[mythtv-users] Why the need for playback settings

Steve Smith st3v3.sm1th at gmail.com
Tue Mar 25 16:46:22 UTC 2008


On 25/03/2008, jdonohue654-mythtv at yahoo.com
<jdonohue654-mythtv at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  --- "Michael T. Dean" <mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
>
>  > On 03/24/2008 05:53 PM, Lindsay Mathieson wrote:
>  > > On Tuesday 25 March 2008 03:49:05 Marc Sherman
>  > wrote:
>  > >
>  > >> Because by tinkering, you can get it _better_
>  > than it gets in windows or
>  > >> STBs, for some definitions of better. For
>  > example, by tinkering, you
>  > >> could get reasonable video on hardware that is
>  > _much_ less powerful than
>  > >> required for windows video.
>  > > Ummm - no. Absolutlety not. The state of video
>  > playback on windows is far
>  > > better than linux, purely because of the drivers.
>  > I can get hardware
>  > > accellrated video far beyond XvMC and bob2 with
>  > any cheapo nvidia or ati
>  > > card/mobo on windows. That includes H/W accel
>  > MPEG4 playback which is
>  > > impossible under linux.
>  > >
>  > > On linux its a stuggle to get XvMC working,
>  > assuming it even supports the
>  > > chipset of the card in question - for example,
>  > *not* the nv  6100.
>  >
>  > You mean some people actually think that "hardware
>  > accelerated" video
>  > (on Linux or Windows) is a good thing?  Hardware
>  > accelerated is the very
>  > definition of "one size fits all" (where "one size
>  > fits all" is always
>  > "one size fits all poorly").
>  >
>  > PVR-350 does hardware accelerated video playback on
>  > Linux.  Try
>  > switching to that and see if you still think it's a
>  > good thing.
>  >
>  > Mike
>  >
>
>
> It's a good thing. For SD content the PVR-350 output
>  is very noticeably better than what I've seen with any
>  nvidia card I"ve used on linux.
>
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>
Yes for the short time I had one I found the quality was excellent.
Its just a pity that the PVR-350's mpeg decoder is
      a) not documented (well not freely)
      b) very inflexible (it only shows full screen output in very
specific formats). But it's great if your source is a Hauppauge card.

Although I would (and have done in the past so I wont go on about
it..) contest Mike's general statement about hardware acceleration. If
done in a flexible way (like XvMC or general graphic card
acceleration), rather than a very fixed way (like PVR-350) I think
it's a VERY good thing.
In fact my Mythbox won't really work properly without it!

Cheers

Steve


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