[mythtv-users] MythNetvision (Flash) + ION Status?

[Raymond Wagner]

On 5/10/2012 08:58, Robert Siebert wrote:
> Am 2012-05-10 14:23, schrieb Brian Long:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a couple of ION-based frontends and in the past it was
>> impossible to play Flash videos due to CPU utilization.  Back in Dec.
>> 2010 Adobe starting releasing VDPAU-accelerated Flash (10.1 beta, I
>> believe) and people were discussing using it with MythNetvision.
>> http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2010-December/304389.html
>> With Flash 11.x being mainstream now and I assume VDPAU support fairly
>> well-baked, how well are ION-based frontends able to play Flash sites
>> (i.e. Hulu, Youtube, etc)?
>> Thanks.
>> /Brian/
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> I have an Atom 1,6GHz (330, dualcore) on a gentoo system and still use
> the flash version 10.3.183.10. Flash videos from Youtube and other
> content is playing fine via firefox or mythnetvision. But I can only say
> that for videos up to 720p. I didn't test higher resolutions.

The problem isn't trying to decode the content, but trying to actually 
render the content.  The content available through youtube is nearly all 
low bitrate, that even a lowly Atom should have no trouble with.  That's 
why if you download it and run it through a proper video player even 
without VDPAU, it does fine.  Flash must convert the content to RGB, 
scale it to the proper size, composite it with other UI elements, and 
flush the whole thing to the display buffer.  This is all done by the 
graphics card with any proper video player.

Flash has actually been able to operate "properly" for years, but no one 
ever used it, because it imposed severe limitations on the UI.  Better 
to be non-functional than non-pretty.