[mythtv-users] ATI (I know, I know) Issues

[Chris Keegan]

Hive Mind,

I've been a happy MythTv user for quite a while now and recently I
decided that I would upgrade my setup to be a whizzo slimline quiet box
using a Hiper case. It's been a *massive* (I can't emphasise that
enough) pain to get it working (and I've built a fair few machines in my
time). Because it's slimline I've only got 1 PCI slot, which is being
occupied by the Tuner card so I'm reliant on the onboard graphics of the
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard (which is ATI X1250-based).

So It's all up and running with Ubuntu Hardy and I'm very happy with it
(here's the but) but video playback in MythTV is well, rubbish. ATI, I
know was not the right decision but back then I was young and optimistic
(naive). 

My mythtv-frontend.log looks like this at the relevant bit:
2008-07-04 14:47:17.764 VideoOutputXv Error: Could not find suitable
XVideo surface.
2008-07-04 14:47:17.764 VideoOutputXv: Falling back to X11 video output
over a network socket.
                              *** May be very slow ***
2008-07-04 14:47:17.765 VideoOutputXv Error: XCreateImage failed:
XJ_disp(0x83a6c90) visual(0x83db5c0)
                        XJ_depth(24) WxH(1280x720) bpl(3840)
2008-07-04 14:47:17.765 VideoOutputXv Error: Failed to create X buffers.
2008-07-04 14:47:18.041 Couldn't load deinterlace filter

With logs like that, you'd kind of expect crap performance. Video
rendering rarely goes well across network interfaces. I've tried getting
the latest ATI drivers using EnvyNG but to no avail.

Is there any kind soul out there who may have a solution that is not
"take everything apart, send back the motherboard, rebuild and hope that
the next onboard graphics works better".

I'd probably consider re-writing the ATI driver to be preferable to
that!

Thanks to any and all for any advice!

Chris...