[mythtv-users] Transcoding and other questions

Sat Apr 30 22:29:54 UTC 2005

Gavin,

Thanks for the reply.  A couple of comments and follow-up questions.....

Gavin Haslett wrote:
> OK... To answer;
> 
> (1) That depends on how much hard drive space you want to utilize. I
> don't keep much for long, but I transcode because I just have a 60Gb
> hard drive for video (still playing with this stuff, will probably
> upgrade myself soon). At MPEG4, 2200bps, 44Khz sound I get just under a
> gig per hour. That's 50% savings or better over the stuff straight from
> my PVR250. Hell no it doesn't take that long... I have an Athlon 800
> that transcodes 1 hour program in about 2-3 hours MAX. Depends how much
> you have queued though. If you go back to the menu during the night then
> that frees up some more cycles for transcoding. That helps (though
> frontend only bites about 25-30% CPU during live TV).

The drive on my MythTV box is 160 Gig and, like you, I won't keep much 
very long.  So it sounds like there's little benefit to me to transcode.

> (2) Commercial flagging is separate from transcoding. It runs as another
> job after the recording's complete before transcoding runs. So long as
> you turn it on to be automatic, it's automatic. Yes, I do this today.

So I just turn on commercial flagging and it will do it automatically 
without also transcoding?  Cool.  I thought it had to mark the 
commercials and then transcoding dropped out when it ran.

> (3) XvMC is hardware decoding on the video card. You don't need it as
> you have a PVR-350 and can use the direct hardware decoding. I've played
> with XvMC on my box, but my results have been less than perfectly
> pleasing... So for now I software decode. Figure I save only about
> 10-15% CPU cycles by using XvMC anyway on my 800Mhz CPU.

Ah.  OK.

> (4) I've had no problems with the guide myself, if I hit OK on the
> current channel then it pauses for a second then continues (it does the
> channel change regardless). I would like to see it intelligently decide
> that since it's already on the channel it doesn't need to do that... But
> that's a minor issue. I don't use the internal tuner though, I've got
> DirecTV so I use an external box controlled through the ttyS0
> connection, YMMV. I've got no experience with the internal tuner.

Must be different because you don't use the internal tuner.  ... though 
it might be due to us using different ivtv versions.  Hmmmm, I'll update 
my ivtv drivers and see if that helps.

> Hope this helps! Oh, and all this is from another recent noob to MythTV.
> Sure it has a few warts, but really they're not much more than pimples.
> I consider this product to be as mature in many respects as Windows MCE
> (and I've used that too).

Yes it helped.  Thanks!

> Gavin
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Joe Henley
> Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 10:09 AM
> To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> Subject: [mythtv-users] Transcoding and other questions
> 
> I've read all the Docs, FAQs, and mail lists I can find.  Due, I
> suspect, to MythTV's "in development" status, the issues and topics
> discussed seem to be mostly bugs and work-arounds.  My questions are
> more "general" and "use" oriented.
> 
> My MythTV box has a Hauppauge 350 PVR for capture, etc. and a Matrox 400
> video card (which is NOT used for TVout).
> 
> I will be using MythTV mostly as a "super VCR;" ie., it'll be used to
> time shift.  It's very unlikely I'll save any programs for more than a
> week or so.
> 
> (1)  Should I be using transcoding?  If so, what will be the savings
> from the approximate 2 Gig / per hour I get now?  Are there any
> advantages other than reduced file size?  Does it really take about ten
> hours to transcode a one hour TV show (my MythTV box has a 2.26 GHz
> Pentium)?
> 
> (2)  How can I have the commercials flagged and removed automatically? 
> Can this be done without the full transcoding process?  I want to select
> programs from the Program Guide, then go back later to find them
> recorded and the commercials gone.  Is this possible?
> 
> (3)  What is XvMC MPEG Decoding?  Do I need it?  It appears as a Matrox
> user, not NVidia, that I don't need it.  But I'm not sure.
> 
> (4)  How can I go directly to the Program Guide (the time vs program
> matrix) without going thru the menu which includes Program Guide, Enable
> Browse Mode, Previous Channel, .....?  If I change channels on it, ie.,
> move to a different show and press OK, it goes to that show.  If I
> decide to stay where I was and press OK  while on the currently playing
> program, it goes to black.  I can only make it work by pressing esc a
> couple of times.  How can I make this work better?
> 
> Thanks for any and all answers!
> 
> Joe Henley
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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