[ExtractStream] Re: Directivo, TivoNET, and ExtractStream

[sharkey@a...]

> --- In ExtractStream@y..., gekea@y... wrote:
> > so, doesn't it seem logical that if i were to capture this output 
> and 
> > apply a MPEG 4 codec...it would be better than what the standalone 
> > tivo does? it is, by all accounts, applying a sub-par MPEG 
> > codec to an analog input as well.
> 
> Possibly, but unlikely. The thing is that DirecTV spent a *LOT* of 
> money (say, around $10K+) just obtaining an MPEG2 encoder.

Somehow I doubt that DirecTV's encodings are really that much better than
the SA Tivo's best quality recording. And if they are better, the
difference is too small to be significant. I almost never use best quality
becuase I don't feel that I need better than medium for most things. Yes,
I can tell the difference, but I don't really care.

DirecTV pays a lot more for their encoders because they can handle multiple
streams. How many channels do they provide? They have to encode all
of them simultaneously. That's something that just can't be done on a
$200 box at any quality. (And licensing the required patents from
the MPEG LA scales with the number of channels which can be provided, so
the cost goes up there, too.) $10K+ sounds pretty cheap to me.

For me, it's not about video quality, but the ease and simplicity with
which I can beam recordings from place to place. As I'm writing this,
my Tivo and I are in different hemispheres. Sure, I can log in and
see what's recorded on there and stuff, but until now I haven't been
able to, say, download the video onto my laptop and watch it whereever
I happen to be. I've been travelling back and forth from the U.S. to
Japan for the last four years, so it's hard to stick with a show and
follow it. Conceivably now I can. (I can't speak Japanese, so there's
not much point in watching local programming for me.)

This kind of space/time shifting is what I'm interested in and what I
consider to be legal and fair use.

Saving to videotape doesn't let you do something like this, and streaming
an analog signal to a video capture board is needlessly complex. It's much
simpler to just select the file and download it.

Eric