[mythtv-users] HDTV on Myth -- is it a "myth?"

[Thomas M. Pluth]

  I have a PCHDTV card in my master backend and record quite a bit of
off-air HDTV material.    Playback is done on a P4 3.2E, Nvidia FX5500, all
on an Intel D865GLC mobo with 8X AGP, using XV.  I'm using FC2, with a
vanilla 2.6.7 kernel, compiled for SMP and SMT (Hyperthreading).  I never
see any artifacts or stuttering on this setup.  Picture quality is excellent
and as well as sound quality.


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Joe Barnhart
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 12:30 PM
To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
Subject: [mythtv-users] HDTV on Myth -- is it a "myth?"

I guess my expectations were too high.  I've been
watching HD on my combo satellite/terrestrial receiver
a couple of years now, and I expected Myth to be able
to record and play signals equivalent to what I see on
"normal" HDTV (terrestrial) broadcasts.  What I
actually get on Myth is slow, jerky, stuttering
playback that often hangs the frontend with something
as simple as skipping forward or backward, or any
activity that pops up the on-screen display.

When I am able to get streams to play, the video is
marred by scaling artifacts and weird interactions
between interlaced and non-interlaced video streams. 
For instance, a 1080i source played on a 1080i output
device shows horrible jaggies.
(http://www.pbase.com/jbarnhart/image/34300421.jpg) 
The same stream played through the "bob" deinterlacer
looks better (but still not up to the level of the
receiver).

I tried to build a system able to handle this task,
with an Athlon 2800+ processor and a GeForce4 MX video
card, but the system is unable to cope with my
1920x1080i output device.  The Xv software player is
unable to keep up with task of decoding MPEG at this
rate, and XvMC simply doesn't work reliably enough to
watch an entire show without hanging mythfrontend.

Were my expectations too high?  Is this a matter of
"rough edges" soon to be smoothed out?  Or is the
current state of Myth unable to handle HDTV (at
1920x1080i) for anyone?  Should I dump my system and
buy new Intel Pentium hardware?  Or just go back to
the combo receiver and wait another year for the
software to catch up?

I would love to hear from anyone who is playing
streams at 1920x1080i with no stutters or poor video
quality.  What kind of system are you using?  Xv or
XvMC?  Intel or AMD?  Video card?


		
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