[mythtv-users] New user questions

Matthew M Murphy mmmurf at umich.edu
Fri Feb 6 12:37:35 EST 2004


On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Tom Marshall wrote:

> > The only remaining problem is the load average shoots up to 3 or 4 when I'm
> > watching live tv at 160x160 (the lowest available resolution).  But 'top'
> > says the CPU is around 30-35% idle.  Where is the load coming from?  Disk
> > activity?  Interrupts?
>
> I tried increasing the resolution on the theory that the CPU was actually
> unused and the load average was caused by disk activity.  I can get 256x192
> resolution with about the same performance.  The quality isn't great but it
> is pretty watchable.  320x240 is out of reach, it pegs the CPU and drops a
> couple of frames every few seconds.
>
> Is anyone using a P3 or Celeron running about 500MHz with a hardware MPEG
> encoder and software decoding?  If so, what kind of performance/resolution
> does it have?


I'm using a PIII 450 and a Hauppauge PVR 250 card.  Using the default
resolution from the AT RPMs and X set to 800x600 I get smooth video
playback.  There was a bit of jerkiness during the first few seconds of
playback, but changing the hdparm settings took care of that.

I'm not exactly sure which settings determine exactly the resolution that
is being used (one of these days I'll read the manual)... but it looks
great with the default settings.

-Matt


>
> --
> "Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in power we would
> behave very differently from those who now hold it -- when, in truth, in
> order to get power we would have to become very much like them."
>


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