From owner-freebsd-multimedia Thu Jul 24 17:30:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA04671 for multimedia-outgoing; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:30:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from arg1.demon.co.uk (arg1.demon.co.uk [194.222.34.166]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA04665 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:30:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from arg@localhost) by arg1.demon.co.uk (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA03132; Fri, 25 Jul 1997 01:29:04 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 01:29:03 +0100 (BST) From: Andrew Gordon X-Sender: arg@server.arg.sj.co.uk To: Amancio Hasty cc: multimedia@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Posting prefix In-Reply-To: <199707242113.OAA15573@rah.star-gate.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Amancio Hasty wrote: > mpeg2 now thats another cool idea with the advent of writable dvds > a project to support mpeg2 will be most cool . The missing link > right now is a cheap mpeg2 hardware codec --- anyone got a lead? I haven't found cheap mpeg2 (and I've been looking), but mpeg1 encoders seem to be getting cheap(er) at last. http://www.mpeg.co.uk/ quotes a hardware mpeg1 encoder for GBP400 ($650) http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/espresso/index.htp another one at $595 http://vitechts.com/dev.htm quotes chips in OEM quantities at $50. There's a list of assorted products at: http://www.visiblelight.com/mpeg/products/p_enc.htm There's also the Digital 21230 chip; I believe there are a number of products around using this, but I seem to have lost references to them. My dream device is a box that continuously records all channels (with about 24hrs memory) so that I never miss a programme and don't have to bother remembering to set the VCR! Since we have only 4 channels here, the hardware is just approaching a price at which this becomes plausible (and when we get more channels in a couple of years' time with digital transmission, they will arrive already MPEG encoded anyhow).