[mythtv-users] Hauppauge HD-PVR: Photos and link to pre-order

[Brian Phillips]

David George wrote:
> MPEG 4 encoding is extremely CPU intensive.  To date there are no
> chips that can encode two streams of raw HD data.  With the size and
> price point Hauppauge has aimed for it wouldn't be cost effective to
> have a dual device.  Even the highest performance TI DSP can't encode
> two HD streams simultaneously (although it can encode a stream and
> decode another at the same time).  That isn't to say that someday
> there will not be a dual device.  Remember the PVR-500 came out
> *several* years after the single tuner Hauppauge PVR cards.       
> 
> Also when talking about power, these are not PC's.  They have very
> low power requirements compared to a PC. 

So put two DSPs on a single PCB.  That's what the PVR 500 does and probably
(I haven't peeked inside) what the HDHR does.  No one says they have to use
a single DSP to do it.  Anyone have an idea of what the cost of the DSP
they're using is?  I don't imagine the DSP is the whole $250.  Even if the
chip was $50, that's still a $350 price point, or slightly more, to put two
devices in the same footprint.  If it needed to be slightly larger, so be
it, but I doubt it would have to double in size and price just because it
required another DSP.  

I could be wrong though as I don't actively price DSPs...

Brian