Is there anything out there in the way of HDTV playback devices (other than HD-DVD and BluRay -- I'm talking about playing stuff recorded on an HTPC)? Something that can play H.264 video encoded at 720p/24 and 1080p/24 as well as the various broadcast standards would be idea. It looks like Nero Digital has defined such a standard but I haven't seen any actual devices which incorporate it.

You want a H.264 capable IPTV STB, such as AMINet 131 series (http://www.aminocom.com/products/ipstb/aminet131.html)
and a IPTV server, such as VLC or TSReader Professional.

Though more realistically, you probably just want TVIX M-4100SH box from http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/products/4100sh.aspx because thats what everyone else uses these days.

Something like that, only which will play files on a data DVD rather than relying on a hard drive.

The Avel I/O Linkplayer doesn't do exactly what you're looking for, but it does come close.

It will play high definition files burned to DVD in WMV, DIVX, or Xvid formats. I've gotten good results from this player with both WMV 1080p and DIVX 720p files.

Why would you store 30 minutes of HD on a DVD-R when it can be on network/hdd.

Actually, for me it would be nice to be able to record the HD programming off of the HDD and into HD-DVD (or similar) format, for future use.

Suppose that it would be possible to just keep adding SATA drives, but a nice stack of HD DVDs would look more impressive than a few hard drives.

You can get 3 hours of 720p/24 on a DVD-R using H.264. A standalone player would be useful; sometimes it's just more convenient to put a disc in than to mess with the network.

You can get 3 hours of 720p/24 on a DVD-R using H.264. A standalone player would be useful; sometimes it's just more convenient to put a disc in than to mess with the network.

What software program do you use to burn the H.264 files to DVD-R? Do the files have to be converted to another extension (ts)? I have the AVeL Link Player (SRDVD-100U), but have only been able to burn HD.ts files (data) using Nero, for playback on my stand-alone player. I'd love to be able to archive H.264 movie files.

Thanks for your help,
Ben

Of course, the Linkplayer doesn't support H264.

The Linkplayer does support DIVX, Xvid, and WMV.

For HD broadcasts that I want to archive onto DVD, I use DIVX Converter to convert MPEG files into DIVX at 720P. This gives me approximately 2 hours 15 minutes on a single layer DVD and looks pretty good. For recordings from my Sony HC1 camcorder, I use Vegas Movie Studio (my editing software) to generate a 1080P WMV version of the edited video.

I've also watched videos encoded by others using Xvid, although I haven't used it to encode anything myself. But those videos have looked pretty good, as well.

Any of these encoding formats is potentially a good alternative to H264.

I guess we are forgetting the obvious firewire device of a D-VHS deck, huh?

I'm pretty sure the original poster specifically specified H264 playback. That rules out DVHS, LinkPlayer, and various other suggestions in this thread.
So far, the only device that does it is the TVIX box I mentioned earlier, or an IPTV stb.

Looks like the device I'm interested in just doesn't exist (yet?). Thanks for all the help.

Looks like the device I'm interested in just doesn't exist (yet?). Thanks for all the help.

I found a program: AutoMKV, that does an adequate job of encoding H264 files to WMV, for playback on my AVeL Link Player. While I don't expect the quality to be like a .ts file, it's certainly an improvement over DVD.

I found a program: AutoMKV, that does an adequate job of encoding H264 files to WMV, for playback on my AVeL Link Player. While I don't expect the quality to be like a .ts file, it's certainly an improvement over DVD.

Looks like I spoke prematurely. This program encodes to WMV 8 files, which is NOT supported by the AVeL Link Player (WMV9).

Sorry for the misinformation.