SnapStream Blog (staging)

There’s been a groundswell of interest in the Hauppauge HD PVR device, ever since Hauppauge announced it at CES in early January. I first heard about the device from Hauppauge on a visit to their offices in Hauppauge, NY back in November 2007. Since then, I’ve learned quite a bit more about the device. We’re taking a lot of interest in this new device, but until we actual get a test unit, we can’t say whether or not we’ll support it.

For those of you who haven’t heard about the new device, I’ll briefly recap its capabilities: it’ll take in component video (you know, the red, green, and blue cables on the back of your cable or satellite set-top box — the ones that can carry an HD signal) and encode it to H.264 at up to 25 Mbit/s. And it includes Hauppauge’s standard IR blaster with code library.

Anyways, here is some of what I know about it:

• Hauppauge’s calling it the HD PVR — for now. The name may change before it’s released.
• It can accept component video in (see a picture) up to 1080p
• It can encode that component video to H.264 transport streams (in hardware)
• The hardware itself is basically done — Hauppauge’s just waiting on the final case design (and Chinese New Year has slowed this down)
• It includes the same Hauppauge IR blaster & code library included with other Hauppauge products
• It’s based on a chip from a company called Ambarella (http://www.ambarella.com/)
• It’s an all-in-one chip that has a digitizer and H.264 encoder
• A similar chip from Ambarella happens to be used in popular HD camcorders
• The compression data rates works between 1 Mbit/s and 25 Mbit/s
• The H.264 encoder outputs H.264 transport streams
• The Ambarella chip also has an H.264 decoder and the Hauppauge HD PVR will ship with a video out, but…
• The video out function will more than likely NOT be activated when the HD PVR ships (and possibly never, for reasons relating to the Ambarella driver)
• You’ll need a relatively powerful PC to playback these recordings
• Hauppauge is still making some tweaks to the HD PVR’s drivers as well
• Hauppauge expects for the product to be shipping before the end of this quarter (ie before March 31, 2008)

(Note: the image above is NOT the device — it’s just a set-top box with some component video cables. I’ve requested some photographs and will hopefully have some soon.)

(Note #2: All of the information above was posted *with* permission from Hauppauge — specifically, Ken Plotkin reviewed a draft and gave me the green light to post it.)