[ale] Best processor for MythTV?

[H P Ladds]

Oops! clearly I would have used different wording in my previous e-mail
regarding HD and Myth had I read Jesse e-mail about selling HD Frontends. I
started writing my post, then got called away, only to return and finish the
post about two hours after I had begun. Jesse's post hit the board in the
interim. Clearly I intended to help Charles, not rail against Jesse's
product.

Any Frontend (HD or SD) that worked straight out of the box would be worth
its weight in gold!

I have been trying HD OTA for quite some time, and am making progress,
but....

I get tons of "prebuffering pause" messages and also "Your system is not
capable of displaying the full framerate at 1024x768 resolution. Frames will
be skipped in order to keep the audio and video in sync."

Also despite configuring the machine to use XvMC (in the API), I don't think
the machine actually loads XvMC.  I read that that I must edit the actual
config file in order to get XvMC to work.

Also I have an AMD64 Athlon 3200+ and a gig of ram, but still can't play
analog programing without jitters -- using a PVR-150.

Clearly I have a lot to work on before my machine will past the wife test.

Adding to my noobie frustration are the Red Herrings in the MythTV world.
For example -- when in Mythtv-setup -- one should NOT select the pcHDTV
HD3000 card setting even if they plan to use a pcHDTV HD3000. I can't help
but wonder what card actually uses the pcHDTV HD3000 setting then?

Come to think of it a preconfigured Frontend might be worth twice its weight
in gold.

I am learning a lot of Linux though, and aside from accidentally insulting
those that could help me, I've enjoyed the project.



On 5/19/06, Jesse Guardiani <jesse at guardiani.us> wrote:
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
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