[mythtv-users] HD reference files?

[David Murphy]

As hardware requirements for HD/SD playback are a constant theme I was 
wondering if there are any HD reference files that are freely available 
on the net?  I know there are plenty of movie trailers etc but what I 
had in mind was  a small set of like 10-15 second clips at the various 
common formats 1080i/p, 720p, 480p etc.

It would be nice if these clips were perhaps the most complex and 
demanding scenes possible, designed to push decoding requirements as 
high as possible. Mythtv users could then download a small test set of 
files, dump them on their hardware and see how a given hardware config 
handles a common reference.

There are so many variables between hardware combinations, software 
driver version, user modified settings and video source material 
variations that it just seems like users in general would benefit from a 
small set of common reference video files and perhaps even a script of 
some sort that would render the material and generate some performance 
stats.

We could then look at the output of a test that included kernel version, 
driver versions, specific hardware models and performance data for a 
known reference file rather than a scattered pile of anecdotal reports.

Do you think this is worthwhile?  Is it practical?