[mythtv-users] Upgrade old or cut my losses and buy new?

[David Murphy]

I'm using a Sempron 3400 w/ 256KB L2 cache on the Asus M2NPV-VM in my 
frontend. I'm outputting HD from my air2pc card to a 27" SD tv at the 
moment.  Initially HD was unwatchable.  XvMC gave reasonably smooth 
playback at ~90% cpu without any deinterlacing but the audio was screwed 
up. Ffmpeg and libmpeg2 would put xorg usage at 40-50% and and 
mythfrontend at 50-60% and the content was unwatchable.

Then I discovered the xorg.conf device option of "UseEvents" "True" for 
the onboard Nvidia graphics and now everything is more or less peachy. 
XvMC is still unusable due to audio issues but with libmpeg2 and bob 
deinterlacing I am seeing ~10% xorg usage and ~50-60% mythfrontend 
usage. Total system load is rarely over 75% cpu usage when watching 
1080i content and the audio is perfect.

I'm still seeing the occasional jerk or stutter, mostly on scene pans 
but I don't think this has anything to do with the cpu as the cpu is 
always at least %25 idle when they occur and many people with much 
faster systems than mine report they are still trying to iron these 
issues out.