Apple HDTV Tuner?

[csimon2]

Apple's own DVD Player application decodes MPEG2 in the CPU (not the GPU) as far as I can tell.

Pretty sure that Apple's DVD Player software uses the GPU for at least some tasks, unlike VLC, which isn't able to use it all.

 

[Rod Rod]

Pretty sure that Apple's DVD Player software uses the GPU for at least some tasks, unlike VLC, which isn't able to use it all.

I'd hope so, but everything I've read about it indicates that it's all in the CPU. I guess I'll snoop around to confirm or debunk.

edit: of course, video scaling would be in the GPU but what I'm interested in is whether the MPEG2 decoding happens in the GPU at all.

One thing is certain, however: MPEG2 encoding on Macs is all CPU. Apparently that doesn't change in DVDSP 4, although it allows distributed computing (for MPEG2 and H.264 encoding) to other CPUs on your local gigabit network - which is the main reason why the addition of gigabit ethernet to the iMac G5 is awesome.

 

[DavidCar]

I'd hope so, but everything I've read about it indicates that it's all in the CPU. I guess I'll snoop around to confirm or debunk.

edit: of course, video scaling would be in the GPU but what I'm interested in is whether the MPEG2 decoding happens in the GPU at all.

One thing is certain, however: MPEG2 encoding on Macs is all CPU. Apparently that doesn't change in DVDSP 4, although it allows distributed computing (for MPEG2 and H.264 encoding) to other CPUs on your local gigabit network - which is the main reason why the addition of gigabit ethernet to the iMac G5 is awesome.

I found an article yesterday critical of Apple's DVD player. These comments are specific to the mini, but likely have broader application:

"As if the image quality issues weren't bad enough, there's another problem with Apple's DVD player - CPU utilization. It appears that Apple's DVD player has no support for the Radeon 9200's hardware-assisted DVD decoding, including motion compensation and iDCT support. The result is that playing a DVD eats up between 40% - 60% of the 1.25GHz G4 in the Mac mini, which is fine for playback, but unacceptable if you plan on doing anything else while playing a DVD. "

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2349&p=5

 

[jxpx777]

maybe down the road a few years a TV and computer will be two in the same, but I dont think that is plausible right now, not that it cant be done, but for lack of a market.

The problem is that unless you have a surplus of Macs lying around, you probably won't put your Mac in the same place as your TV, nor should you. If I am watching a DVD or TV, I don't want someone disturbing me with their latest .mpg that they think is so hilarious. I have one desktop Mac and I like it in my office where I get work done. If I had a wireless display, that would be another thing, but the ones that are available are way too expensive. Perhaps bringing TV to computer isn't the way to go. TiVo seems to do a good job of bringing computer to TV. If that is the answer, God, let's hope it's better than WebTV or whatever that crap was M$ tried to pawn off on us.

 

[weldon]

From these tests, that is how I was able to determine that 1080i playback, without dropped frames and at full-resolution, is possible on a dual G4.

Thanks for the clarification. I just pulled the specs to try and offer the simple answer.

Guess I'm a little confused as to what you are referencing here. Most editors who work with HD, don't scale or worry about filtering it on input monitoring. Can't really see a point to it. Also, if you are bringing it in, why would you send it out at the same time? The only thing I can come up with is monitoring the signal on an external dedicated display, which can easily be done with the DeckLink HD Plus, or similar cards. Boards like that have hardware builtin so that the mac isn't involved in tedious processes that a dedicated chip could do better.

Yeah, I'm not talking about editors at all. I'm talking about display in a home theater application. The OP was saying that PC's used a solution that involved decoding the ATSC MPEG-2 stream in hardware and then sending the uncompressed signal to the video card via passthrough to avoid hitting the system bus - like that was some kind of problem. As you said, there are hardware solutions for that because it's simpler that way - it's not a problem, it's a feature. In my mind, the OP was clearly confused so I offered the simple solution first and then suggested that dealing with uncompressed HD for Home Theater use was more complicated than he thought.

For HT use, there are plenty of good ways to use a computer to do extra processing. In particular, fixed pixel displays like to get fed at their native resolution. A computer can often do a better job of resizing the video than the circuitry in the display. De-interlacing is another good use in DVD playback. dscaler is the preferred software on the PC. For these applications you would want to bring the video in and output in real-time. There are a lot of good solutions for dealing with SD today on the PC-side. Not so many with HD because there isn't enough bandwidth to move all that data around for real-time output.

 

[DavidCar]

Any thoughts about what Intel Inside will do to software development for an EyeTV 500? I expect it does what I would want it to do now, but may need some natural software improvements in the future. If I take on a Cocoa development project, I would want a PowerMac now, and not wait for the future. But there are questions about where PPC PowerMac sales are going, and about whether every software developer will adopt universal binaries, or move to Cocoa if they have not done so already.

 

[DavidCar]

My ElGato question was answered in this MacWorld article:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/08/unfazed/index.php

"... all Elgato products would run natively on Macs with PowerPC and Intel chips and that he expects a “relatively painless transition for end users and most developers.”

 

[Rod Rod]

My ElGato question was answered in this MacWorld article:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/08/unfazed/index.php

"... all Elgato products would run natively on Macs with PowerPC and Intel chips and that he expects a “relatively painless transition for end users and most developers.”

Thank you for the followup. That was very kind of you. Hopefully, if this question comes up in the future, people will use the search feature in these forums and find the answer you provided.

 

[pionata]

Ok, just read this entire thread and still dont know if its possible to plug a ps3 through eyeTV 500 and stream it on a cinema 23-30" apple display. Anyone knows?

 

[mr_austin]

no.

Ok, just read this entire thread and still dont know if its possible to plug a ps3 through eyeTV 500 and stream it on a cinema 23-30" apple display. Anyone knows?

The PS3 has HDMI out, the eyeTV 500 has antenna in (and QAM cable), so as far as I know, no. But there may be a solution eventually, since the PS3 ain't shipping anytime soon,

 

[generik]

Hi,

Is there a DVB-T receiver that works on both Windows and Mac?

I currently have a Nebula DigiTV receiver that really works great, and will probably get a Elgato one for my new PB, but I don't really like the idea of getting things that don't play nice with each other

 

[carpe diem]

I think that it is possible to plug a ps3 into a ACD the guy at hmv told me so.

 

[pionata]

Great, Im getting a cinema 23" early next week with a mac mini (I realy hope I get a 64 vram model) in order to have apple care to cover the monitor.

 

[DavidCar]

I thought the whole theory behind HDMI was to prevent the full resolution signal from getting to something like an eyetv 500.

 

[javiercr]

Great, Im getting a cinema 23" early next week with a mac mini (I realy hope I get a 64 vram model) in order to have apple care to cover the monitor.

apple care will cover the monitor because you are buying a mini???

 

[ftaok]

apple care will cover the monitor because you are buying a mini???

Yes, AppleCare will cover the monitor, as long it's purchased on the same receipt. Make sure you buy them both on the same receipt/purchase order, etc.

 

[FireArse]

edit: of course, video scaling would be in the GPU but what I'm interested in is whether the MPEG2 decoding happens in the GPU at all.

If any of you guys are interested in Hardware Decoded MPEG 2 I think (not exactly sure) this software does it.

It's written by a guy who's a genious in OpenGL and Core Image - wrote the media playing app all by himself in Christmas 2004 i think. Seriously gives VLC a run for its money when playing video's. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, BUT it does save on CPU because a more significant amount of work is offloaded to the GPU. I have a 128MB 9600 and it runs fine - use the only version available - it seriosuly rocks!

http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~feelgood/opengl/cocoa/GLPlayer_Tech_Demo.dmg

Try it on your Mini's (i know they dont support Core Image, but hey!)
I am in the UK and am interested in a good Tuner for my PM. Elgato seem to be the only ppl in the area - any of you recommend a good model for good reception and support for freeview stuff?

Thanks,

F

 

[Rocketman]

Why would Apple moving into that market be such a great thing?

Reminds me of the late 80's early 90's when Apple lost their focus... they really did suffer back then. I hope they don't do that again.

1. I wish I could easily and reliably archive the stuff I save to my DISH brand DVR and DIRECTTV at one place.

The existing remotes support other devices so only the CPU would be required since the tuner, display and audio currently exist.

Rocketman

 

[BWhaler]

Why would they put it in the display?

Much better and bigger market to put it on a card.

 

[DavidCar]

Why would they put it in the display?

Much better and bigger market to put it on a card.

Remember this thread is almost three years old. The idea of putting the tuner in the display is where it started, but is more recently it is just about HDTV on a Mac in general.

 

[skellener]

Remember this thread is almost three years old. The idea of putting the tuner in the display is where it started, but is more recently it is just about HDTV on a Mac in general.

Yeah, after all, Steve declared 2005 the Year of HD....

Ahahahahahahaha! What a joke!

Just like he declared 2004 the "Year of the Laptop"!

Everyone knows that last year was unequivocally the "Year of the iPod" and this year is without a doubt "Year of the Video iPod".

"Year of HD" my a**! Other than releasing a few higher res displays what has Apple really done with HD? Final Cut? Sure. I'll give you that. iMovie? Yeah right...so how many people ran out and bought prosumer HDV camcorders to use with iMovie? And how about burning those HD movies to HD media? Oh that's right, there is no HD media!

Had Steve announced HD video downloads for iTunes I would have been impressed. But that didn't happen. We didn't even get DVD quality downloads.

I am a die hard Apple/Mac fan and a big supporter of Steve J. but man, sometimes he's just out right wrong!

 

[ffakr]

Yeah, after all, Steve declared 2005 the Year of HD....

Ahahahahahahaha! What a joke!
...
Everyone knows that last year was unequivocally the "Year of the iPod" and this year is without a doubt "Year of the Video iPod".

"Year of HD" my a**! Other than releasing a few higher res displays what has Apple really done with HD? Final Cut? Sure. I'll give you that. iMovie? Yeah right...so how many people ran out and bought prosumer HDV camcorders to use with iMovie? And how about burning those HD movies to HD media? Oh that's right, there is no HD media!

I don't like to be a Mac appologist, but Apple has HD rez powerbooks, Apple has HD support in their consumer and Pro video apps, Apple's got a 30" lcd display and dual-channel DVI support in about half their product line to run that massive display (even in the Powerbooks).
In addition, the cost of HD TVs have plumetted. I've seen 27-30" HD ready LCDs for well under $1000. Plasmas are all down $1000+. I believe it was JVC that released a solid state HD video camera this year (and impressive piece of hardware) and though I'm not following this closely I'm sure I've seen several 'pro-sumer' HD cameras on the market.

Soo, you needed to vent because Jobs couldn't make JVC, Sony, and others find more customers. Jobs failed because you didn't bother to buy an expensive HD video camera.
Here's a shocker for you, Jobs doesn't actually control Apple's customers and he certainly doesn't control JVC's or Samsung's or Sony's.

Jobs said it was the year of HD and he directed Apple to do what they could to support HD. Damn him for not controlling the rest of the world.

Nice straw man argument.

 

[skellener]

Jobs said it was the year of HD and he directed Apple to do what they could to support HD.

No HD content in iTunes for sale. No HD tuners available on the Mac (installed on that new iMac would have been the ticket). Video iPod not even capable of DVD quality playback, let alone HD content. No HD drives or media yet. There could have been alot more done for the "Year of HD". Yes, some of the Apple displays are now HD capable. I just think he may have been a bit early to the party. Maybe next year will be the "Year of HD". This year sure wasn't.

 

[ffakr]

No HD content in iTunes for sale. No HD tuners available on the Mac (installed on that new iMac would have been the ticket). Video iPod not even capable of DVD quality playback, let alone HD content. No HD drives or media yet. There could have been alot more done for the "Year of HD". Yes, some of the Apple displays are now HD capable. I just think he may have been a bit early to the party. Maybe next year will be the "Year of HD". This year sure wasn't.

I just pushed out some wedding photos in a QuickTime movie with a soundtrack. Just Ken Burns affect. Plenty of room for compression with each film having a static time.

3min 55 seconds at 720x 480 resolution and it was over 100MB.

You seriously want HD content on iTunes movie store? Are you kidding?
seriously.

What's typical size for a 30-60 minute TV show in HD? What would it take a typical DSL line to download that?

I don't disagree Jobs is early to the party, but as far as Apple is concerned it was the year of HD. They moved their software lines AND their hardware lines to support HD. Everything is there if you want to work in HD. Just because you haven't bought a $2000 video recorder and a $5000 Mac doesn't mean Apple hasn't provided HD support.

 

[Sunrunner]

I just pushed out some wedding photos in a QuickTime movie with a soundtrack. Just Ken Burns affect. Plenty of room for compression with each film having a static time.

3min 55 seconds at 720x 480 resolution and it was over 100MB.

You seriously want HD content on iTunes movie store? Are you kidding?
seriously.

What's typical size for a 30-60 minute TV show in HD? What would it take a typical DSL line to download that?

I don't disagree Jobs is early to the party, but as far as Apple is concerned it was the year of HD. They moved their software lines AND their hardware lines to support HD. Everything is there if you want to work in HD. Just because you haven't bought a $2000 video recorder and a $5000 Mac doesn't mean Apple hasn't provided HD support.

I totally agree. HD quality (or even broadcast quality) video will not be on iTunes in the near future. Perhaps when everyone has either cable or fiber in their homes...