[mythtv-users] Re: How slow can we go, cpu wise? P2-333?

[Justin Gombos]

* Andrew Lynch <lynchaj at yahoo.com> [2005-03-04 21:31]:
> mindfuq at fairfieldi.com wrote
> 
> > I am going to make a webpage documenting this
> install
> > as it was a lot of fun.
> 
> I think it's important to note that your capture card
> has an MPEG-2
> chip.  So are you using it to capture your content, or
> are you using
> your CPU to crunch video into MPEG-4?  I'm guessing
> the ladder,
> because I would expect you to be capable of capturing
> at a higher
> resolution if you used your hardware encoder.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> I am using just a plain frame grabber bttv bt878 card.
>  Transcoding to MPEG4 has been almost silly its so
> slow.  It started a transcode of a 30 minute show and
> 24 hours later it was STILL working on it.  
> 
> I think adding an MPEG2 encoder would definitely
> increase performance as would an NVidia card but then
> it wouldn't be practically free anymore.  A decent
> PVR-250 on special dealnews is $100 and an NVidia card
> is $40.  A PVR-350 is an easy $150.  Add any of those
> to practically ANY computer and you'd get decent
> performance.

Your article stated that you are using a ATI TV Wonder VE PCI tuner,
which has an mpeg2 chip onboard, if I understood the specs correctly.
Unless I'm missing something, you have an MPEG2 encoder already.