[mythtv-users] EPIA SP8000E questions

[Robin Gilks]

> Hello all,
>
> I'm toying with the idea of setting up a MythTV system but after a few
> hours of reading I'm left with some hardware and software questions.
>
> I'm considering the following setup. First I'll list my goals in
> descending order of priority, and then the hardware. This is to be used
> with a standard NTSC TV.
>
> Goals:
>
> 1. LOW NOISE and low power/heat as there will not be the best ventilation.
> 2. Able to encode TV at 720x480ish and a good bitrate as I HATE digital
> artifacts. Able to play back same, of course.
> 3. Able to play back MP3 files from a mounted network filesystem. (SPDIF
> support?)
> 4. Able to play back DivX and MPEG-2 files from a mounted network file
> system.
> 5. Powerful enough to run MythGame
>
> Hardware:
>
> - VIA Epia SP8000E fanless w/256MB PC2700
> - Fanless DC case
> - Hauppage PVR250
> - Samsung Spinpoint 120GB 8MB cache hard drive (quiet)
>
> First, is the TV out port on the SP8000E supported by MythTV? I've found
> posts saying it isn't yet, and they're only a couple months old.

TV out is supported by the Unichrome Pro video drivers - the latest Xorg
CVS snapshots support it out of the box but you'll also need a very recent
DRM (DRI) kernel driver.

> Second, does MythTV support the CN400 MPEG-4 acceleration, and how well
> does it work on the SP8000E? I may wish to eventually transcode saved
> shows to DivX and store them on a file server for repeat viewing (I'd
> likely do the encoding on my Windows machine, so encoding speed isn't an
> issue), which leads me to my next question.

This is again a video driver issue and the Unichrome driver does NOT yet
support it. Its work in progress so I'd expect to see something in 3-4
months. I'm seeing 30% CPU load on Xvid videos.

> Third, would there be any problem playing back both music and video from
> a network filesystem? I already have a file server on my network where I
> store all my MP3 files and some video.  I'd like to use it as a sort of
> nearline storage option for shows I want to keep. And how good is the
> music support anyway? I'm looking to avoid buying a Squeezebox2 here. Wink

I use my Epia SP13000 for videos, mp3s, podcast/icecast/realplayer
streaming (even NASA TV!!!), DVDs, CDs. In fact all the plugins that
Mythtv has plus a couple of 'unofficial' ones - MythStream and MythFM.

> Fourth, is the PVR250 going to get too hot for a fanless case? I've
> heard the 350 runs hot. I should only need a single encoder though,
> since the EPIA board has MPEG2 playback acceleration and TV out.

I'm using a PVR-150MCE retail (comes with the remote). The latest (SVN)
IVTV drivers work out of the box (apart from external audio which is
expected to be fixed in the next few days)

> Fifth, does the SP8000E have optical SPDIF support? I've seen some
> conflicting posts.

Its has spdif but its NOT optical  -its an RCA TTL level connection.

> FWIW, I'm very familiar with Debian. I've been running it in various
> applications since the late 90s.

I'm running Gentoo for all the base packages but most of the application
stuff I've built from SVN/CVS (Mythtv, lirc, lcdproc, ivtv, X).


> Regards,
> Gordon M.


-- 
Robin Gilks