[mythtv-users] Steaming HDTV Performance.

[Brad Fuller]

Brad DerManouelian wrote:
> On Dec 20, 2006, at 6:50 PM, BRIAN LANG wrote:
>
>   
>> I'm considering building a MythTV system.  I'm a software engineer,  
>> so I don't think I'd have any technical problems that I couldn't  
>> figure out.  I'm weighing the pros and cons of HD Tivo, WIndows  
>> Vista Media Center, and MythTV.  If I do build a MythTV system I'd  
>> likely have a backend in the basement and two font ends.  Both TVs  
>> would be HD (at least eventually).  My concern is the bandwidth.   
>> Am I really going to be able to stream HDTV shows at a reasonable  
>> rate?  What kind of performance can I expect? All 3 computers would  
>> be fairly decent machine and have gigabit ethernet.  Thanks!
>>     
>
> Lots of people use the HDHomeRun to capture 2 HDTV streams over  
> 100Base-T, so it is at least able to do that. If you're going to be  
> streaming more than a couple at a time, you should definitely  
> consider gigabit (You should consider it anyway since the hardware is  
> reasonably priced now.)
>   
The capturing of ATSC is not really a cpu intensive operation using PCI 
cards (like the pcHDTV3000.) There's no encoding going on. Playing 2 HD 
streams is more intensive, but since you are going to have a backend and 
2 frontends, you won't have much problems considering the use of 
moderately new CPUs and especially if you use Nvidia video cards and 
work out the XvMC kinks in your specific setup.