[mythtv] openbrick / frontend

[Larry Matter]

I'll just reply to all of these in one message:

> Have you gotten mythtv to work properly on EPIA M? What display drivers
> did you use? My box bombs when i try to watch tv through a bt878 on the
> EPIA... :( It is definately the videodev or via_4l_drv driver supplied
> by Via that is the  cause...

I have it working as a frontend only (Using Mandrake 8.2).  It was a pain
to get the via drivers working but I finally managed - email me privately
if you want details.  I use an AMD Athlon 1400MHz system as the backend. 
Second tuner card arrives to day!! :-)

> hmm this wonders me...
> me 600mhz laptop has only 30% cpu usage with mythfrontend running,
> rtjpeg is set to 400x400 with quality 170...

The top CPU consumer when I play mythtv is X, not mythfrontend.  I don't
know, but maybe their X driver is not very efficient.  I have played
around with reslutions/bitrates/formats a lot and this was the best
choice; rtjpeg is *really* jerky.  X is set to 800x600.

> of course for 300$ you could build a really fast machine, but i'd like
> to have one that is really quiet. really. means absolutely no noise ;-)

The EPIA M 9000 (with fan) is *not* quiet.  You can make it quieter with a
fan speed adjusters.

> Hmm... You sure you've got everything set correctly? My 1.2GHz Duron on
> a Via chipset, Epox 8k7a2(something like that) fell _just_ short of
> being able to encode and decode 640x480 mpeg 4 at the same time.

No, not sure, but I followed their instructions.  You can't recompile the
kernel if you want to use Via drivers (unless you want to manuall edit the
symbols), so I can't optimize for C3.  I also don't know how much playing
over the network affects performance - soon I'll be able to try an AMD
1200Mhz

> is that the board that has the builtin MPEG decoder and if did you
> manage to get it working with Linux and then MythTV?

No one on the Via forums can tell for sure if the mpeg decoder is working
under Linux.  And I don't think it will help with MythTv anyway since that
is mpeg4.  I have written to Via about both their binary drivers and the
mpeg decoder support; they promissed to get back to me...

Larry