[mythtv-users] minimum specs for PCHDTV-5500?

[Mary Strimel]

On 3/26/08, Roger Heflin <rogerheflin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Mary Strimel wrote:
> > hello mythfolk,
> > I have put a pchdtv-5500 into my myth box which consists of a 4-years
> old
> > AMD Athlon 64 (I think the CPU is rated at 800 mhz).
> >
> > In theory, my box should be capable of recording from this card in
> HD.  In
> > fact PCHDTV minimum specs say 400 mhz pentium would be enough.
> >
> > As for playback, I downloaded an HD testfile - I forgot from where, it
> > appeared to be a computer-animated short film that my computer played
> back
> > in beautiful widescreen HD with no problems.  My video card is a nvidia
> > fx-5200.
> >
> > So how come, when I try to record QAM from Comcast cable on this card,
> the
> > results are unwatchable, blocky and hesitating to the point where it
> barely
> > looks like tv?  (I think it is a resource problem, since when there is a
> > still frame or very little movement, the blockiness reduces
> somewhat).  I
> > have tried to record, then stop and watch (so as not to be taping and
> > playback simultaneously).  I have also tried XVMC playback, which seems
> to
> > make no discernible difference in the results.
> >
> > Please try to resist telling me not to buy the pchdtv-5500, 'cause I
> think
> > it's too late to return :)  Could it be that the specs on the PCHDTV
> site
> > are just plain wrong?  Seems more likely I am doing something wrong.
> >
> > cheers,
> > Mary
>
>
> How fast is your machine and how much ram do you have?   Recording will
> work
> fine on a 400Mhz machine, playback of HD will not work on that slow of
> box, I
> *think* that playback of HD-1080i would require quite a bit more.
>
> My experience is that for playback you will need something quite a bit
> faster,
> but this also depends on the resolution of what you are trying to
> playback,
> 1920x1080 takes quite a bit more than 1280x720 does, what was the
> resolution of
> the file that worked, and what was the resolution of the file that failed?
>
>
>                              Roger
>
>
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Thank you for the quick reply.  My machine has 1 GB of RAM.  Running "cat
/proc/cpu" reports an AMD Athlon64 at 800 mhz.  A couple of follow up
questions:

-  For recording from QAM / digital cable, can I set a lower resolution in
the Mythtv recording profiles, and those settings will actually "take"?  I
had no idea ... I thought I was stuck with whatever stream they were
transmitting.

- I don't know the resolution of the test file , although it was definitely
gorgeous, much clearer than SD and played flawlessly.  Is there a tool to
find out the resolution of that file?  Is it possible that a computer
animated film would be easier to for my cpu to play than live action TV?

Mary
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