[mythtv-users] Upgrade to HDTV from SDTV Question, 1.5 year old system

Steven Adeff adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com
Mon Jan 22 00:41:56 UTC 2007


On 1/21/07, Chad <masterclc at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/21/07, Bob Sully <rcs at malibyte.net> wrote:
> >
> > David Krainess wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > I was thinking of buying a HD-5500 card
> > > and adding it to the PVR250 on my existing system.
> > >
> > > So....
> > >
> > > 1.) Will the Venice 3000 work or,
> > > 2.) Should I upgrade to a more powerful 939 socket processor, or,
> > > 3.) Will I have to upgrade the whole darn thing.
> > >
> > > I thought I read back when I bought it you need 3ghz to run HDTV.
> > > UnTechnically, the Venice was marketed a comparable to a 3ghz Intel,
> > > cough, at that time.  However the marketing numbers and reality are
> > > somewhat confusing.  More so am I confused by the ghz number today not
> > > meaning as much as efficient processor design, instructions per second,
> > > multi cores,  and 45 nanoblah die size yada yada yada
> >
> > I have a socket 754 "3400+" (2.4GHz), "minimally" overclocked (a few
> > percent), with 2G RAM and an nVidia 6200 series video card.  I'm doing HD
> > with it at 1280x720 (720p), and it works pretty well; I see occasional
> > "prebuffering pauses" but they're not really noticeable.  Top says I'm
> > using anywhere from 25-40% of the CPU on playback.  I did have to use make
> > sure I did all of the tweaks possible with the proprietary nVidia driver
> > to get it to play 720p HD content cleanly.  I haven't tried it at 1080i
> > yet (the small text and interlacing are unacceptable when using it as a
> > computer rather than a DVR),  and my TV won't do 1080p.
> >
> > Short answer:  It may be OK depending on your video card and supporting
> > configuration, but you're on the edge.
> >
> > > Also, do you need CPU cycles for recording or playing of HD (with the
> > > HD-5500)?  I keep reading mixed information on this.
> >
> > Playback.
> >
> > > Any help greatly appreciated.
> >
> > HTH
> > Bob
> >
> > --
> > ________________________________________
>
> To add to Bob's comments:
>
> Using a AMD 64 3200 ( AM2 ), I can get HDTV playback with both 720 and
> 1080i sources.  This is using an Nvidia 6150 chipset, and the latest
> (9xxx series) NVidia drivers, and throwing into the Device section:
> Option "UseEvents" "True"
> I do not have to use XvMC, though it's an option if your 3000 isn't
> quite sufficient.  It's also running 1GB of RAM, and in the BIOS 128MB
> are dedicated to video.
>
> Definitely playback, your HD tuner will simply be 'stream dumping'
> which is hard drive intensive, but any modern hard drive should easily
> be able to keep up with that.  Everything else is playback intensive.
> Somewhat unrealistically, you may be able to "capture" HD from the
> 5500 on a P3 with 128MB of RAM.  It's the playback where the CPU gets
> hammered.
>
> -Chad

if your not adverse to overclocking, you can get a Venice core 3200+
and easily overclock it to 2.5GHz or higher. It's a cheap way to get a
fast processor. The other option is to by an X2, both of which will
more than handle 1080i + deinterlacing.

-- 
Steve
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