[mythtv-users] Raspberry Pi suitability for MythFrontend

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 19:18, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:
....
> The big issue is playback.  That puny little processor won't cut it for
> much of anything, which leaves video decoding completely dependent on
> the hardware decoder.

According to the various docs on their website, the shipping
product has (only) licensed MPEG4/H.264 decoding from
Broadcom to place in the binary blob driver.  Depending on
your location (and capture card), a fair amount of "TV" is
broadcast in MPEG2 format (which was not licensed).  So,
unless you are using a HD-PVR to get MPEG4 content, or
live in an area where "TV" is broadcast in MPEG4, you would
either have to transcode everything, or do real-time transcoding
to be able to take advantage of the hardware decoding
capability (I suppose, in an idealized world, one might
be able to do glitchless software decoding of low bit-rate
MPEG2 content).  Of course, there is more than just
"TV" content available, and some is in MPEG4.

I, for one, look forward to the original petitioners code
contributions for a working MythTV frontend to
Raspberry Pi port.

Personally, I expect to see the current Raspberry Pi
to be used more as a (more limited) media player
than a full function front-end.  There a lots of places
where that is an excellent solution.

Gary