[mythtv-users] Raspberry Pi suitability for MythFrontend

[Raymond Wagner]

On 2/19/2012 14:03, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
> I have been reading about the Raspberry Pi that is due to come out in 
> the next 10 days.
> It is said to be capable of 1080 with no problems.  Due to come out 
> with fedora for ARM on launch.
>
> How suitable would this be for a MythTV front end?  No VDPAU 
> obviously, but at 3 watts of power usage, and an HDMI out, it seems 
> otherwise perfect.

The chip it runs on is a 700MHz ARM11, giving it every bit as much grunt 
as the original i686 Pentium Pro from the mid 90's.  They may have put a 
big GPU on it, but in terms of CPU performance, it doesn't hold a candle 
to even the Cortex-A chips found in modern smart phones.  The 256MB 
wired version is the only one even worth considering.  The 128MB 
wireless version simply doesn't have enough memory to bother with.  I 
think the XBMC guys have been saying the same thing.  Even at 256MB, 
Mythfrontend still won't be happy running at 1920x1080.

The big issue is playback.  That puny little processor won't cut it for 
much of anything, which leaves video decoding completely dependent on 
the hardware decoder.  With luck, they support OpenMAX, meaning one 
video renderer could be used for it, the Tegra systems, and a handful of 
other embedded systems.  That still requires someone to write an OpenMAX 
renderer in the first place, from scratch.  MythTV does not have even 
the beginnings of one.

Will MythTV run on one? No.
Could MythTV run on one? Sure, but someone better get to coding, and 
they've got a lot of work to look forward to.
With support, would it be the "perfect frontend"?  Not hardly.  You're 
still restricted to absolutely nothing beyond what you can squeeze out 
of that hardware video decoder.