How sucessful have you been streaming live HD?

[streampunk]

Please don't bludgeon me, for I'm new at this and I've searched the wiki and FAQ for the last few days and never really found an answer to the following question(s).

My main question is have any of you had decent sucess streaming live HD content with VLC?

The reason I ask is that I currently have a few channels of IPTV set up using VLC and an SDI capture card. Looks great, but now I've been asked (read:told) to upgrade to include a few HD channels as well. Before I gave in and begged for tens of thousands of dollars for a stand alone encoder, I thought I'd see what I could do with off the shelf equipment and VLC.

So if you answered yes to my main question, then I've got a slew more questions for you in regards to your HD implementation.
What video codec are you using? Specific settings?
Is it even possible with today's hardware to encode to h264?
How do you implement multithreaded support for x264 in VLC? Is that CLI only?
What audio codec are you using? Specific settings?
How's the PQ compared to the original source?
What hardware are you using to accomplish all this?

Thanks for any and all input.

[fab!an]

Modulus h.264 HD encoders work with 8 dual core cpus, 16 fpgas and some dsps.
I'm not sure if you will be able to live encode hdtv with a standard pc at all.

[acegolfer]

I'm also interested in this.

I haven't tried live HDTV .tp streaming using VLC. But I can stream recorded 20mpbs MPEG2 .tp file via wifi-G. I'm not using VLC directly but my BTV uses it to stream. My video transcode setting in BTV is

WMV9 codec, 3000kbps, 960x540