[mythtv-users] Converted MCE PC to MythTV - HDTV question

Iohan Reyes ijr at routex.net
Sun Nov 5 19:01:22 UTC 2006


Thanks, I will look into the XvMC stuff and see if I can tweak to make that work.  I don't really use PIP that much, so that is something I can live without in exchange for smooth HDTV playback.  If after some tweaking, I can't get it to work smoothly, then I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and upgrade my PC.
 
Regarding the ATI HDTV wonder, I was able to get it working by following these directions: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_HDTV_Wonder
 
I am able to smoothly playback the HDTV shows I record with the referenced P4 2.26ghz machine on a different frontend which has an Athlon 64 3000+, so I know the ATI HDTV Wonder is not the problem.  I can even watch live HDTV from that Athlon frontend using the P4-226's HDTV Wonder card without any issues.

________________________________

From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org on behalf of Daniel Kristjansson
Sent: Sun 11/5/2006 12:51 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Converted MCE PC to MythTV - HDTV question



On Sun, 2006-11-05 at 12:32 -0500, Iohan Reyes wrote:
> I had a fully-functioning MCE 2005 PC with the following relevant specs:
> * Pentium IV 2.26Ghz
> * GeForce 6800GT 256MB
> * ATI HDTV Wonder
>
> When this PC had Windows MCE 2005 on it, it could record and
> playback HDTV just fine with no dropped frames.  I realize
> that there are major underlying differences regarding drivers
> and the operating system itself, but from everything I've been
> "conditioned" to believe is that Linux is more efficient than
> Windows.  It therefore stands to reason (at least in my mind,
> but of course, I've been wrong many times) that with the exact
> same hardware underlying this new MythTV system, it should be
> able to play HDTV without dropped frames.  Unfortunately, it
> seems like I am mistaken and it looks like I need more CPU
> horsepower to make it happen because now that I have finished
> setting up FC5 and MythTV, my HDTV playback is dropping frames
> and looks herky jerky. I admit I haven't researched too heavily
> yet since I just finished getting everything working this
> morning, but I thought I would pose the question here first.
Unfortunately there are a few things problematic with your PC with
respect to MythTV HDTV playback. We have problems with the XvMC
accelerated playback, this was a driver problem until the last month.
Now the XvMC could be made to work better with the X11 Composite
extension, but it requires some new code in MythTV. Your processor
is too slow to support playback without XvMC, a P4 2.8 Mhz is the
minimum, so that is not an option (this gives you the best HDTV
experience under MythTV. And finally the ATI HDTV Wonder is not
known to work with MythTV, although maybe you can disprove that?

> Is there anything I can tweak to make HDTV smooth on my system given the
> hardware I stated above?
Yes, look at the XvMC page in the MythTV wiki, you should be able
to get pretty decent playback under MythTV, but editing, PiP,
pause and time-stretch will still not work properly. (PiP doesn't
work at all).

-- Daniel

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