MPEG-2 Hardware Encoding in the

Implementation of Digital Video

Recorder

By:
Sharifah Ummu Kulthum bt Syed Abdul Rahman
International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
 Presentation Outline
1. Motivation
2. What is a DVR
3. My idea is
4. Objectives
5. Getting started
6. Getting ready
7. Understanding the structure of MythTV
8. CPU usage analysis
9. Future Enhancement
10. Conclusion
 Motivation
• Have you ever experienced, coming home too
tired at night but your favourite football team
will be having their match on the same night
at 3a.m?!
• Have you ever felt restless because you have
to stayback to finish your work and you know
will be missing your favourite TV shows final
episode?!
It’s FIFA 2010 season!
Feeling this? If you’re missing this?

* All pictures are courtesy of google.com

• Have you ever thought of having something
that can solve all the problems of missing your
favourite TV shows or football match?
• Added to that, you can watch all these in your
own convenience and skipping all the
commercials too…!
 What is a DVR
• It is something that look like this

• That can do this

• DVR is a device which allows linear television
content to be recorder onto an internal hard
drive.
• Its core functionality is to provide the
capability of playback shows, time shift of
contents and more importantly, it aims at
giving user more control over television
viewing experience.
 My idea is…

• Evaluating resource utilisation (CPU usage) of

Digital Video Recorder (DVR) in a simulated
environment
– Simulated in an environment of Linux platform
equipped with MythTV (a DVR-based) package in
Linux) and a TV tuner card (Hauppauge WinTV-
PVR 150)
– To examine the hardware architecture of a DVR
 Objective(s)
• Creating an affordable DVR for Malaysian
market
• Incorporating an embedded system inside the
DVR with the features of multiple languages
(1Malaysia).

This project is:

• taking the first step.
courtesy of google.com
 Getting Started
• What is needed?
– A complete PC
• With working graphic and sound card and an empty PCI
slot. 
– A compatible TV tuner card
• I am using PCI-Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 (Hauppauge
series is highly recommended for those trying MythTV)
 Warning!!!
• Experience of trying this project will vary from
person to person and hardware specification-
wise.
• Sometimes, you will not have the software to
work right away, everything should be put into
places first (which is the complicated part).
PCI-Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 Encoded
Decoded
(video+audio)

Display
Pause
Forward
Rewind
Play
 Getting ready
• Install the driver (middleware) for the
hardware and TEST it.
• Install MythTV
• Set up and fulfill the requirement of MythTV
UNDERSTANDING THE STRUCTURE
OF MYTHTV
MythTV
CPU USAGE ANALYSIS
Percentage of CPU Usage (BE/FE)
 Future Enhancement
• A commercial Digital Video Recorder that is
cheap and reliable in Malaysia market
• An embedded system which will be integrated
inside the device
http://our-mythtv.blogspot.com
 Conclusion
• In order to produce a Digital Video Recorder,
the hardware elements play most of the
computation behind it.
• An MPEG hardware encoder incorporated
inside the processor allow optimised
performance and affordable cost.