[mythtv-users] Problems playing file from HD PVR

[Misty P]

Sarah Katherine Hayes wrote:
> As I said in another thread, I'm still trying to find a sweet spot of
> what is a realistic minimum for h264 based HD, all I've got so far is:
>
> VIA c3-1Ghz   - NO! LOL (yeah, but I just had to try it).
> Transmetta thingie @ 1Ghz - NO!  (see above)
> AMD Athlon64 3400 (64bit) - NO!
> Pentium 4-M 2.0Ghz  (last generation before Core) - NO!  (surprised by
> this, really thought it could do it).
> Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz (2Mb Cache) - Yes. 20% - 50% CPU.
> Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz (4Mb Cache) - Yes.

Careful, you're opening up a can of worms there.  I think before you post 
performance numbers, you need to say what input file you're using, what 
encoding, what bitrate, and if you're using any sort of accelerated drivers.

I was playing elephant's dream 1080p on my core2 (2Mb cache), and it never 
bothered to kick off of the throttled-down cpu speed of 1.2 GHz.  But that 
was with my nvidia 7300; when I flipped back to the intel g35 on-board, CPU 
usage shot through the roof.  (Not real surprising, 'cuz at the time the g35 
wasn't even detected correctly, much less really accelerated for much of 
anything.)

And I don't know about anyone else, but I'm seeing *massive* differences 
between mplayer and vlc when playing high-def content...  Enough that I'm 
going to take the plunge and configure vlc as my base player; works with 
dual cores while mplayer just doesn't seem to want to!