[mythtv-users] Slow/choppy playback problem (not the usual ones, either!)

[Joshua M. Thompson]

On Fri, 2004-10-15 at 14:29 -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:

> Before digging too deep into other issues, I suggest you buy that audio 
> cable.  From the OP's first post:

Ok sounds is hooked up. Today's lesson is "1001 uses for that big dongle
that comes with the IOmega Buz" :)

> Since Myth syncs video with the audio stream, having problems with your 
> audio setup (audio drivers, audio devices, Myth audio configuration, 
> etc.) can cause exactly the problem you describe.  And, unfortunately, 
> it's hard to notice symptoms of audio problems if you don't have your 
> sound hooked up...

Audio stutters in time with the video; that is it pauses briefly about
once per second. I think the constant pausing of the video is what made
me describe it as "slow motion."

There was also a question about my recording profile. It's Hardware
MPEG2 (obviously), 720x480, MPEG-PS, 2200 kbps bitrate, 6000 kbps max
bitrate, audio is hardware encoded layer II 384 kbps 48 kHz (I'm using
optical output to my AV receiver which only accepts 44.1 or 48 kHz.)

I still think the most important clue is X's CPU usage. I'm running
mplayer on /dev/video0 right now and X is using 35% CPU. If I try to
watch from the frontend or just by running mythtv it goes up to 70%.
Myth swears it's using xv but it's sure acting like it's not, or at
least it's somehow picking a less optimal video mode than mplayer is.

In any case I already have an AGP MX440 card ready for pickup at Best
Buy, so I'm going to swap that out just to eliminate that as a possible
cause. It certainly can't hurt.

-- 
Joshua M. Thompson <funaho at jurai.org>