[mythtv-users] HDTV Woes

[John Patrick Poet]

On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, Todd Tidwell wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-
> > bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Mat Kyne
> > Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:41 AM
> > To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > Subject: [mythtv-users] HDTV Woes
> >
> > After 5 attempts to get myth running correctly on FC3, I tried (for the
> > 3rd
> > time) to install Knoppmyth.
> > I am pleased to report that after much online research, the drivers were
> > loaded for my pcHDTV 3000, and eventually, my nVidia 5200 FX. So, after
> > calling my wife at work and demanding that she cross her fingers, I
> > selected
> > the option "Watch TV"  . . . And there it was! GLORIOUS HDTV !!! . . . .
> > For
> > about 2 seconds. Then it froze and crashed.  :(
> >
> > Well I had heard that HDTV live was not all that great, So I set it to
> > record Lost in ABC.
> >
> > -I had to schedule a manuel recording, because the myth guide times were
> > off
> > by several hours- I will ask about that in a later post.-
> >
> > Well, while I was watching the show on SDTV, I saw my HDD light start to
> > blink, so I knew it was recording. Yeah!
> >
> > So after my wife went to bed, when I am allowed to "Play with my stupid
> > computer" I tried to watch the show I recorded.  --You can probably tell
> > that this is not going to end well --
> >
> > Well the picture was amazing, but the playback was choppy/jittery. If I
> > tried to fast-forward or skip a commercial, The system would just hang. I
> > was able to Ctrl-Alt-Esc out ant try again. Then I remembered reading
> > Jarod's Guide (You da man!), and what he had written about giving Myth
> > root
> > privileges (I think it's called suedo-root). So I did that, and tried
> > again.
> > No real improvement, and when I tried to skip a commercial, the system
> > crashed. I couldn't even ssh in to do a nice reboot.
> >
> > So my question that I lay before the all-knowing Mythtv guru's is this,
> > What
> > am I doing wrong. Do I just need a faster processor (I currently have a
> > 2.4
> > Ghz Celeron that I bought just for this)? Or are there other things that I
> > can try first. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks -Mat
> >
>
> I would think that you'd have enough processor there to handle it, but if
> not, you're lucky: you have an nVidia 5200 which you can use XvMC with to
> offload some of the processing to the video cards processor.
>
> Before you try that, though, are you using the nVidia drivers or the one
> built-in to FC3?  If you aren't, you probably want to go get the nVidia
> drivers either way, and then you have the XvMC option available and you
> might also see a small improvement in general display performance (I
> certainly did).
>
> Sadly, I don't know enough about knoppmyth to tell you whether the XvMC
> support comes compiled in or if you're going to have to do a compile
> yourself.  Also, sadly, XvMC support is currently going through some hurdles
> and may not be to a level you can live with until the .18 release (or the
> next few days in CVS).
>
> -Todd


I do not know if this is still true, but when I was setting up my HD Myth
system a year ago, it was CRITICAL to have the NvAGP option set correclty in
xorg.conf or XF86Config.

Look for something like:

Option "NvAGP" "1"


Try changing that to 0, 1 or 2.  Depending on your motherboard (and how your
Kernel was built) one of those setting should be MUCH better than the other
two.  The wrong setting caused massive stuttering.


John