[mythtv-users] mythtv on the ps3

[Mark Kendall]

On 4/11/07, Chris Henderson <jchendo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 2/8/07, Craig Partin <cpartin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Can one of you who has this running give us an update?  Does it make a
> > suitable frontend?  Can you play any HD content?  How does the video
> > quality compare to a normal frontend? Are there any drawbacks or
> > gotchas?
> >
> > I am considering one as a frontend and would appreciate any opinions.
> >
>
> I have to say that the one who must be obeyed asked me the other day if the
> PS3 supports myth. Naturally i asked why, she answered "well if it does that
> would get the damm computer out of the living room, so you can have one"
>
> so my interest level has increased dramatically!!!
>
> So i too would like to hear from people that have one running, with
> performance and usability etc.
>

I've had mythtv running on my PS3 for a couple of weeks. Playing
standard def PAL at 720p is pretty poor due to significant
frameskipping.

On the basis that all picture colour conversion, scaling etc is
unaccelerated (as it uses a straight memory backed framebuffer), I
decided to see how much that conversion/scaling costs. The answer - a
lot.

So to cut a long story short, I've knocked up a PS3 video output
'driver' that hooks directly into the framebuffer memory and offloads
all the work to one of the SPUs (the supplementary processors on the
Cell/PS3). It's early days yet but as of last night I had it
displaying an unscaled/greyscale picture with the main processor (the
PPU) running about 50-60% idle on each core.

Obviously I need to get colour conversion and scaling implemented
first, but after that there are plenty of issues such as vertical
sync, OSD blending, pip, refresh rate detection, deinterlacers, xrandr
equivalent  etc - and off course add 'Boot Game OS' to the exit menu
options :)

Given a little time, I think the PS3 will make an excellent frontend
for SD playback. If anyone else manages to optimise ffmpeg for the
Cell (beyond me), then it should make an excellent frontend all round
(i.e. HD mpeg2/H264 as well).

Regards

Mark