Just a small note - your title frame is quite big, it makes reading your page on a netbook [1024x600] awkward! [hint: Firefox has a "view only this frame" option, right-click for it]
Like you I have given up on subscription TV. I can't believe the amount I used to pay Sky. What I'd like (and would never happen) is to pay a "subscription" for legally downloading stuff off the Internet. That way, I could explore pretty much building my own selection... but in lieu of that, I have over a dozen channels which are completely free. My OSD gets daily use.
I am surprised you're using such a low bitrate. I guess it depends upon what you're digitising, however it is perhaps worth mentioning that motion is the main thing where compression artefacts show up. May I suggest you give 1200kbit a try? This is my 'base' quality. I agree, also, that it is nice to have the option of 2500kbit, but I think this is overkill. Not used it yet!
For JoeBorn: while there are quibbles (aren't there always?!), I too am happy with my OSD. Compared to my previous PVR... heh... don't go there... NTSC only output (why!?), locked to 30fps sampling (fun in a 25fps PAL region!), no choice of bitrate or audio codec, sound like coming from a bucket... what I will say is it functioned. Mostly. The OSD, on the other hand, just gets on, records video (mostly satellite TV), and does it well. Last night, thanks to the OSD, I watched "The Quatermess Xperiment" (from 1955, check out those comic fire engines! and wow, nurses dressed super-cute, not like today's blah white/blue outfits!)
There's a load of cheapish SD PVRs turning up, perhaps because a lot of people still have legacy equipment and there's fewer and fewer tape-based VCRs, while DVD recorders are still pricey. Oddly enough, there's no MPEG4 recorder of any sort in my local supermarkets. Why not?
Okay, granted, I live in France, but all the same - dozens of digital telly receivers, several DVD recorders (one with a harddisc fetching €350!!!). One VCR-DVD combo. Some cheap DVD players.
Why not an MPEG4 recorder? Why do these little gadgets seem to have been overlooked by the mainstream? Can't I go tell everybody who will listen (and even if they don't) how
convenient the OSD is?
Take a look at
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDMV1-R-V-Mate-Memory-Recorder/dp/B000IN72KK for an example of what I mean by "other" PVRs. That and my older PVR. Neither of which are a patch on the OSD. Really... If anybody feels tempted by the nice write-up in Amazon, let me quote a real
WTF?! item from the user guide:
During recording in 640x480 resolution, there will be no preview window (in the other resolutions there is a preview window during recording). Instead the screen is black with “REC” displayed in the top left corner to indicate the V-Mate is recording. You can hear the audio. To see the video signal while recording in VGA resolution, you can setup a direct connection between the video source box (2nd AV output is required) and the TV (2nd AV input is required). This requires an extra AV cable (not included). What can I say? This alone destroys any hope of me ever considering this VMate. I mean, without screwing around with a mess of cabling, how exactly do I watch what is being recorded in order to record at a descent resolution? Oh, wait. I don't.
Neuros! Yoo-hoo!
So - perhaps an opening for the OSD?
What it needs more than anything else is a new box. The box is cool, I love the little magnet-clasp. But what is written on the box is not cool. Let's be realistic about the OSD now [D1? No! 176xwhatever? was this in Torfu?]. And play down the "open" part of it, a geek so inclined will probably have already found these forums! A person wanting a video recorder may not care.
So, if there is any hope of reinvigorating the original OSD, here are my suggestions:
- New box - "it's just like a VCR, only better" - aim it like that
- USER GUIDE! Not a quick start but a proper guide - something my mother could understand!
- Rejig the firmware to bury all the tech stuff away in a submenu
- Rejig the firmware so it will look to see what the input signal type is (PAL/NTSC) and set itself initially according to this. Why? Some TVs blank an unsupported signal - like when the OSD reverts to NTSC output! [the tvp5150 can tell you this, can the driver retrieve this info?]
- Rejig the firmware - kill the YouTube thing and replace it with a simple app to set up and select your favourite shoutcast channels (I know you can use mms2, but mms2 is clumsy and slow)
- Rejig the firmware to select: mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy or yyyy/mm/dd and 12/24hour time
- Downplay the ability to connect harddiscs, and be certain to point out that they'll need to have their own power supply. Reading negative comments on Amazon, it looks like many tried to connect stupidly large harddiscs and wonder why it isn't smooth sailing.
- Don't call it a Media Center. It can't play newer-gen H.264 or anything HD, and people will nitpick on that (wah, it's a media center but wah it won't play this cool video I recorded on my iPhone wah).
To be honest, I think the hardest part of all that will be designing a new box!
The OSD has
bucketloads of capability provided you sell it for what it is, and let the user take it to the next step if they feel inclined.
I, for one, would be happy to recommend it as a video recorder.
