[mythtv-users] Re: Answers about pcHDTV HD-3000 support in Myth, QAM support, and more

Preston Crow pc-mythtv04 at crowcastle.net
Tue Oct 19 19:22:23 UTC 2004


On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 15:13, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 01:54:28PM -0400, David George wrote:
> 
> > Yes, the ATSC stuff is already MPEG2 which is why the card outputs MPEG2 
> > for ATSC.
> 
> If the card is outputting MPEG2, why does the web page say that
> it requires so much CPU to use it (1.2+ GHz)? Is doing
> programmed I/O?  I can't believe it's not capable of bus-master
> DMA, but the web page never mentions it.

Everyone overestimates the system requirements for their products.

In this case, you probably don't need anywhere near that fast of a CPU
to record HDTV.  You probably do need that to record NTSC TV, which is
an advertised feature.  So if all you care about is recording HDTV, then
you're probably fine with a much slower CPU.

However, if you actually want to see what you've recorded, you need a
CPU and graphics card with sufficient combined power to display
HDTV-resolution MPEG-2 files, and that's no simple chore.  From what
I've heard, most people would consider 1.2GHz to be less than half what
you need, even with a decent nVidia card.

--PC




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