[mythtv-users] Seeking Motherboard Advice

[Raymond Wagner]

On 12/14/2011 18:15, Kenneth Emerson wrote:
> I am looking at the ASROCK mobo (ASRock H67M-ITX LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard) which has the Intel graphics 2000/3000 built in.

Technically, that is not correct.  The GMA X4500 on the old G45 (LGA 
775) chipset is the last time Intel has offered motherboards with 
integrated graphics.  The LGA1156 and 1155 chipsets provide transmitters 
to drive the actual plug, but the graphics hardware is built into the CPU.

> So, can I use the Intel graphics on this mobo for H.264 playback as
> well as mpeg2 1080p files without stuttering?  Does the va-api support
> within MythTV provide any GPU acceleration similar to VDPAU?

MythTV 0.25 has added support for VAAPI... experimentally.  It works, 
but has gone through relatively little testing, and will not be as 
robust as the several-year-old support of VDPAU.  That said, a >3GHz i3 
or i5 should not need for hardware decoding, as it should have plenty of 
CPU power to handle just about anything you throw at it.

There have been a couple discussions in the past about this.  The 2000 
and 3000 should have enough OpenGL power for MythTV's video rendering 
needs, but the drivers are lacking some of the convenience features of 
the nVidia ones, such as being able to force an EDID block for when the 
X server is started with the TV off.  I don't know what the status of 
HDMI audio is off hand.