[mythtv-users] Best graphics card choice? (HDTV and regular)

[audin at okb-1.org]

On Tue, Dec 09, 2003 at 02:05:59PM -0700, John P. Poet wrote:
> I also have one of the pcHDTV cards.  This is all in a 2.6 GHz Pentium IV
> system.  Using mplayer with the xv output driver, it can BARELY keep up when
> displaying a 1080i HD stream -- and that is only if the "raw" audio is going
> out the SPDIF connector.  If I have the machine decode the AC3 stream as
> well, then it cannot keep up.

	Have you tried xine?  It appears to handle a 1080i stream with ac3
decode on my dual 2200+ athlon.  (and using X11 output, as the Radeon driver's
Xv is broken at 1920x1080.)

> Because of all this, I am also in the market for a new video card.
> 
> Reading some the of mplayer documentation, I get the impression that one of
> the developers uses a Matrox card.  This kinda makes me tempted to give a
> Matrox card a shot....

	Make sure the matrox driver and card can handle overlay at 1920x1088.
Such large overlays seem to be a serious problem with current X drivers.  I
know for a fact that the Radeon drivers can't handle it, and i've seen posts
(during my search for a radeon fix) that imply the matrox drivers can't,
either.

	There are so few people using such large overlays that I've decided to
just stick with x11/xshm and try to throw enough cpu time at it to make up for
the lack of Xv.

-- 
                                            Audin Malmin - audin at okb-1.org