[mythtv-users] Fanless video card for 1080p?

[Alex Halovanic]

I've used 4 or 5 fanless Zotac NVIDIA cards of that design over the years
for my MythTV and desktop machines from GT 210 to 720.  YMMV, but all have
been solidly reliable, kept cool, and the VDPAU handling of 1080p video has
always been as advertised with the proprietary NVIDIA drivers.  As Gary
said, the primary thing to watch out for with fanless cards (or any
graphics cards, really) is always having enough space next to it: newer
video cards keep needing bigger and bigger heat sinks and/or fans, with a
lot of cards now explicitly taking up two slots on the back.  Having a
vacant spot next to the side of the heat sink is always best to avoid
overheating.

There *are* actually differences between cards and their VDPAU handling
and, while memory does play a factor, it's primarily about the supported
feature set for a generation of cards. For 1080p playback of MPEG 2 HD
video (the kind off of cable or over the air), all the cards have long
since reached the point where they will handle that kind of video, plus the
most advanced deinterlacing settings without any issue.  From personal
experience, a 730 with 2 GB will be more than enough to handle that: even
the 210 was already there.  The primary differences now are on accelerating
H.264 and newer formats and really giant video streams, which I doubt you
are worrying about yet.

NVIDIA's documentation gives some idea about the comparative state of their
cards' VDPAU features:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/352.63/README/supportedchips.html

And MythTV's wiki gives some info (a bit outdated) and user feedback
specific to MythTV.
https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Vdpau

Thanks,
Alex
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