[mythtv-users] Hardware ideas

Stephen Tait tait at digitallaw.co.uk
Fri Jun 25 16:12:37 EDT 2004


At 14:44 25/06/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi Timo!
>
>On Fri, 25 Jun 2004, Timo Boettcher wrote:
>
> > > So far it sounds like an Athlon XP 2xxx+,
> > Why that big cpu? I have two pvr350's, and my p3-933 can deal with it
> > very good (even though I only use the pvrs as encoder, and use a
> > regular graphicscard for playback, with the cpu as decoder (my display
> > has a dvi in))
>
>Good question. I'd certainly like to use less powerful stuff; save $$$,
>electricity, noise etc. I think it came out of:
>
>1) Box will be both a front+back end
>2) Live TV
>3) No PVR-350 TV-out due to driver stability issues, so no hardware decode
>4) Also need to playback DivX/Xvid/younameit
>5) Was considering software encode as well (i.e. AverTV etc rather than
>PVR-250/350), though now it sounds like that's not worth it.

My money is on an Athlon 2600. Lowest power athlon there is, has cool 'n' 
quiet (in the newer Barton cores) and can be kept chilly with a low power 
fan (pull off that 60mm, replace it with an 80mm and an adapter and run it 
at 7V - almost completely silent). Even the most powerful EPIA board can't 
handle high res MPEG4 and it's ilk.


>OK. I'm getting inconsistent reports on this. I've read recent posts that
>people couldn't playback certain video formats due to performance problems
>with the current framebuffer driver. Then other folks (thanks again Jarod)
>have mentioned they think it might be fast enough if you have a good CPU,
>but it's just too unstable to tell.  :)

It all depends on the host board. Since the framebuffer can't decode 
anything other than MPEG2, anything else gets thrown straight at the CPU. 
If your CPU can't handle it, argh, if it can then you're OK. I think.
 > no

>If I felt like the 350 was stable and could play all my codecs

It is and it can, you just need a CPU powerful enough from all the 
non-MPEG2 movies

>I'd certainly get it. But if there are going to be issues it sounds better to
>get an mx440 and 3d graphics as a fringe benefit. Provided... provided the
>tv-out on the nvidia can be made to look decent on linux. There's no point
>in any of it if it looks like crap.

Either an nVidia MX or an ATI 9200. Both work well for TV out under linux, 
but the nVidia ones are better for 3D stuff.



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list