[ale] Best processor for MythTV?

[Jesse Guardiani]

H P Ladds wrote:
> These thoughts FYI from a person up to his elbows in building his first 
> Myth Machine. My Linux skills are intermediate at best --  other ALErs 
> please feel free to correct me. (No tact necessary).
> 
> 1. Most wives would take to Tivo more quickly than MythTV.

I can't comment as my wife has never used a Tivo. However, if you want
a Tivo, buy one. MythTV is *not* a cheaper Tivo. It's actually quite a
bit more expensive. I think most people use MythTV because it's open,
powerful, fun, and has no monthly fee.


> 2. HD is on the cusp of being truly "doable." It's not "there" yet. I 
> have yet to read of 100% satisfaction with HD and MythTV. (More success 
> with mplayer and xine.) For the present, HDTV w/MythTV is an academic 
> excercise -- no real reason to try-it otherwise.

Have you tried HDTV? If not, then you might want to reserve judgement.
I currently run HDTV on my combined frontend/backend machine and it works
pretty well. I have a few minor complaints, but it's quite usable. Many
people with deeper pockets than I are very happy with HDTV on AMD 3200+
systems without using XvMC at all.

My frontends will make 100% satisfying HDTV playback without using a
huge CPU a reality. That's the goal. I probably won't start selling the
systems until I can make that happen, and I'm very close right now.


> I have yet to learn of any benefit to using version .19 over .18. Some 
> say XvMC is broken in .19; this is not an accepted fact.

XvMC is not broken in 0.19. Not even close. It's actually MUCH improved.
0.19 has many benefits over 0.18. I suggest you take a look at the release
notes:
   http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Release_Notes_-_0.19



-- 
Jesse Guardiani
Programmer/Sys Admin
jesse at guardiani.us