[mythtv-users] newbie pcHDTV questions

[John Patrick Poet]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Daniel Walton wrote:

> I installed the 5336 drivers and myth can find the libraries now.  I have the HD
> card working in myth now....wohoo!!! :)


Excellent.  Welcome to the club.


>
> Any XFree86 config settings that you would recommend that aren't in Jarod's doc?


I am using the 540p & 540pw modelines which Doug Larrick came up with.

Search the users forum:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/Users_F11/

for "540pw" and you should be able to find his post.  I would bet that Jarod
has the same modelines on his HDTV page somewhere:

http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/mythhd.php


> Right now it is taking me about 85% of my cpu on a Athlon 2800 to play a HD
> stream.


Sounds about right.  I use a 2.8 GHz P4.  I can play back 1 HD stream, while
another is recording.  I can *NOT* have mythcommflag running and playback an HD
stream at the same time.  I would like to build a second box dedicated to
being a Myth frontend.  The decoding would happend on the frontend box,
while commercial flagging occured on the backend.  In theory, I should be
able to make the frontend box quieter, as well.

Even under ideal conditions, the video playback will studder on occation.
Based on comments which Daniel Thor Kristjansson has made, I believe that
this happends when the decoder gets behind a little and skips several frames
to catch up.  If I understand Daniel's comments, the decoder actually skips
more frames than is really necessary, which can cause a very noticeable jump
in the video.

I am currently using a 2.4.25 kernel under Fedora Core.  In general, that
combination is giving me the best results I have seen.  pdicamillo posted a
patch in the pchdtv support forums, to allow the HD-2000 drivers to build
with the 2.4.25 kernel, if you are interested.

John