[mythtv-users] Secrets for low powered front ends ?

Raymond Wagner raymond at wagnerrp.com
Thu Oct 13 03:08:22 UTC 2011


On 10/12/2011 22:59, linux guy wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Mark Kendall<mark.kendall at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Much of the current MythTV code was written and tested on a first
>> generation ion box (dual core) and I still use that box for my main
>> frontend. I don't have a clip or sample in my collection of 'oddities'
>> that it cannot play. I'm sure someone could dig out a 1080p avi (which
>> would fall back to software decoding and be unwatchable) or a badly
>> encoded H.264 - but from a practical perspective, it handles
>> everything.
> My work laptop is a T8400 (?) Duo. I ripped a certain DB into an MKV
> file.

DB? BD? Bluray Disk?  A P8400 is a dual core 2.26GHz processor, which is 
a bit on the lower end for Bluray playback.  Expect somewhere around 
11-12Mbps H264 per core, or closer to 15Mbps if its the rare content 
encoded using CAVLC instead of CABAC.

> Top says its using 100% of 1 core.

This is a bit odd.  Nearly all Bluray content should be multi-sliced, 
which means multithreaded decoding.  MythTV allows you to adjust the 
number of threads to allow, and defaults to two.  It likely shouldn't be 
stuck on one core.

> This is all with the nouveau driver.

If you can use the Nouveau driver, that also means you can use the 
proprietary nVidia driver, and you should do so.


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