[mythtv-users] made the jump from PVR-350 TVOUT to 8400GS (g98)

[Michael T. Dean]

On 11/12/2009 02:45 PM, sdkovacs wrote:
> First of all, thank you to everyone involved with the MythTV project
> and on the users list. Your pioneering work made the transition to a
> 'real' video card much easier for me. I have a SD setup, recording
> from a PVR350 and 150, outputting via Svideo from an 8400GS to a Sony
> CRT. Running .22 Fixes from ATRPMS.
>
> A couple of issues:
>
> 1) I can't get the OpenGL theme rendering to work. All I get is the
> background with no text. Qt works fine.
>   

This sounds like an issue with Mesa OpenGL.  If:

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1
mythfrontend

makes it work (when configured with the OpenGL theme painter), then it 
means you don't have the nvidia proprietary drivers installed properly.

> 2) Occasionally when playing a recording, the "Please Wait.." screen
> stays in the foreground and the video never comes up. I can hear the
> sound of the recording, but the picture remains the black background
> with "Please Wait..." in white lettering. Sometime exiting and playing
> the recording fixes the problem. Sometimes I have to reboot. Any
> ideas?
>   

That's a known issue that's being worked on.

> And a comment:
>
> 1) In my opinion, nothing, not even the VDPAU advancedx2 interlacer,
> compares to the video out of the PVR-350. I will miss the clarity and
> smoothness of the picture from the PVR-350 TVOUT.

I did both PVR-350 TV out and nvidia TV out, and I found that with 
PVR-350 TV out you either got nothing, or you got the best-quality 
output you could get from a PVR-350 TV.

With nvidia TV out, you could get any number of quality levels depending 
on how you had configured everything (Myth, X, nvidia drivers).  
Therefore, people who didn't take the time to figure out exactly what 
setup to use often claimed that the PVR-350 TV out was superior.  IME, 
though, once properly configured, the nvidia TV out quality was just as 
good as the PVR-350 TV--the weak link in the chain at the end of my 
configuring was NTSC.

For instance, don't be led to believe that 720x480 or 640x480 will give 
you the best quality picture with nvidia TV out.

Anyway, just my opinion.

Mike