[mythtv-users] epia vs PVR-350 hardware decoding

[hayward at slothmud.org]

will probably require hardware encoding/decoding... the PVR-250 support 
>looks like it solved the encoding part, but from what I've been able to 
>discern from reading the list, there's no support yet for hardware 
>decoding - both the PVR-350 and the EPIA's mpeg2 decoder are currently 
>unsupported. So my question is, does anyone who has been following the 
>development of the necessary drivers have a rough idea of when it might 
>be reasonable to expect they might be ready and myth-supported? Anytime 
>soon, or far off in the future?

what about dxr2/dxr3?  Seems like those could be supported as well, though 
having seperate cards doesn't seem to do much good in a small form-factor 
device.

>Second related question: assuming neither is going to be supported in 
>the near future, how much processing power is needed to run myth 
>smoothly, assuming hardware encoding? Would one of the new EPIA boxes 
>with a PVR-250 cut it with the decoding being done in software?

Playing DVD's (super-high-quality) with a hardware decoder works on a 
300mhz processor.  (Just for the decoding part).  With hardware 
encoding/decoding, it seems like you should be ok with 600mhz (maybe even 
400mhz).

-- 
Brian Hayward