DirecTV-2-PC Public Beta

**Jimmy 440** · 10-14-2008 03:15 PM

This sounds like it will be good.

**jcrandall** · 10-14-2008 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by shibby191

This has been out for a few months now in the CE program. I know there are very large threads on DBSTalk about it with tons of details, I'm sure there are some here as well.

The page linked above is obviously a placeholder while they get ready to roll this out but it's not available to the public yet, only in the CE program. But the page actually being there must mean they are close to releasing it. I'd guess it will be marked "beta" similar to how the DirecTV On Demand was listed as beta for a long time.

It has been in closed beta testing for many months.

This thread / website notice is the first sign of a possible "public" beta test.

**lovswr** · 10-14-2008 03:55 PM

This has been released to a select few CE'rs for a while now. It is generally viewed as the precursor to MRV <---- D* NEEDS TO GET ON THE BALL & GET MRV OUT THE DOOR NOW!!!!!!!!

as well as some new HD Channels

**K9SAT** · 10-14-2008 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by lovswr

This has been released to a select few CE'rs for a while now. It is generally viewed as the precursor to MRV <---- D* NEEDS TO GET ON THE BALL & GET MRV OUT THE DOOR NOW!!!!!!!!

as well as some new HD Channels

Not here.. Our CE Program has not seen this! I know we requested it but D* wanted to test it over at DBS Talk. Maybe now that they are ready to publicly test, they can open it up over here now. Maybe we need to shoot them an email and ask.

**vurbano** · 10-14-2008 05:15 PM

And yet the majority of Cer's have to wait as long as regular subs to get it.

**Madtown HD Junkie** · 10-14-2008 06:00 PM

anyone know when the link will work or an update on when this beta will be functional?

ty

**gillham** · 10-14-2008 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by ntippets

Rey_1178, overall it sounds like you have more horse power in than my laptop does and it does great most of the time so you should be fine as well.

Big Dawg 23, I have the Hauppage 950 and I see some of the same things for processor usage on my computer while watching live TV. The issue is that the USB tuners have software encoders so the processor has to do all that work. If you have an internal card that did hardware encoding it probably wouldn't be an issue. I haven't looked at my processor usage while watching a pre recorded HD show on my laptop, but I'll look at that tonight.

If you're using OTA analog then you will definitely see a hit for software encoding. OTA HD is already encoded, so if you're watching OTA HD live or recorded, your system is mostly decoding.

OTA HD is MPEG2 based, which is less cpu intensive than D* HD which uses MPEG4. Software decoding of MPEG2 or MPEG4 is a cpu issue, just about any old video card will work if you have enough cpu. If you don't have enough cpu, modern video cards can offload some decoding. Ideally you would have something like an NVidia PureVideo based card (or ATI equivalent) which accelerates playback. This offloads decoding significantly and will let you get away with a slower cpu than pure software playback. I'm assuming your box will also need to decrypt the video stream as it is decoding it for playback.

I'm guessing more requirements details will surface, but one measure might be that if your system can playback Apple's HD 1080 movie trailers with cpu to spare, it will probably be pretty decent for decrypting and decoding. If your system is struggling with Apple's HD 1080 then I would guess this would be too much for it.

**grydlok** · 10-14-2008 08:35 PM

If you don't have a hi-end pc I wouldn't try it.

**Zynergi** · 10-14-2008 11:15 PM

Cool so with a capture card/program you could "save" your recordings ;P

**msajeff** · 10-15-2008 03:04 AM

So here's a question that I'm sure a few of us have. Is it safe to hook up the receiver to your network if you've "moved"? It's been almost a year since doing so and at the time I was "working as a contractor" and living in another market that had HD locals. The place that the "bill gets sent" now has locals BUT it does not have the CW HD and they are having all kinds of nasty problems with the FOX HD signal getting pillarboxed. If they can lock down a location via IP (I have Crapcast Internet), how receptive would they be to a "I forgot to notify you when I moved back" excuse when they called to inquire?

If not for the issues with the HD locals where I'm located, this feature would be enough to get me to not only "move back" but also reconfigure my network setup. Having to sit back in the bedroom and watch Sponge Bob with my 3 year old would be a lot easier if I could still be watching my shows via the laptop.