[mythtv-users] Is Nvidia Shield the future for Mythtv Frontend??

[James Abernathy]

On 12/25/18 9:41 PM, glen wrote:
> On Tue, 2018-12-25 at 18:45 -0500, James Abernathy wrote:
>> While sitting around during the holidays watching TV, I started 
>> thinking about how to improve my home media center.  My backend is a 
>> powerful server with RAID so I’m covered there.  My Frontends need 
>> some work though. It maybe my brain going crazy, but I no longer 
>> think my Ivy Bridge i3 NUC is not up to the task.  Too much tearing 
>> at the bottom of the screen no matter what settings I use. This 
>> started as the kernels got updated on Ubuntu 16.04 in prep for moving 
>> to 18.04. My guess is improving the drivers for the new Intel chips 
>> they messed up the old 3rd Core generation drivers.
>>
>> Even my RP3 B+ has better video performance.  Since I use FireTV in 
>> addition to Mythtv, I’m thinking of something like the Nvidia Shield. 
>>  It can run all the apps that the FireTV does and it plays games and 
>> runs mythtv frontend.
>>
>> At $150, I can’t buy a more powerful PC than what I have. So I’m 
>> thinking the Shield is right solution moving forward without breaking 
>> the bank.
>>
>> What do others think??
>>
>> Jim A
>>
>>
>>
> i have 2 shields i got for very low price. i agree to be able to have netflix, amazon, hbogo etc plus mythfrontend
> is a big advantage. mythfrontend runs pretty well. i have a little trouble with h264 using mediacodec so i use ffmpeg
> codec for everything. also for me only ffmpeg codec allows subtitles. playback is acceptable. not as good as on my backend,
> a ryzen 7 with nvidia 750 ti. you could also try to build from master and check out the vaapi 2 and see if that improves
> the nuc's before you take the plunge. overall i'm quite happy with the shield on a 4k tv and thanks to the great
> work by peter bennet now having mythfrontend makes a really versatile solution for me.
>
The advances of small multi-core CPUs with built-in GPU has been great 
since I retired from the industry. I know that a PC that you spend $400 
for will do the job. Also an old PC with a good Nvidia graphics card 
with do the job.  For me form factor is also a big issue.  That's why I 
spent a lot of time debugging performance on the 3rd gen Core i3 NUC. 
But that performance is going down not up.

The RP3 B+ is quite good on Kodi but still lacking on mythfrontend. 
Neither can do SlingTV, Prime Video etc.

So if the developers are spending their time on Nvidia Shield then that 
may be the direction I should head. The hardware specs on the Shield are 
impressive and the price is nice. I am sticking with v29 on the backend 
because it's stable. I know the pre30 mythfrontend works on my Macbook 
with the v29 backend, but had missing libraries on the RP3 with 
Raspbian. So I can't see if any improvements have happened on the RP3.

 From monitoring the mailing list I see there are a number of people 
with the Shield.  My use case for the Shield would be Mythfrontend 
displaying recorded MPG2 files from OTA tuners. I use the HDHR Quatro 
and Connect devices.

Jim A


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