[mythtv-users] Dual-CPU/Core & MythTV

[Galen]

Been checking on the hardware... please correct me if I'm wrong here!

The potentially cost-viable CPU options with a few sample prices  
attached:
1) AMD Athlon MP (2800 2.13 GHz = USD ~197, can't find anything faster)
2) AMD Opteron (242 1.6 GHz = USD ~158, 244 1.8 GHz = USD ~203)
3) Intel Xenon (2.8 GHz = USD ~220, 2.66 GHz = USD ~199)
(did I miss any cost-viable options?)

For each of these CPUs, what would the comfortable minimum be for  
HDTV playback only? (I will have an GeForce card, but I believe that  
I will lose XvMC acceleration if I want to do any fancy deinerlacing  
tricks. Is this correct?) I am trying to assess the price difference  
and practicality of a dual-CPU setup. Also, what anybody know sort of  
heat production are we talking about per-CPU here?

Does MythTV compile properly for 64-bit and actually offer any  
practical performance gains? (Or am I going to completely regret that  
I even *thought* of trying 64-bit code... I am thinking that may be a  
"yes" for the time being...)

-Galen

On May 7, 2005, at 3:03 PM, Galen wrote:

> I'm one of those lurkers... I'm not yet in possession of my own  
> MythTV box, but I'm rather familiar with *nix and am working on  
> plans (and finances) for an awesome HDTV MythTV box. When I get it  
> done, it will be killer. (I am, however, somewhat of a newbie when  
> it comes to x86 hardware. I've lived in RISC land too long...)
>
> I've been looking into the specifications for a MythTV system, and  
> it occurred to me, it seems like an awesome application for a dual- 
> CPU/core setup. HDTV decoding is pretty high-end in terms of system  
> demands, so purchasing much more CPU than required for decent HDTV  
> playback (~A64 3200, P4 3 GHz) gets really expensive, really fast,  
> and it's simply impossible to purchase twice the CPU required for  
> HDTV playback w/decent de-interlacing and various other functions.  
> More CPU means you can do more post-processing, commercial  
> flagging, maybe even background transcoding (with the proper nice  
> values, of course).
>
> It seems like a dual-CPU system would be an excellent solution to  
> this problem. Size the CPUs such that one CPU is able to  
> comfortably handle the single largest realtime function (HDTV  
> decoding), and then the other CPU is free so you can do some  
> *awesome* de-interlacing, commercial flagging, etc without ever  
> impacting the HDTV playback. The same effect would happen with dual  
> core CPUs, but they are only getting started. Dual CPUs are here,  
> today. I've done enough work with dual-CPU systems to realize that  
> while they don't offer "double" the performance for traditional  
> mono-threaded applications, for some multi-threaded applications  
> that rely on realtime response (i.e. video playback), they're  
> better than a CPU that's twice as fast.
>
> Does this make sense? I'm curious if anybody has tried this, and  
> with what CPU/motherboard? Any thoughts as to some optimal hardware  
> configurations (CPU speed/type/mobo)? What would my practical  
> options for de-interlacing be with a setup like this?
>
> -Galen
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>