[mythtv-users] Advice on cheap boxes for front-ends only

[Jarod Wilson]

On Jul 6, 2004, at 13:20, Stephen Tait wrote:

>> But I would need MPEG4. Ar ethose EPIA boards really thatc rappy?

No.

>> My dad's
>> P233 can play MPEG4 video for pete's sake. It's not hard to play 
>> MPEG4.

Assuming you have halfway decent video drivers, no.

> Firstly there's the issue of GFX drivers, which aren't stunningly good 
> under Linux at the moment (I don't know what the GFX for the Xbox are 
> like

The X-Box basically has a GeForce 3 onboard.

> as I have zero interest in buying another MS product ever again... I 
> just hope my mouse lasts long enough...). I think even the most 
> powerful EPIA's are only rated to be about the same speed as a 4-500 
> MHz P3

I'd say 500-700 MHz PIII.

> alot of their multimedia functionality comes from inbuilt acceleration 
> circuits in the nbridge, etc, which are poorly supported under Linux.

But getting better! http://unichrome.sourceforge.net/

> I think even the highest powered EPIA boards will choke on high res 
> XviD's, but this is just anecdotal as I don't have one to try out 
> myself.

I've dropped this on the list several times now... My EPIA M10000 
(1.0GHz C3) plays back high-res xvid (and ffmpeg mpeg4) files perfectly 
fine, even on a PVR-350's output (when using the ivtvdev driver). 
Performance would be even better if using the onboard video and the 
unichrome driver.

> As Isaac pointed out a few days ago, you get miserable performance out 
> of fullscreen Goom with them...

But that's OpenGL performance, not mpeg4 playback.

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE
jcw at wilsonet.com

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