[mythtv-users] FYI - New HW video accellAPI from NVIDIA

[Justin The Cynical]

Nicolas Will wrote:

> Let's say that a year ago I was in front of a tricky problem for a very
> high end setup, involving 4k projectors, 2 Quadroplex units and passive
> stereo. I ended up with NVIDIA's chief engineer on the phone. He said he
> understood the problem. He said that it could be solved. He said that it
> would require engineering time. He asked how many situations like mine
> he would encounter world-wide. I answers that one hand should be enough
> to count the situations, even if we are one of the 2 big guys in the
> field.
> 
> I was basically told that my issue was not helping gamers at all, that
> he would need to evaluate retasking engineering resources.
> 
> That was a polite "never".
> 
> I can't blame him.

Me neither.  I know that gamers are the primary consumer of video cards 
and the driving force behind much of the advancement of GPU's.  NVidia 
wouldn't be where they are if they didn't fully understand where most of 
their income comes from.


> Well, I was surprised by the limitation on chips supporting VC-1, as
> advertised in the announcement.
> 
> So I pulled my email client and emailed the NVIDIA guy. 

*snip very good reason for the limited support*

You know, I'm perfectly OK with that answer.  Bonus points that it fits 
into what I was thinking in regards to the hardware differences between 
the chipsets and my speculation of the older PureVideo software stack.

It's great that NVidia is willing to potentially go look into expanding 
the support to the older chipsets (as much as the chipsets support, that 
is), and I understand and personally can accept the reason for limiting 
the support to the current chipsets until it's determined to be stable.

My whole point was that nothing was said about the older chipsets, and 
by their own specs, the chips can do it (or at least parts of it). 
Limiting it to only the newest chipsets with no reason as to why smacked 
of marketing and a drive to try and get more money from the end users 
for no good reason beyond 'we want you to'.

Yes, 30 US dollars for a supported chipset is not much at all.  However, 
why should anyone blindly spend more money to replace something that is 
still working perfectly and supports the functions that are available in 
the hardware just because They Said So with no real reason for it?

This information explains it perfectly, and it is something I can get 
behind.  Thank you for sharing that, I will shut up now on the subject.  :-)