[mythtv-users] OT: hardware decoding of HD content

[DaveD]

My 5200 plays 1080i/720p just fine on my 37" 1080p monitor.  You'll find 
it offloads MUCH of the CPU work for decoding high def content due to 
its video overlay.  You'll need the Nvidia legacy drivers.  I upgraded 
my MB and really miss my AGP 5200.  My 7600 looks like crap and uses 50% 
of my dual core system (100% of one core!) while the 5200 (now in my 
wife's computer as a remote frontend) only uses 48% of a single core and 
looks great!  I hope either Nvidia wises up soon or the Myth developers 
get the Nvidia 3D rendering working.  Hold on to that 5200 as long as 
you can!

DaveD

Marc Barrett wrote:
> I just got a widescreen monitor from the wife for Christmas, and
> am slowly making the transition to HD content.  My system is
> still almost entirely SD, though, based on two Hauppauge cards
> (350 and 150) and an nvidia geforce fx 5200.  But the monitor 
> can almost do full 1080p (1680x1050).  I am already planning
> to get an hdhomerun, probably in a few months, but it would
> be silly to get that and discover that my system can't play HD
> movies without chopping and stuttering. 
>
> My system uses a P4 2.6Ghz CPU, so I am thinking of some
> kind of hardware aid to help it decode h.264, AVC, or 
> whatever HD movies.  Obviously my 5200 isn't enough, so I am
> thinking of upgrading the graphics card first.  I don't know what
> card to get, though.  I don't want to spend too much on a card
> with all kinds of 3-D graphics stuff that I won't use much (I 
> only play games very, very occasionally).  
>
> The following link is very helpful:
>
> http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/PureVideo_Product_Comparison.pdf
>
> My system uses AGP, so I can't use any of those expensive PCI-e
> cards, anyway.  According to the chart, my best bet is a GeForce 
> 6200, since some of the the 'better' cards appear to actually be worse 
> for HD support.
>
> However, this chart all about nvidia's "purevideo" support for Windows.  
> I don't know how exactly this applies to linux, XVMC, and such.  Also,
> I really don't know anything at all about ATI.  Maybe there is a cheap
> ATI card available, similar in price to the 6200, that might be better 
> for HD decoding on linux.  I really don't know.  Any tips would be really
> appreciated.
>
>
>
>   
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