[mythtv-users] The $99 frontend is here. Is this too good to be true?

[Jarod Wilson]

On Thursday 02 July 2009 00:46:52 Bill Williamson wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday 01 July 2009 23:32:39 Sean Goodpasture wrote:
> > > WAF?  Good for myth.  Bad for media, especially trying to get VDPAU to
> > work
> > > causing DVD ISOs to die and general instability on the frontend.
> >
> > Let me just point something out...
> >
> > The VDPAU code is still relatively new, and only (officially) in the
> > development branch of MythTV. Its still being twiddled almost daily.
> 
> 
> This is a point in favor of a non-myth frontend though, if the options are
> "don't watch HD content" or "watch HD content" for the time being...

As I (thought I) said, I watch HDTV content ALL THE TIME without VDPAU.
Hell, I'm not even using nVidia graphics, I'm using Intel.

> > And VDPAU for DVD playback? Why?!?
> 
> Deinterlacing and scaling.  Back 5 years ago nvidia had the best dvd
> playback with their pure-video stuff for windows.  It's only gotten better.

I guess I just expect DVD video to look relatively crappy after all the
stuff I've watched in high-def. :)

> > Note that I have yet to bother jumping on the VDPAU band-wagon, so
> > perhaps I'm missing out on something, but last time I used an nVidia
> > card in a Myth box, it could handle even HDTV recordings w/o the
> > cpu even scaling up from its minimum frequency. Oh, and all my boxes
> > have been pretty much rock-solid running VDPAU-less svn trunk for ages.
> > Hell, even my Atom N270 and Atom 330 systems w/gma 950 graphics can
> > *almost* do HDTV fine, so anything better than an EPIA w/an nVidia
> > card should be more than fine w/o VDPAU for playback of everything
> > but h.264, I would think...
> >
> 
> Everything "HD" now is h.264.

I wish. I'm on the other side of the pond, where everything is mpeg2,
and ain't going to change anytime soon. Perhaps VDPAU is far more of
a necessity outside the US then. Hadn't considered that.

> The new dvb-s2 stuff is h.264, and around the
> world dvb-t is slowly moving to it as well.  There are some current HD
> channels in DVB-T that broadcast in mpeg-2 high bitrate, but 99% of the time
> they are 1080i and thus you need a beefy machine to do deinterlacing that
> doesn't look completely horrible.
> 
> You need a REALLY powerful machine to do this in software with
> deinterlacing, or do to it all for blu-ray type bitrates.  Your systems
> cannot do this.

The Atom systems, of course not. But those aren't my myth frontends. I
use a core 2 duo for that, and it handles most h.264 1080p material
rather well. Not full blu-ray bitrate stuff, no. That's why Dell ships
these things (Studio Hybrid) w/a dedicated decoder card (which I didn't
get in mine, since its Broadcom-made, and they suck at open source).
But in any case, its still not using VDPAU for the stuff it does play
back. My workstation handles anything and everything w/o a problem, but
its a core 2 quad w/a quadro fx video card (which does support VDPAU,
but I've not bothered to set up for such). Of course, I wouldn't want
to put that in the living room...

> > Moral of the story: VDPAU still development code, and not a magic
> > bullet (yet). Don't expect miracles. Play with fire, get burned. Etc.
> 
> 
> Again, the options are:

The options *if your feed(s) is/are h.264*. Again, mine aren't.

> 1. use unstable vdpau now
> 2. use NOTHING now and wait for vdpau to stablize
> 3. use a different solution
> 
> I'm doing a combo of #1 and #3.  I use mythtv for my DVR tv, and a PCH for
> all recordings/dvds/etc.  I'm working on a small python server talking the
> mythtv API so that I can use a PCH for EVERYTHING.

I still need to pick one of those up some day to play with. Sadly,
not enough hours in the day for all the toys I want to play with
anymore...

> None of this is meant as unappreciation, but to show where people are coming
> from.

Typical American, I wasn't considering that the rest of the world isn't
stuck with the same bullshit broadcast standards we have. Thank you for
bringing this to my attention, it all makes more sense now. :)


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com