[mythtv-users] Full system/CPU upgrade and still no DVD

Nick knowledgejunkie at gmail.com
Mon May 2 19:44:41 UTC 2005


On 5/2/05, Scott Harris <sharris at synthys.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > Scott,
> >
> > Which driver you use is dictated by the video card being
> > used, and the capabilities of the driver for that card. You
> > will not use all of these drivers (that xine supports) with
> > all cards. I would suggest using x11 and xshm for
> > non-acclerated cards, and xv for accelerated cards (or xvmc
> > if the driver supports that).
> >
> > Having read this thread, I am assuming that your video card
> > does not have TV-Out support, or that it does and you are not
> > happy with it..
> > When I originally installed my system last year after months
> > of lurking in the various mailing lists, I tried to get
> > everything working over the PVR-350 card. Live TV and
> > recorded program played perfectly (in terms of quality, but
> > not system speed), but I had problems playing back DVDs and
> > virtually all DivX and XVid video files with MythVideo
> > because of the missing acceleration in the ivtv X driver..
> >
> > My other big problem was the the TVout support for my video
> > card (integrated Radeon 9100IGP) was nonexistent except for a
> > binary hack a determined user had come up with for an old
> > version of the driver.
> > Couple of weeks back ATI released their latest driver and
> > another hack was crafted to again get working TVout for the
> > 9100 card, so I gave it a whirl.
> >
> > I decided to bite the bullet finally and go for *what works today*.
> > Using the TVout of the video card and not the PVR-350 (on a
> > celeron D 2.4G/512MB system) everything came alive after I
> > had moved away from the ivtv non-accelerated X driver.
> > Playback of video and seeking within myth is now *much*
> > snappier. The system actually responds instantly unlike
> > before when seeking ahead in recordings could take 30s or
> > more. Mythvideo now plays all videos perfectly (using xv and
> > alsa) and no problems yet with mythDVD either.
> >
> > This has also finally got the WAF sorted out - as a nerd is
> > was cool to be able to use the 350 for all output, but as
> > >50% of the time the system is used for non
> > live/recorded-mythtv is was severely hampering its
> > usefulness. Now I have a fully functioning myth box that does
> > everything I want it to and no more nagging *why doesn't this
> > work* ...
> >
> > I'm still hoping the ivtv X driver will get xv support at
> > some point in the future after Hauppauge reveal more of their
> > secrets and will get it going again if this is the case, but
> > at the moment I am more happy to have everything working and
> > no more stress *trying* to get it to work using solely the 350 output.
> >
> > The 'third way' is to run mythtv over your video card's
> > tv-out and employ the decoder on the 350 for live tv and
> > recordings via another connection to your TV\VCR. This will
> > then give top notch playback quality of TV through the 350,
> > and accelerated playback of everything else via your video card.
> >
> > HTH,
> > Nick
> 
> Nick, this is awesome info, thanks.  You are 100% correct that my video
> card doesn't not have a TV out connector.  I've been stubbornly trying to
> get all output to work from the PVR-350.
> 
> So I understand correctly, are you saying in your configuration you watch
> all
> live tv via the PVR-350 (in and out) and then any recorded programs use the
> non-PVR-350 video card?

Scott,

Current setup just uses the onboard TV-out for everything whilst I
sort out all my AV connections  and decide what I think of the quality
compared to the 350. I'm also researching using a VGA to SCART adaptor
to get high quality RGB output from the VGA port instead of using the
S-Video TV out.

Most importanly, at the moment, everything works and although the 350
card was pricier than the 250, it offers excellent quality MPEG
decoding as well as the encoding, so I don't feel I've wasted money -
for a TV only system with slower and cooler CPU its the perfect card.

Nick


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