV decoder.
I and I think one other user have had some trouble keeping the USB communication reliable inside the computer. I think perhaps using a computer newer than my 2.5 years machine old would like help.
The second USB 2 board I tried seems to be working OK.
The Nextcom board looks like a production board but I have no knowledge of how many the company has produced. Included is a picture of my receiver with the cover removed. The Nextcom board is the smallboard with only the back showing. The moded receiver comes with a 6 foot USB cable that will plug right into a computer. The recording software seems to run flawlessly and the ZAP2IT interface for scheduling recordings has recently been made available and works well also. With the mod the computer can control the channel the receiver is tuned to so unattended recordings on different channels can be scheduled and recorded. The software is still being improved and I suspect that there will be a few more features added. Up until a couple of days ago it required a manually install but that has been taken care of. The software person or team seem to be able to add features or make changes like adjusting for the DISH Olympic data rate in a day or two.
We are required at this time to also say the following, so address any questions to the Nextcom people please:
Please do not post or PM with additional questions, as I am still under NDA. I was given permission for this single post only. John

I've been using the R5000-HD for over a month and have experienced nothing but flawless recordings to my HTPC. This product is the "real deal" and their support is among the best I've experienced.

Please be advised that I'm under an NDA and cannot discuss any details of the R5000-HD at this time.

okay, okay, okay! We get the point...9 out of 10 avs'ers prefer the RD-5000! When the hard ship date?! Why is there a delay? You know, that sorta thing, and of course, I'm not directing this at the people with NDA's...

There is more security around this proposed product than at the recent Olympics.

At the risk of upsetting this secret society, I appreciate hearing from the Beta testers, but what about hearing from someone at Nextcom.

I do feel left out though - no one has asked me to sign an NDA.;)

Or me, I would have been glad to test.

Dave

Originally posted by ralphjb
There is more security around this proposed product than at the recent Olympics.

At the risk of upsetting this secret society, I appreciate hearing from the Beta testers, but what about hearing from someone at Nextcom.

I do feel left out though - no one has asked me to sign an NDA.;)

What is it exactly you would like to hear? I think the details of the product have been made pretty clear as well as the reason why we pushed out the release date.

"someone at Nextcom"

Quick question - only because searching "MyHD" came up with 3 pages on this thread alone. ;)

If I have a MyHD card and record ATSC HDTV already to my PC, what does this product give me? I don't need QAM or Satellite support, only OTA.

Was their an additional functionality?

I ask because I did read a few posts about people being concerned that the .TS file playback with a MyHD card. I was wondering what those people needed this for. :)

Danke,
Robert

Robert-

If you only need OTA recording, the R5000 is of no use to you. People ask about its compatibility with the MyHD because they would want to play its files with their MyHD if, for example, the R5000 was in another computer.

Originally posted by ChrisW6ATV
Robert-

If you only need OTA recording, the R5000 is of no use to you. People ask about its compatibility with the MyHD because they would want to play its files with their MyHD if, for example, the R5000 was in another computer.

Actually you can use MyHD to play a R5000 recording while it is being recorded on the same computer.

Originally posted by shah8
okay, okay, okay! We get the point...9 out of 10 avs'ers prefer the RD-5000! When the hard ship date?! Why is there a delay? You know, that sorta thing, and of course, I'm not directing this at the people with NDA's...

ditto

Out of curiosity, I know that early on dr1394 checked the sampel output of this on D* and E* and found E* had better quality. Now it can be seen that E* is recompressing much more than there were at the time of the tests.

Can dr1394 or myself get a sample from each to see if E* is still superior in quality - especially as this product comes to market.

If E* is not the best quality, some of us might want to switch to D* before installlation.

Thanks

======== D* ==== E* ===
2 years ago 100% 100%
6 months ago 75% 100%
today .............75% 80%

E* HD is still a bit better, but the difference is not nearly as significant as it once was.

When sending in the unit for the modification, do we need to include the original [dtc-100] remote control?

I sent an email as well, but thought I would ask here - do you guys take credit cards for payment or cash only.
Thanks.

Question for you Beta testers-

I've got SageTV running on the PC that is hooked up to the DirecTV receiver. I plan to buy a second DirecTV receiver to use in conjuction with the modded one. This second receiver will allow me to record programming with SageTV (obviously non-HD stuff). Will a single PC be able to be used to record programming for SageTV and with the R5000?

My PC is a 2.4ghz, 512meg memory. The TV capture card for SageTV is the Hauppauge PVR250.

Or would you recommend setting up a PC strictly for HD recording?
Thanks.

To answer some questions...

We do not need anything else shipped to us except for the STB itself (no remote, no cables, etc).

We will be accepting credit cards.

We have made it pretty clear in the past, but it bears repeating: We do plan on making the R5000-HD offer a DirectShow interface. In that case it will show up as a tuner card in applications like SageTV that are DirectShow compatible. Based on the amount of feedback requesting this type of integration we are making this a near term goal.

Anybody purchasing an R5000-HD now will be able to benefit from these upgrades simply by downloading the self-installing updates as they become available. There is never any firmware updating process or hardware modifications necessary.

Thank you

-R

Well Mr. R5000-HD,

That would be great! I appreciate the info.

Can I ask another rudimentary question -

Currently with SageTV I record to a Media Server PC through my wired network (10/100). Would this possible when recording HD material?

Thanks.

Originally posted by ralphjb
Well Mr. R5000-HD,

That would be great! I appreciate the info.

Can I ask another rudimentary question -

Currently with SageTV I record to a Media Server PC through my wired network (10/100). Would this possible when recording HD material?

Thanks.

Yes it is. We haven't done a lot of testing but generally our results have been quite good. HD recordings made with the R5000 to a networked drive have not experienced any throughput problems or loss of data. Of course a lot will depend on your network layout and what level of congestion it experiences while the recording is in progress.

-R

That's great news.
Thanks.

A question that has me puzzled the more and more I think about it.

Why in the world do you need a copy of a D* or E* bill when you modify the unit (I mean why, not "to verify you are a customer"?

Well my equipment is off to Nextcom for modification. Hopefully in a couple weeks, I will be able to record HDTV to D-VHS again.

Thanks Nextcom.

Originally posted by HDTVFanAtic
A question that has me puzzled the more and more I think about it.

Why in the world do you need a copy of a D* or E* bill when you modify the unit (I mean why, not "to verify you are a customer"?


I imagine cause where they tap in to get the transport stream it is at a point where the stb has everything in the clear.
They most likely dont want this to became a device to hack programming
but a recording device for legitimate subscribers.
I am not connected with nextcom so this is just a guess although I will be a customer :)

I *seriously* doubt avsforum would have gotten behind this product the way they have if this was a hacking device where everything was in the clear.

If I so desired, I could just subscribe for the minimal and get everything if that was the case.

Thus, I *doubt* that is the case.

I *assume* that where they grab the signal for the output is at the same point they units factory output circuits are connected - just that this outputs to USB 2.0.

There is no place in the STB where everything is in the clear. The only things that are in the clear are those things for which your smartcard provides the keys to decode.

Well I did say it was a guess :)
then i have no clue why they would want a bill.

Originally posted by jlinos
then i have no clue why they would want a bill.

It says right in the very first post on this thread "Proof of DirecTV, Dish Network, or Bell ExpressVu subscription required for purchase."

Originally posted by jlinos
Well I did say it was a guess :)
then i have no clue why they would want a bill.

It's just a legal issue. They're trying to protect themselves as much as possible, they don't want to be held liable for any piracy issues. I'm sure they'll make a photocopy of your bill and keep it on record, in case things arise.

Originally posted by Ron Tobin
It says right in the very first post on this thread "Proof of DirecTV, Dish Network, or Bell ExpressVu subscription required for purchase."

Yes, that's not in debate. The question is a simple one.....why?

Originally posted by taz291819
It's just a legal issue. They're trying to protect themselves as much as possible, they don't want to be held liable for any piracy issues. I'm sure they'll make a photocopy of your bill and keep it on record, in case things arise.

I modify my unit and then sell it on eBay to someone else. He goes into HD Distribution. I don't see where I or they are at liable there and they won't have that new person's bill on record either.

Seems pretty meaningless if that is the reasoning.

I see E* still has some of their HD channels duplicated on 148 with 2 per transponder. Anybody able to see if they are using the same bitrate on HBO/SHO on 148 as on 110?

I sent an email to Nextcom about with this as well, but thought I would post here to.

Anyone know whether you should send your receiver with the access card or without? Couldn't find in the material (might be there but could not find).
Thanks!

I believe they need your access card so that they can properly test the installation of the R5000-HD board.

Thanks. Appreciate that.

Originally posted by HookedOnTV
I see E* still has some of their HD channels duplicated on 148 with 2 per transponder. Anybody able to see if they are using the same bitrate on HBO/SHO on 148 as on 110?

That's interesting. I just disconnected my 148 dish so I could use an older receiver which doesn't support my usual switch setup while my 6000 is out for the upgrade. I dropped HBO and SHO when the 5000 was turned off. I didn't realize they were still on 148. Which other HD channels are on 148 now?

Mark

KCBS-HD, HD PPV