[mythtv-users] HDTV on EPIA SP13000

Pavol Droba droba at topmail.sk
Wed Jun 14 06:45:24 UTC 2006


On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 03:24:15PM -0400, R. G. Newbury wrote:
> James D wrote:
> > Has anyone actually got this to work well?
> > I've read this post to the dev list: 
> > http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-dev/2005-December/042588.html
> > but I can't even get close to the results he claims.
> >  
> > With Via XvMC selected I can actually watch HDTV without the CPU being 
> > the bottleneck, but some channels / programs it will be very close. CPU 
> > usage is usally 70% - 95% watching HD content depending on the format 
> > and program. The video is smooth enough, but the audio is choppy no 
> > matter what I do. Enabling AC3 passthrough makes it much worse... any ideas?
> >  
> > The other thing is the video only works on 720p and SD channels, 1080 
> > channels just show a blank screen with audio (that isn't choppy 
> > ironically). Perhaps I need to make the code adjustment from the post 
> > above? I'm hesitant since I rather rely on gentoo than do a hand 
> > compile, but you can only set the framebuffer memory to 64M max in the 
> > BIOS, so I'm suspicous there isn't enough video memory for 1080. I've 
> > set the framebuffer to 64M, I've got 512M in the box... I wonder if the 
> > bus could be the bottleneck??
> >  
> > Would appreciate if anyone who has watchable HD on an EPIA would share 
> > what they did.
> 
> 
> You DO realize that the chipset on the SP13000 will NOT actually do full 
> HD? The limit is 1024x1024 apparently to VGA and something less through 
> the S-video output (limitation of S-video??)


This information is not correct. The limit applies to Unichrome (non pro) chipsets.
SP13000 have UnichromePro chipset and should be able to decode HD.

However, it cannot realy play it right now on MythTV as far as I know.
There was a discussion on the openchrome list. Apparently mythtv tries to allocate
more frames beforehand than could actualy be sqeezed into the graphic
card's memory.

The HD playback will not be functional over TV-out, since it is not HD ready,
you will have to use VGA port.

Regards,
Pavol


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list