First MPEG-4 digital recording software for HDTV beta release

January 3, 2004

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us he saw over at the Inquirer that another video codec software is out that may be of interest to our readers. After doing a search I was able to find the source of the story dated December 29, 2003 that gives us more information. This product is created by PC DTV Technologies, Inc and is being touted as a world first. The beta program costs 150 dollars, when the final release is out, those in the beta receive a free upgrade on CD-ROM. At that time, the software will cost an additional 50 bucks. If you go to the Countdown site you can find a comparison there that indicates a Pro version will be available as well, the only difference is Dual CPU support and it costs about 250 dollars. Here is what the webpage states about the Countdown HD software: "Countdown HD the World's first HDTV MPEG-4 recording software is now immediately available for order worldwide from the PC DTV Technologies' websites. The Countdown HD public beta version is available for shipping starting Friday, January 2nd 2004.

Countdown HD gives PC users of hardware decoder based HDTV tuner boards now the unique opportunity to record a full 2-hours HDTV program to a single 4.7 GB DVD disk in MPEG-4 video compression format. The converted HDTV transport stream to MPEG-4 format file than can be played back on any PC based 4x DVD-ROM player, a 1.8+ GHz CPU (for converted to 720p HD format) and an HDTV playback capable multimedia software player (DivX Player for DivX encoded HDTV files)."

Countdown HD features include:

HDTV MPEG-4 Digital Video Transcoder
MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 transcoder with HDxQ technology
Direct Transcoding Burning to DVD-R/W -, DVD+R/W -, DVD-RAM - or CD-R/W disk drive.
Direct Transcoding Recording to PC hard-disk drive
DivX Pro 5.1.1Codec included (with final release of v1.0 production version) DivX is the most widely distributed MPEG-4 compatible technology available today
Support for WM9 codec Countdown HD provides transcoding support for Windows Media 9 format
Support for Xvid (Koepis) codec Countdown HD provides transcoding support for the open source video codec format
Background Quiet Transcoding Select the resolution-, video quality settings-, hard-disk or optical drive and press the start button. Countdown HD will automatically transcoder and write or burn the converted the HDTV transport stream file(s).
Drag- and Drop Video Editor included Cut and Merge HDTV transport stream files.
Cropping and Resizing of Video Custom crop and/or resize HDTV transport stream files.
Edit While Recording Cut and Merge HDTV transport stream files while HDTV MPEG-2 transport stream recording is still in progress.

According to this press release, here is what President and Founder Jens Wellman says abut PC DTVs' product: "Countdown HD is a groundbreaking new software product specifically created for the discriminating multimedia PC- and HTPC (Home Theater PC) users that leapfrogs all of the other consumer TV recording software products that are unable to tackle the challenging task of transforming a digital TV MPEG-2 transport stream file format to a full HDTV quality and resolution encoded MPEG-4 video file.

The ability to edit, encode, and burn to DVD video even as it's being recorded off air is a first for any video encoding software. On fast CPU's, the encoded recording is finished shortly after the show is over." Please feel free to discuss this in our Transcoding Software Forum.

Source: PC DTV Technologies