[mythtv-users] OT: hardware decoding of HD content
Brion Swanson
brions at usalug.net
Wed Dec 19 11:12:36 UTC 2007
On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 21:31 -0800, DaveD wrote:
> My 5200 plays 1080i/720p just fine on my 37" 1080p monitor. You'll find
> it offloads MUCH of the CPU work for decoding high def content due to
> its video overlay. You'll need the Nvidia legacy drivers. I upgraded
> my MB and really miss my AGP 5200. My 7600 looks like crap and uses 50%
> of my dual core system (100% of one core!) while the 5200 (now in my
> wife's computer as a remote frontend) only uses 48% of a single core and
> looks great! I hope either Nvidia wises up soon or the Myth developers
> get the Nvidia 3D rendering working. Hold on to that 5200 as long as
> you can!
>
> DaveD
>
> Marc Barrett wrote:
> > I just got a widescreen monitor from the wife for Christmas, and
> > am slowly making the transition to HD content. My system is
> > still almost entirely SD, though, based on two Hauppauge cards
> > (350 and 150) and an nvidia geforce fx 5200. But the monitor
> > can almost do full 1080p (1680x1050). I am already planning
> > to get an hdhomerun, probably in a few months, but it would
> > be silly to get that and discover that my system can't play HD
> > movies without chopping and stuttering.
> >
> > My system uses a P4 2.6Ghz CPU, so I am thinking of some
> > kind of hardware aid to help it decode h.264, AVC, or
> > whatever HD movies. Obviously my 5200 isn't enough, so I am
> > thinking of upgrading the graphics card first. I don't know what
> > card to get, though. I don't want to spend too much on a card
> > with all kinds of 3-D graphics stuff that I won't use much (I
> > only play games very, very occasionally).
> >
> > The following link is very helpful:
> >
> > http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/PureVideo_Product_Comparison.pdf
> >
> > My system uses AGP, so I can't use any of those expensive PCI-e
> > cards, anyway. According to the chart, my best bet is a GeForce
> > 6200, since some of the the 'better' cards appear to actually be worse
> > for HD support.
> >
> > However, this chart all about nvidia's "purevideo" support for Windows.
> > I don't know how exactly this applies to linux, XVMC, and such. Also,
> > I really don't know anything at all about ATI. Maybe there is a cheap
> > ATI card available, similar in price to the 6200, that might be better
> > for HD decoding on linux. I really don't know. Any tips would be really
> > appreciated.
I have an NVidia 6200 AGP card with component out which I use to power a
1080i/720p monitor with no problem. It's a frontend only now, but that
same card was used in a fe/be box also without any problem. The
particular card I had was the PNY version because of the component out
dongle - not all 6200 AGP cards (not many in fact) have that component
out for high def. Most of the later PCIe cards do. I also have a
6800XT AGP card installed in another fe, but I wouldn't recommend that
even though it's more powerful the card is very long, produces a lot
more heat and requires a lot more power.
Both the 6200 and the 6800XT use the new NVidia drivers (in *buntu it's
nvidia-glx-new).
Brion
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