[mythtv-users] Help with hardware questions...M2NPV-VM?

Steven Ellis steven at openmedia.co.nz
Tue Dec 12 03:40:25 UTC 2006


On Tue, December 12, 2006 4:25 pm, Michael Tiller wrote:
> I've been having some problems with getting HD to work in my Myth system.
> It is "almost" there, but the system just can't seem to muster what it
> takes
> to run HD.
>
> It turns out that I can address another problem by scavenging the parts
> from
> my MythTV system and that leaves me with the possibility to upgrade the
> MythTV system.  So, I'm looking at replacing the existing SiS based
> motherboard + 2.4 GHz P4 combination in my current MythTV system with the
> following:
>
> ASUS
> M2NPV-VM<http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131014>Motherboard
> AMD Athlon 64 X2
> 3800+<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103733>CPU
> A 1Gb
> PC4200<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145525>Memory
> module.

Excelent HW platform. Very simlary to the level we use in myPVR V2. You
will be doing MPEG2 based HDTV so this setup should be fine. If you were
looking at H264 HDTV you might want to bump the CPU up as at the moment
the FFMPEG H264 decodere is a little slow.

>
> My main concern here is with HD playback.  The motherboard seems like a
> good
> HTPC motherboard because of the onboard NVidia 6150 (w/DVI connector), 6
> channel audio, etc.  I would also assume (based on the
> wiki<http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC>)
> that the processor should be up to the task as well.

Yeah it is quite good, but some XvMC issues on HD Sized frames. Glad to
see you are going for 1Gb.  We ship with 512 which is fine for SD.

> I don't really know that much about the current motherboards and CPUs.  Is
> there any drawback to going with something like this instead:
> Foxconn
> 6150K8MA-8EKRS<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813186086>
> AMD Athlong 64 X2
> 3800+<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103531>CPU
> (Socket 939)

We used to use the Asus A8N-VM CSM boards which are similar to the FoxCon..
The nice thing about the M2NPV-VM is it has Component video as well as
DVI>

> In the case of this combo, I could keep my (admittedly slower) memory,
> correct?
>
> I plan on keeping the case, hard drives, etc.
>
> The most important question is, will this system be able to handle HDTV
> playback?  Without XvMC?
>
> In addition, can anybody see any other issues with running Myth with this
> hardware?

Not really, as long as you have already got your capture cards etc working.

> Finally, I'm assuming I can drop this in and an already installed Ubuntu
> will still boot up without being upset in the switch from an SiS chipset
> and
> Intel CPU?  Or, am I going to need a special AMD64 version of Ubuntu?

No need to go 64bit at the moment. We ship myPVR with a 32bit OS at present.

Steve

--------------------------------------------
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited - The Home of myPVR
email   - steven at openmedia.co.nz
sales   - sales at openmedia.co.nz
support - support at openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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