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

[Mark Small]

On November 12, 2009 16:14:15 Michael T. Dean wrote:
> 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

So what settings did you use?

Mark