[mythtv-users] XvMC - Nvidia isssues?

[Dan Seddon]

Hi
This is my first post to the list after getting my system up and 
running. I have a Mythtv setup which I'm really pleased with it's 95% 
perfect! However - that remaining 5% is always worth persuing so... I'm 
using XvMC which means my Athlon XP 1600 trundles away at 15% usage 
whilst playing DVB-T (standard definition PAL) video. This has 3 issues 
which reading through the list have been mentioned on and off - but I 
haven't found all the answers.

First off - the menus become monochrome, which isn't a biggy and worth 
putting up with for the performance gain (but it would be nice to know 
if this is preventable).

Secondly the menus cause the video to jump when they appear, which can 
be very distracting -  this has been mentioned a lot on the list from 
what I can see. Hopefully I have something useful to add here.... I have 
Quadro FX500 card (don't ask why I'm sticking such an expensive card in 
a PVR box) and I found enabling overlays ( |Option "Overlay" "true") 
|gets rid of this problem - this is listed as a quadro only option and 
I'd be interested to know if anyone has success with this option using a 
non-quadro card, as I could then sell it as I've been intending to do.....

Lastly the problem which I count as my final 5% - I have an issue with 
some programs where the video stutters (the video may stutter in time 
too, but it's hard to tell when your ears are hurting). It's been a 
complete bafflement to me as it happens on only some programs (not 
channels) and non of the configurations I've tried get rid of it (other 
than diabling XvMC) - playing the same .nuvs with mplayer reveals that 
the only unique characteristic of these recording seems to be that the 
audio is at 256 kbits, whereas most of the other recording I have are at 
192... I haven't been very scientific in checking it - but it seems to 
be consistant, having checked a few recordings. It happens to about 1 in 
5 recordings, or maybe less, at the moments - but is fustrating as I 
have to go in to my options and reconfigure everytime I want to watch 
such a recording. I've only seen this issue posted once by a guy who 
said he was using the via equivalent of XvMC (I haven't found his post 
again - as it was a while ago) - which might be important as is implies 
it isn't a driver problem (I get the same issue when running the 
frontend on my laptop with a completely different sound card and older 
Quadro card). Is anyone else familier with this problem? I'm in the UK - 
where we don't have HDTV yet, so I can't be that my systems overwhelmed 
by what I'm throwing at it?

Any help/interest would be appreciated.

Dan