[tji]

Do any STB's (I guess that would mean DTC-100 + 169time right now) support storage to firewire hard drives?


There have been a lot of discussions here about hooking up the firewire capable VHS-D VCR's to an HD STB. But, it seems that a firewire hard drive could give a lot of the PVR advantages with a basic STB.


There are several of these drives available in fairly large sizes, like 120GB. They can be chained together for more capacity.


In Western Digital's press release for their firewire drives, they mention support for 5C/DTCP. So, it could work with the next generation STB's and their user restriction requirements.

 

[dr1394]

The drives that supported isochronous transfers with

5C/DTCP have gone the way of the dodo bird. Both

Maxtor and Western Digital have discontinued their

products. Although 1394 software vendors such as

VividLogic and Zayante (now Apple) like to still

demo with them, they are not available from any US

company. The reasons for their demise are:

1) Way ahead of their time. No devices to send them content

aside from DV cameras were available until just recently.

2) Way too much on-board processing power required. This

is not the business model that Maxtor and WD are used to.

They want to sell cheap drives (low profit margin) in

commodity numbers.


However, 1394 SBP-2 drives are common and plentiful.

But they are just IDE drives with a 1394/SBP-2 to

IDE bridge chip. They also require that the box

(STB or whatever) implement a file system (like FAT32).

So it's still more cost effective to just stick an

IDE drive inside the box.


Ron

 

[h2ofun]

Yes, the dtc100 with 169time supports sending its 8vsb input signal out firewire to an XP computer in version 1.6 f/w


dave

 

[tji]

Thanks Ron, That's good info.


I guess I can still hope that the next generation STB's will be smart enough to write a file system to a firewire hard drive. I have no idea what type of embedded OS's they would use, but if they are smart enough to support 1394, a file system shouldn't be out of the question. If the application or file system also supported encryption, this could meet their usage restriction requirements.


Of course, an internal IDE drive would also work. But, there are some advantages to an external drive in expandability. Also, the STB vendor would not have to support a hard drive, which would be a potential point of failure where the rest of the STB is all solid state.


h2ofun - I assume this means that the 169time mod cannot directly address a firewire hard drive. If I had to connect to an XP computer, the firewire hard drive loses it's benefits.. I could just use cheaper IDE drives in the XP box.

 

[h2ofun]

You need the graph filters that this group uses on the XP to capture.

What type of disk you put it on via the XP I dont think matters.


dave

 

[MF70]

I think tji is talking about interfacing an IEEE-1394 drive directly to a set-top box, without the use of a computer! Am I right, tji?

 

[h2ofun]

No one can do that today that I am aware of.


dave

 

[tji]

MF70: yes, that's what I was proposing.


There are some obvious disadvantages to the D-VHS tapes. If we could interface directly to the 1394 hard drive, it could provide large random access storage, like a Tivo/PVR.


Maxtor sells their 160GB disk in a firewire enclosure. You can also chain them together to get some serious amounts of storage.


If the next generation of STB's with firewire ever show up, hopefully they will support this kind of storage.

 

[stjr]

The MyHD PC card records and plays back directly to DVHS with IEE1394 in WinXP. Will the MyHD card also record and play back to the 169Time mod through IEEE1394? This application might make the interface easier than using filter graphs.

 

[leszek1]

Quote:

Originally posted by stjr The MyHD PC card records and plays back directly to DVHS with IEE1394 in WinXP. Will the MyHD card also record and play back to the 169Time mod through IEEE1394? This application might make the interface easier than using filter graphs.

Yes.


The computer sees the 169Time as a JVC DVHS, so MyHD will treat 169Time as a DVHS.

 

[stjr]

I assume nobody has actually tested the 169Time with the MyHD card. In addition, the potential Sat recording capability of the 169Time might change its MyHD compatibility as well. I just wanted to explore the idea, since I have a MyHD card on order.

 

[leszek1]

Quote:

Originally posted by stjr I assume nobody has actually tested the 169Time with the MyHD card. In addition, the potential Sat recording capability of the 169Time might change its MyHD compatibility as well. I just wanted to explore the idea, since I have a MyHD card on order.

Both JVC DVHS and 169Time use the same Microsoft supplied DVHS driver. MyHD card talks to this driver when sending data to/from DVHS. Even though no one has tested MyHD with 169Time, I doubt very much that it would not work.


The Sat recording is an external add-on to already existing 169Time product, so that will definitively not change anything with respect to MyHD.