[ExtractStream] Re: Tivo capability in a PC

[steve bryan]

At 5:17 pm -0800 1/2/02, Roger Merchberger wrote:
>I doubt you'd see the PC hardware be able to support this for quite
>some time (at least 2-3 years...) Software DivX playback requires
>around a 900Mhz Celeron or so, doesn't it? Anyway, my Dual Athlon
>1600+ cannot encode SVCD (at any decent quality) at a 1:1 speed

I believe you are right about an unassisted PC. That is why you need 
something like the Creative Labs Digital VCR which comes with a chip 
that handles all the MPEG2 encoding and decoding. I don't think you 
want to depend on the central processor to provide the bulk of the 
processing capability. That is why it (the digital VCR) can be 
recording TV in the background while the PC can be running an intense 
game like Return to Castle Wolfenstein in the foreground (or a web 
browser, spreadsheet, word processor, etc). This capability is here 
now for about $100. The next such card that I want would do the same 
thing but include a digital TV tuner. It would not have to include 
any MPEG2 compression capability since the signal arrives compressed. 
Unfortunately, the PCI cards that address this market so far are 
about $400. Maybe Creative Labs is planning to make such a product.
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