[mythtv-users] System Spec Survey

Alan Snyder ax763 at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 16 14:24:51 EST 2004


I have a backend/frontend with a 1 GHz Athlon, 256 MB RAM and a generic
bt878 card (Kworld).  I record MPEG4 at 576x432, with all
compression/bitrate settings at defaults, to keep CPU utilization in live TV
or recording/watching under 80%.  I see no rebuffering pauses at those
settings.  Notably, MPEG4 seems just as fast as RTJPEG at equal resolution
(MPEG4 seems to be particularly easy on the decoding (frontend)).

I have a frontend with a 450 MHz Pentium II.  It runs around 15-25% CPU
utilization when watching programs recorded at the settings above.  I've
been very surprised at how low it goes at times.  I have a process that
checks frontend CPU utilization and enables/disables display power saving
accordingly.  When set to 15% it would occasionally allow the screen to
blank.  There are occasional sub-second pauses (nothing really bothersome)
when bringing up larger OSD stuff like the browse mode display.

One of these days I'll upgrade the backend CPU, since it is what's
determining my resolution settings.



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