[mythtv-users] Status of ffmpeg 4.4.1

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Sat, Nov 6, 2021 at 1:43 PM Peter Bennett <pb.mythtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a known problem with MPEG2 and both NVDEC and VDPAU, also NVidia shield where there are frequent pixelations while watching MPEG2

If this is the (well known) issue about MPEG2 and nvidia,
this is a hardware bug in the VPU (Video Processing
Unit) in the nvidia GPU's, reportedly fixed in the latest
GPUs.  Mostly it happens (in the US) with OTA content
because the encoders generating the MPEG2 streams
are mostly used there (the streams are reportedly
in spec, but the nvidia decoder is not handling it due
to a defect), and (in the US) most cable companies
will transcode yet again with a (slightly) different result.

> This has been around for many years and NVidia seem to have no plans to fix it.

Since it is in the hardware, it is not fixable except for
when you upgrade your (hardware) decoder, or you
move to pure software decoding (which means you
lose the MADI hardware capabilities too).