[mythtv-users] N00b question about video playback

[Erich Beckmann]

All,

    Well. I think I might have identified part of the problem. I had a 
very minimal make.conf, specifically the USE variable.
I am now recompiling everything from X back up to mplayer with stuff 
like "nvidia" turned on and a bunch of codec stuff. I assume this will 
make a noticeable difference.
    I just can't believe that a card and processor that I used to play 
movies on three years ago can't handle the same encoding, especially at 
a resolution of 640x480.

    After I get this squared away, I think the next task is going to be 
tuning the output to the TV so it's not so hard to look at it without 
getting a migraine.

    Ongoing thanks to everyone who has been helping.

Sincerely,
Erich



chris at cpr.homelinux.net wrote:

>On Wed, Jul 20, 2005 at 09:26:30AM -0400, Erich Beckmann wrote:
>  
>
>>  When I try to playback a lot of my movie files, the playback is very 
>>jerky. Is there somewhere I can look to tweak the settings of Mplayer to 
>>get the playback to be smoother? OR What is the recommended way to go 
>>about configuring the string to launch Mplayer?
>>    
>>
>
>You should probably start by clearly identifying the bottleneck.  The 
>big four on a MythTV system will be hard drive speed (transfer rate, 
>DMA), network speed (on split front/back systems), video output limits 
>and CPU usage.
>
>For example, instead of running TV capture and playback at full screen 
>sizes on high resolution, make sure the recorder is idle and then do a 
>playback into a 320x200 window.  If the playback stops stuttering then 
>your hard drive and/or network are keeping up and the problem is in 
>computation.  If it still stutters then you have a transport problem.
>
>Of course the resolution of the display also plays a role, but the 
>difference can sometimes be counter-intuitive.  One of my front-end 
>machines uses an LCD display rather than TV-out.  On that machine I get 
>*far* better performance if I run MythTV at 1280x1024 resolution than 
>at 640x480 resolution.  I assume this is because the LCD has to display 
>at its native resolution no matter what the computer generates, and the 
>video card's hardware accelleration is more efficient at scaling the 
>image than the LCD is.
>
>  
>
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Erich Beckmann - blackhole account
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