[mythtv-users] MythTV questions...

papenfuss at juneau.me.vt.edu papenfuss at juneau.me.vt.edu
Wed Apr 7 14:55:40 EDT 2004


	I'm assuming that with hdparm you verified that you're getting DMA 
enabled?  (e.g. 'hdparm -d1 /dev/hda')... Then the 'hdparm /dev/hda' to 
verify
 using_dma    =  1 (on)

	Even with that, 2 MB/s sounds awfully slow.  Perhaps your 
chipset/kernel driver is somehow DMA broken.  Look for odities in 'dmesg'  
That's might account for 30 sec channel changes if the card also has DMA 
problems.

	Don't know... but I can say that I didn't have issues with mythtv on a 
bttw software encoding on a dual celeron 300->450... it would encode/decode at 
up to 352x480 rtjpeg.  The PII-400 should have plenty of poop on an ivtv 
card.... maybe 40% utilization on a full-blown DVD (720x480) stream max.

 -Cory

 On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, John Sutherland wrote:

> Hi guys/gals..
> 
> I just setup and got working a basic mythtv box, and I have some questions..
> 
> First, a little about the system it its on.. I'm using this box more of a
> proof of concept for myself.. It is a Pentium II 400Mhz, 128M, PVR-350,
> and a "broken" 40G drive.. By "broken" I mean that I can not get more than
> 2M/sec rates from hdparm -t.. The drive works, its just slow... I'm using
> the 350's TV-Out, and for a distrib, Gentoo...
> 
> Now for the questions...
> 
> 1) I've noticed that channel changing is ---slow---.. Nearly 30 secs to
> change the channel... I'm assuming its either the slow drive, or the slow
> processor.. Which do you think it is?
> 
> 2) What is the difference between the frontend and the backend? I haven't
> seen a good description of what both of them really do... Does the backend
> do the storage?? If I move my backend to another (much faster) machine,
> would that solve the channel changing slowness??
> 
> 3) When using the TV-out on the 350, how's it really work? Does it read
> the input from the tuner, then store it to disk, then read it, and send it
> to the tv-out? (kinda related to the previous question I guess)
> 
> 4) Has anyone coded up a burner plugin? To burn DVD's, VCD's from recorded
> video? Or even music? If not, I might consider writing one..
> 
> Thanks guys/gals!
> 
> --John
> 

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