[mythtv-users] Should a Via Epia V8000 (PLE, no CLE!) be able to do livetv?

Francesco Peeters francesco at fampeeters.com
Tue Apr 11 20:00:29 UTC 2006


R. G. Newbury schreef:
> Francesco Peeters wrote:
> 
>>Before I put any more time in this, I was wondering:
>>
>>Will an Epia V8000 (800MHz C3, 256 MB RAM, PLE VGA (So no CLE H/W MPEG), 
>>Hauppage PVR250) be able to playback recordings and livetv?
>>
>>I have 2 big issues right now:
>>1)No Audio (might be drivers, haven't put any time in that yet)
>>2)Stuttering video.
>>
>>As to #2:
>>About every second a few frames are dropped. This happens irrespective 
>>of the MPEG2 source: both livetv and playback of a recording do the same.
>>Processor seems to be at a staggering 86% usage when playing either 
>>livetv or recording, which seems to be a bit high to me, even for a 
>>'meagre' 800MHz processor
>>
>>The VGA driver being used is the Trident XFree driver included in KnoppMyth
> 
> 
> 1) Go to the alsa-driver site, download and compile the via82xx driver. 
> Should work for your board.
> 

The KnoppMyth distro contains via82xx drivers, and those are loaded, but 
I still do not have audio...  :-(

I'll try with the drivers from Via themselves as well, but like I said, 
I haven't put too much time in that yet..

> 2) Possibly you can use the xvmc enabled video driver, if your chipset 
> is described as 'unichrome'. If so the easiest method would be to 
> upgrade to a recent kernel 2.6.16 where the unichrome driver is included 
> with the kernel. Note that the unichrome pro extensions are not covered 
> by that module. For that you need the upgraded xorg from openchrome (an 
> rpm is available from kelkoo.net.
> 
AFAIK the unichrome drivers are only for the CLE266 and above... Anyway, 
the VIA and other sites clearly state that the PLE does not have H/W 
MPEG, so I am afraid that's a no go...

I tried using the VIA driver for X11, and then XFree wouldn't even 
start, so I reverted to the Trident driver, which is slightly (but 
really only marginally so) faster than the VESA driver...

As the Via EPIA V8000 doesn't have an AGP slot, and only 1 PCI slot, I 
may be looking at getting a PVR350 instead...  :-/

If this really doesn't work out, I'll have to see what is cheaper... A 
new EPIA board or a 350...  :-o

-- 
Francesco Peeters
   Via Epia V8000 - 256M RAM - 160 GB Maxtor - PVR-250


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