2005-03-29, 12:16 AM
Hi,
I'm the proud owner of a PVR350 based GBPVR system and the only major flaw in this otherwise excellent PVR box is the lack of the DVD playback through the 350. I know this topic has been raised before, and the response is always "can't be done". I just can't see why not. I know that DVD data is not exactly MPEG2 data, and that the PVR350's chip is an MPEG2 decoder but there must be some way round that.
As I understand it the DVD data is basically MPEG2 + DVD extra stuff (menus, multi-channel sound etc) + css region encoding, and the PVR can output both standard MPEG2 data (e.g. captured TV) and some sort of software overlay (e.g. GBPVR interface). We also have some external tools which will play DVDs to the standard output (i.e. decode DVD data fully to raw sound and video) and which can decode a DVD to disk as a standard MPEG2 file faster than real time.
This suggests two paths (in order of preference):
1.) DVD --> DVD to MPEG2 tool --> PVR350 MPEG 2 decode --> TV
2.) DVD --> External DVD decoder --> PVR350 as software overlay --> TV
I appreciate that both of these will require a little code work, but I'm happy to do that. It looks like it should just be a case of plugging together the existing tools, but I'm sure someone will explain why it's not as simple as I think.
McClade
I'm the proud owner of a PVR350 based GBPVR system and the only major flaw in this otherwise excellent PVR box is the lack of the DVD playback through the 350. I know this topic has been raised before, and the response is always "can't be done". I just can't see why not. I know that DVD data is not exactly MPEG2 data, and that the PVR350's chip is an MPEG2 decoder but there must be some way round that.
As I understand it the DVD data is basically MPEG2 + DVD extra stuff (menus, multi-channel sound etc) + css region encoding, and the PVR can output both standard MPEG2 data (e.g. captured TV) and some sort of software overlay (e.g. GBPVR interface). We also have some external tools which will play DVDs to the standard output (i.e. decode DVD data fully to raw sound and video) and which can decode a DVD to disk as a standard MPEG2 file faster than real time.
This suggests two paths (in order of preference):
1.) DVD --> DVD to MPEG2 tool --> PVR350 MPEG 2 decode --> TV
2.) DVD --> External DVD decoder --> PVR350 as software overlay --> TV
I appreciate that both of these will require a little code work, but I'm happy to do that. It looks like it should just be a case of plugging together the existing tools, but I'm sure someone will explain why it's not as simple as I think.
McClade