[mythtv-users] Is this beefy machine really not enough to drive HD at 1080p?

[Steven Adeff]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 5:51 AM, Ma Begaj <derliebegott at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/4/8, Steve Curtis <scurtis at fixation.net>:
> > 2008/4/8 Scott Harris <mythtv at webhounds.net>:
>  > > Well, I'm not happy about it, but I can live knowing that it is
>  > > difficult for even the big dogs to decode 1080p ;)
>  > >
>  > >
>  >
>  > I've got a 6400+ in my machine and I couldn't do 1080p - it was stuttering
>  > quite badly.  Then I did some updates from mythbuntu, one of which I think
>  > was an X update and suddenly things got a lot smoother.  Its still not
>  > perfect, but totally watchable.  I tried all sorts of xorg and mplayer
>  > commands - none of which ever really helped.  CPU still spikes at 100% - but
>  > a lot of content has black bars top and bottom which I think helps a little
>  > - I only have one 1080p x264 video which is full res and like I say its
>  > watchable - but stutters on slow panning shots still.
>  >
>  > I'm now moving to a separate front/backend in the hope that this will help
>  > in the future so that its an easier job of changing things to get the
>  > performance without messing around with my backend anymore.
>  >
>
>
>  So bad? I have no HD content at all (no HD channels in my country) but
>  I tested playing 720p/1080p mkv/wmv trailers files a few weeks ago.
>
>  I have AMD AM2 X2 3800 35W and I had no problems when playing 1080p.
>  mplayer is working fine with "-vo xv" ....  I use "-cache" to cache
>  64MB or even 132MB which can help a lot. cpu is on 50-70%.
>
>  I usually use "-vo gl" because I can position subtitles on the bottom
>  of the screen and OSD on the real top of the screen. And "gl" can
>  handle contrast, brightness etc. "xv" is not able to do that. But "gl"
>  needs more cpu, and 1080p is  stuttering with "-vo gl".
>
>  I was not able to play same files with Internal player. I don't
>  remember the error, but it just could not start the files.
>
>  I know that mplayer can use XvMC only for mpeg files.
>  Is Internal player able to play mkv or wmv files with XvMC?

XvMC only works with MPEG1/2.
MKV and WMV are container formats, so if they contain MPEG2 then they
should work with XvMC. But usually they don't, MKV usually contains
x264 and WMV usually contains Microsofts media format (loosely based
on the standard that x264 is based on, but not quite).

oh, and not all 1080p is created equal. Sure I can play back
HD-DVD/BluRay rips 1080p re-encoded on my Athlon X2 4200+ but I could
never play back a true HD-DVD/BluRay 1080p file.

-- 
Steve
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