[mythtv-users] How well does Unichrome work?

Tue Nov 23 22:07:29 UTC 2004

On Monday 22 November 2004 20:44, Joe Votour wrote:
> Jarod (and everybody else interested),
>
> Hopefully this makes it under the correct thread,
> since I lost the previous message from you.

I don't think it did, but oh well. I saw it anyhow. :-)

I'd been meaning to get back at you on this one, but got held up by some 
segfault issues along the way (discussed on mythtv-dev), which uncovered 
problems in the 11/16 Unichrome driver, and incompatibility of some sort with 
the very latest FC2 kernel (2.6.9-1.3_FC2).

> I just wanted to say that I picked up an Epia M10000
> over the weekend, the only one that I could find at
> the three Fry's stores in the Bay Area that I visited.
>  Lots of Epia ME6000's though.  :)
>
> So, I installed the RPMs from ATRpms, the Unichrome
> RPMs and recompiled MythTV from CVS.  I must say that
> I'm highly impressed.  Unfortunately it isn't powerful
> enough to play the XMAME ROMs (though I expected that)
> that I want to play, and the picture isn't quite as
> good as a PVR-350, but the picture is pretty darn
> good.  I'm certainly glad that I picked it up.

I don't know if the 3d-enabled Unichrome driver might help out with the ROMs 
or not, I haven't had time to try it myself.

> In order to get the picture as good as I feel it is, I
> enabled the hardware decoding, as well as the XvMC
> (interestingly enough, I don't know if it's a bug or a
> feature, but you can't turn on only one or the other,
> both must be turned on, or mythfrontend aborts).  I
> also enabled the kernel deinterlace filter, which
> fixed up the motion blur quite well.

Huh, I wasn't aware you could use deint w/this XvMC variant... I'll have to 
try that myself. I've still got my box hooked to a monitor at the moment, 
though it still looks really good.

> I also love the 
> fact that the EPG isn't full screen (like it is on the
> PVR-350).

And really doesn't look bad in only 16 colors (Titivillus-OSD, anyhow).

> With those settings, it passes the "CNN test", and
> even the ESPN ticker (which seems worse than the CNN
> one) is perfectly smooth.  Heck, any scrolling message
> seems to be very smooth.

I actually finally got around to doing this myself last night, watching the 
same recording[1] across all three of my systems. I'm failing to see what the 
big deal with this ticker test is all about. :-)

1) perfectly smooth on my HDTV-connected box (GeForce FX 5200 to 
VGA->Component transcoder).

2) Perfectly smooth on my SVideo-connected 27" Analog TV (onboard GeForce 4 
MX).

3) Perfectly smooth most of the time hooked to a monitor off the EPIA's VGA 
port. 

The ticker on the EPIA would every once in a while start to look a tad bit 
choppy, like a few frames were getting dropped. If I skipped back a few 
seconds, upon resume, playback was perfectly smooth again.

> At this point, I've only used it as a frontend, and
> haven't tried MythVideo, MythDVD or MythMusic yet (I
> will get to compiling them soon).

I've got MythVideo added in, haven't actually tried anything with it yet. 
These things are SLOOOOOOW on compile. :-)

> I can confirm the "rumors" or some DMA issues on the
> motherboard.  I noticed a bunch of DMA errors (BadCRC)
> last night, but today, I removed the DVD-ROM drive
> (which was connected to the HD on the same channel),
> changed the cable, and set the HD to cable select, and
> the DMA problems went away.  Mind you, at this point,
> I don't have a PCI card in the unit, I'll probably
> stick a PVR-250 in it and see how well it captures.

No capture card in mine, and no optical drive, just a 2.5" laptop drive (had a 
spare from when I upgraded my iBook a while back, decided to put it to use, 
rather than mess w/diskless for now).

> So, to reiterate, I'm very happy with the Epia M10000.
>  I figure that with time, it can only get better.  I
> can't wait until I get a surround sound system for
> home to try out.  :)

I'm pretty happy with mine as well. I think it makes for a much more generally 
useful box than using the 350's output.

> Now hopefully the OSD stutter issue can be fixed...
> Maybe a lighter weight OSD for Epias.  I may have to
> take a look over the long weekend.

I have no stutter w/the bottom portion of Titivillus fading out, but I do get 
some when the top (larger) info portion fades out.

[1] NewsNight with Aaron Brown, which I decided to record, because I know 
Aaron Brown from his days working with my father at KING 5 (NBC affiliate) in 
Seattle. Not that anybody cares. :-)

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE
jcw at wilsonet.com

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