[mythtv-users] Build a robust FE - irritated with IONs

Jim Morton Jim at Morton.hrcoxmail.com
Thu Dec 23 12:27:37 UTC 2010



On 12/23/2010 12:18 AM, Dave Richardson wrote:
> I forget if it's been Robert's axe to grind about the IONs being 
> underpowered, but... I've just about had it with my IONs.  (ZOTAC C-U, 
> B-somethings)
>
> I have one specific FE that I really want to have perform well and 
> this ION mITX stuff amounts to half-a-solution and lot of wasted time 
> tuning. Yeah, Myth's a hobby, but if the point of the hobby is to 
> actually WATCH something instead of tinkering and tuning, then I want 
> to think about some gear that isn't so marginal.
>
> Main complaint: truly high quality vdpau playback isn't consistently 
> possible and seems to require quite a bit of tuning and fiddling to 
> sustain.  For me, this makes a credible case against Comcast HD DVR 
> difficult to support.
>
> What specs would put forth a quiet-as-possible FE that had some real 
> balls, was ideally fanless/quiet, and didn't need a lot of tuning to 
> kick ass?
>
> Basically, spec something that doesn't breathe hard when I watch the 
> damned nightly news (yes, you may laugh that I watch the news - it's 
> kind of a metaphor anyways)
>
> Anyone else feel this pain?  Is it just as simple as getting into the 
> GT 2xx chips/cards?
>
> < /late night rant>

I can't suggest specs on a kick-ass FE but I did want to say that my 
Revo 3610 does VDPAU flawlessly once compositing was turned off. Tearing 
was a bad problem before that. The advice I got was to run :
sudo nvidia-xconfig --no-composite

Mine is configured as a slave BE/FE and is driving a 37" Sony LCD and is 
running the last Mythbuntu 023.

Are you running 024? I wonder if your issue might be the NVIDIA driver 
version. It seems that some here have had problems with the driver 
updating and causing problems when going to 024.

My only complaint is that it runs pretty near full out and commercial 
flagging is only about 1/3 real time. For the money ($319) I think it 
was worth it but I do fear that a Myth upgrade may render it junk one day.

-- 
_________________________________________________________

  Jim Morton



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