Will S4 finally "pull" H.264/MPEG-2 HD via HME?

[Doug G]

Anyone know?

The lack of support for both this functionality and no native support for AVCHD video (MPEG-2 transport stream with H.264/AVC video) has me seriously re-thinking my commitment to my TivoHDs. As of now I can only access my older SD home videos over HME. And even "HD" pictures are only 720p.

Tivo should be ashamed. Typical, though IMO. Very rare that the inventor of a category/genre doesn't begin to rest on their laurels at some point and suddenly find themselves totally out-classed in the market they created. Too much focus on suing over patents, not enough on what the market demands.

Maybe I need to just ditch these and get myself a couple real home media servers.

[wmcbrine]

HD over HME works fine already (Streambaby, HME/VLC). It also works over HMO (TiVo Desktop, pyTivo). H.264 can't be pulled directly to the Now Playing List (HMO) from the TiVo side yet, though it can be streamed (that's HME); but it can be transcoded, while remaining HD. It can also be transferred to the NPL as-is, by using what we call the "push" mechanism. None of this makes it SD.

I think it's likely that we'll be able to pull H.264 directly in a future software release. But if not, you can still use it.

Re: Photos, yes, the highest resolution for the HME overlay on a Series 3/HD is 1280x720, which means that's the highest resolution you can get for still pictures via an HME-based viewer. I wouldn't be surprised if this was upgraded in the Premiere, but I haven't heard anything about that.

[Doug G]

Thanks, I didn't realize there was a difference between HMO/HME. (Thought they referred to the same thing.)

So HMO allows pull of MPEG-2 encoded HD to the now playing list using TD/pyTivo? I thought no HD could be pulled and had to be streamed currently. I can't seem to get Streambaby to push even my current MPEG-2 SD videos which pull fine with pyTivo. I'll have to try the VLC stream app in your sig.

EDIT: Just got SB working. Looks like Java was corrupted.

It would just be nice if they would natively support these common formats. I shouldn't have to use third party s/w to push and re-encapsulate my AVCHD video into MP4 containers just so I can watch it. For non technical users, there is no way they're going thru all this just to have access to their home videos. I hope they realized this and made things "just work" in S4 without all the extra steps.

[wmcbrine]

So HMO allows pull of MPEG-2 encoded HD to the now playing list using TD/pyTivo?Absolutely.

[jcthorne]

It would just be nice if they would natively support these common formats. I shouldn't have to use third party s/w to push and re-encapsulate my AVCHD video into MP4 containers just so I can watch it. For non technical users, there is no way they're going thru all this just to have access to their home videos. I hope they realized this and made things "just work" in S4 without all the extra steps.

Why do you feel Tivo would be any more 'correct' to support AVCHD rather than mp4? There is not one CE device on the market that supports all popular HD formats and apple promotes the mp4 so its as much of a 'standard' as anything can be. Many CE digital cameras and camcorders also already record in the mp4 format. No matter what format Tivo chose there will be those that want 'just one more format' supported.

They will likely support more formats on the newer chip set in the premier as software development continues, just like the S3 supports things the S2 does not.