[mythtv-users] Re:inexpensive frontend?

[audin at okb-1.org]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 02:01:07PM -0600, Aran Cox wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 01:22:05PM -0800, audin at okb-1.org wrote:
> > 	Does anyone know if an xbox is powerful enough/well supported enough
> > to play back HDTV content?  I have a pcHDTV on order but I fear my dual Athlon
> > MP2200+ with Radeon 7000 video isn't going to cut it for playback.  I'm not
> > terribly interested in supporting NVidia's binary-only drivers.
> 
> I'm not sure if it's fast enough to play back HDTV programs.  Xbox games
> can have HDTV output modes, but that's not the same thing.  
> 
> So, your dual athlon won't cut it because it is too loud I assume?  Or is
> there some other problem with that system?  By "supporting NVidia's drivers"
> you mean you simply don't want to use them?  The nv driver included with XF86
> does include Xv support so with a machine that fast you could probably just
> use nv.  I'm not sure I understand what you think your problem might be :)

	I'm unsure the dual athlon will actually be able to handle the
playback.  I haven't seen any reports on how good at mpeg2 decoding Athlons
are, and these are only 2200+ (ie: 1.8GHz).  So I'm guessing that, unless the
mpeg2 decoder code is somewhat SMP-aware (which I don't think it is), the
machine won't be able to smoothly play back the HD mpeg2 stream.

	The current plan is to just wait and see.  If the athlon and it's
Radeon 7000 can handle it, great.  If not, I'm not opposed to putting together
a P4-3GHz for use as a front end.  Maybe I can figure out how to make it a
quieter machine than the dual athlon in the bargain (the athlon isn't that
loud, I put it in one of these
http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=15138 cases, so it's
pretty quiet.  It remains to be seen how loud it is after the AMD cpu fans
start to fail, however).  I believe a 3GHz P4 should be able do handle the whole
decode process without help from the video card.

	The main advantage of an NVidia card for HD playback is the XvMC
support.  But I have problems supporting companies which don't provide
programming information, so I can't bring myself to buy any Nvidia products.

	The other issue is that I will be displaying the hdtv streams on an
XGA LCD projector.  I suspect that the playback machine or its video card is
going to have to scale the HD image to 1024x768.  I'm unsure that my Radeon
7000 can scale a 1920xwhatever HD image.

	Oh well, we'll see what happens.  I can't wait for the card to arrive
so I can get started.

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

Be careful not to step in the Microsoft. -- John Denker