[mythtv-users] Playback Profiles? WTF?!
Glen Hawksworth
glenhawk at optusnet.com.au
Sun Mar 16 20:19:42 UTC 2008
On Sun, 2008-03-16 at 12:28 -0700, Todd Ignasiak wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 4:48 AM, Glen Hawksworth
> <glenhawk at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > OK, a bit of an over-reaction but they are very confusing.
>
> I agree. This change seems to be representative of MythTV in
> general. On one hand, it's great.. you have the flexibility to do
> whatever you want. On the other hand, why the hell should I have to
> figure out the intricacies of the various settings, decipher the
> acronyms, and determine which ones actually apply to my system, to get
> the basic functionality working. If there was some basic
> documentation, it might be more reasonable. But, as it is now, it's
> very difficult to figure it out.
>
> Some basic improvements:
> - Anything this complex NEEDS to be well documented.
> - Update menus depending on what options are valid. On my Mac, XvMC,
> XvMC VLD, and others are not possible and should be hidden.
> - If the frontend is not compiled to include Mac Acceleration, XvMC,
> etc. those options should be removed from the menu selections.
> - Auto-detection - Is XvMC available? If so, which variant, and what
> subset of features? What OS is it running on, etc. A pretty good
> first guess, or ranking of possible options could be done.
>
> The On-Screen setup menu system seems, to me, to have grown beyond its
> useful purpose. Too many menu screens, with unintuitive
> organization, too difficult to navigate via remote control. Basic
> config via OSD is good, but the mass of other options could be better
> accomplished in something like mythweb.
>
> > I have a frontend PC that worked just well enough to view all media from
> > the backend/server (Live TV, recorded TV, downloaded video, music, etc.)
> > with only the occasional lag during HDTV.
> > Since the update to 0.21 I have had irregular performance which I have
> > found to be mainly due to the Playback Profile settings. Some HDTV plays
> > fine but with a greyscale OSD and other HDTV has colour OSD but lags
> > terribly. I have also noticed that the frontend seems to be running a
> > little hotter than usual.
>
> Grayscale OSD usually points to XvMC being used. Depending on your
> profile, it may be used only for certain content or resolutions.
That was my best guess but again I had no idea what resolution each
broadcast was in so I had trouble experimenting with different settings.
>
> > My Questions
> > * Is there a way to emulate the default settings from the previous
> > version of MythTV? What are the best settings for a slower PC?
>
> You should be able to make a custom profile, with a single playback
> configuration for any resolution. This is basically what the previous
> version had, one selection with no dependancy on content. For that
> one option, choose the settings closest to what you were using before.
see that is the problem. I had used the default options but with Kernal
(less blur) deinterlacing (I think I also turned off anything that said
"disable if bad video performance"). The problem is I cannot look at my
old settings cos they are gone.
I have tried a "catch-all" profile but I couldn't find a suitable
combination of settings.
>
> > * Does anyone have a strategy for finding the best settings using
> > the playback profiles? A methodical approach that is a little
> > more scientific than trial and error would be appreciated (I
> > don't mind doing some background reading if I only knew what to
> > look for)
>
> Another variable in the mix is: what options was your frontend
> compiled to support. Unfortunately, the menu selections still
> display all the options, even if your frontend doesn't support them
> (XvMC, OpenGL, etc.)
>
My frontend PC meets the recommended Mythbuntu requirements with two
exceptions; I am using a 64M Nvidia card (cos I can't get the 128M ATI
to display 1920x1080, and my 256M Nvidia won't fit in the case) and I am
using a 8GB ATA133 CF card for the OS.
PC Spec: P4 3GHz, 2GB RAM
The only other thing to note is that I only recently scored the 3GHz
CPU. I had previously been running with a 2.67Ghz. Should I have
reinstalled the OS? I thought it would be ok just to whack in the better
processor.
> > * How do you find out the resolution of different TV broadcasts?
> > How do you know which settings will be used for a given TV show?
> > (this is a source of great frustration becasue I try changing
> > some settings and then don't know which recordings to watch to
> > view the results)
> > * Do the playback profiles only affect Live and Recorded TV? Does
> > it affect the playback of other Video media?
> > * Can anyone help me? ;-)
> >
> > As long as the Video playback is reliable I will be happy. I plan to
> > eventually build a new higher spec frontend for the main TV and retire
> > this one to the spare room.
> > Overall I think playback profiles will be a good thing because I will be
> > able to optimise the settings for different types of video but at the
> > moment I am in over my head!!
> > Thanks in advance,
> > Glen
> >
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