[mythtv-users] Migrating my mythtv setup to HD

Tue May 6 13:27:47 UTC 2008

Mary Strimel wrote:
>
> On 5/5/08, *Emery Guevremont* <emery.guevremont at gmail.com 
> <mailto:emery.guevremont at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>>     On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Emery Guevremont
>>     <emery.guevremont at gmail.com <mailto:emery.guevremont at gmail.com>>
>>     wrote:
>>
>>         Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>>>         On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Emery Guevremont
>>>         <emery.guevremont at gmail.com
>>>         <mailto:emery.guevremont at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>             Hello everyone,
>>>
>>>             My problem:
>>>             I've read through a lot of the emails in this mailing
>>>             list that
>>>             discusses HD and mythtv. But I'm still unsure how to
>>>             migrate my current
>>>             setup to be able to capture and display recording into HD.
>>>
>>>             My current setup:
>>>             I currently get my TV from OTA (analog and digital) and
>>>             cable (analog
>>>             and clear QAM only). Right now I only have 2 PVR-150
>>>             cards on my Myth BE
>>>             to capture the cable's and OTA analog channels. I also
>>>             have an HDTV now,
>>>             with dual co-ax inputs (one is used for cable and the
>>>             other for OTA). I
>>>             don't use a FE for watching my recordings. Instead I use
>>>             a combination
>>>             of mythweb for programming and I have a job for
>>>             transcoding to Xvid.
>>>             After I either burn to DVD and watch on a DVD player or
>>>             I use my Archos
>>>             605 to view my recording.
>>>
>>>             My (potentially) next purchase:
>>>             Now I've been thinking on getting an HDHomerun for
>>>             capturing, but I
>>>             still need a way to view my HD recording on my TV.
>>>
>>>             My questions:
>>>             What would be the cheapest way on doing this?
>>>             Theoretically could the new HD-PVR be used to playback
>>>             my recordings or
>>>             does it just playback its own H.264 AVCHD video format?
>>>             Is there a someone that makes an appliance like the
>>>             MediaMVP but for HD?
>>>             How would I go about transcoding HD recordings so that a
>>>             regular DVD
>>>             player or my Archos 605 be able to playback the
>>>             recording? How powerful
>>>             of a BE would I need to do something like that?
>>>             Would a WinTV HVR-1950 from hauppauge be better then
>>>             HDHomerun?
>>>
>>>             Any other low cost suggestions are welcomed.
>>>
>>>          
>>>         What cost is low cost to you?
>>         In terms of cost I'm willing to spend the $170 needed for the
>>         HDHomerun and another $200 for a frontend solution. But I'd
>>         be ready to only buy the HDHomerun, and temporarily transcode
>>         my recordings so a DivX DVD player could play it. And in like
>>         6 months buy whatever I needed for my FE.
>>
>>>         And what are the specs on your backend because with a decent
>>>         enough processor for transcoding/commflagging HD, you could
>>>         just as easily add in a relatively inexpensive video card
>>>         that supports XvMC and do HD playback from your backend as well.
>>         CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700+
>>         RAM: 768MB SDRAM
>>         VIDEO CARD: Asus V7700 AGP (nVidia Corporation NV15 [GeForce2
>>         GTS/Pro])
>>         But I also have a more powerful ATI Radeon 9600 SE.
>>         DISTRO: Gentoo
>>
>>      
>>     Despite the power. the Radeon won't do you any good for Linux as
>>     it lacks any kind of hardware accelleration support.  You *might*
>>     be able to do XvMC with that processor if you were to try say an
>>     Nvidia FX5200 AGP.  That card has excellent XvMC support and you
>>     could find a DVI version and run DVI-HDMI to your TV.  I think
>>     that is most inexpensive route (assuming the XvMC works well
>>     enough with that processor.  I think I had HD running on my
>>     Athlon 1800 with a 440MX at one point so I think it will work).  
>>     Otherwise, if you were to build a frontend, I would strongly
>>     recommend getting enough CPU to decode regardless of video card
>>     (Dual core, etc) so that you won't have to worry about all this
>>     stuff in the future.  I can't imagine spending all the cash on an
>>     HDTV and HDTV tuners only to transcode everything down to DVD to
>>     watch.  You're missing half the joy of MythTV.
>     The transcoding would only be a temporary solution so that I can
>     slowly built up to a full HD system without busting my family's
>     budget. The HDTV I got from by using the points from my credit
>     card's Aeroplan.
>
>     I'll do some reading up on XvMC in the wiki before deciding on the
>     Nvidia card, but it does sound like very low cost solution.
>
>     Thanks.
>>      
>>     Kevin
>
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>
>
>
> You may have already looked at this, but I found the following chart 
> helpful in determining whether XVMC would be enough for me to watch HD:
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC:Example_CPU_Savings
>
> To my happy surprise, my 4 year old Athlon64 is playing back HDTV as 
> of this week using XVMC on a FX5200 with no stuttering, no sync 
> problems, and only a slightly longer prebuffering pause (like 8 secs 
> or so).  I've been plotting this move for years ... like you, I wanted 
> to keep somewhat to a budget.  OTA seems to be working far better than 
> QAM for me.
>
I hadn't seen that chart. A lot of great "Real-world" info.

thanks
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