[mythtv-users] nVidia card choices, and processors for HDTV playback

[Brad Templeton]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 01:44:43AM -0800, Joe Barnhart wrote:
> 
> --- Brad Templeton <brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:
> 
> > I guess we need to ask, who is driving their HDTV
> > with DVI at 1080i from
> > an Nvidia FX 5200? 
> 
> I am.  I have a Pioneer PRO-610HD CRT based RPTV and
> I'm driving it with an nVidia 5200 FX at 1080i.  The
> TV only accepts this modeline on its VGA input.  CBS
> and NBC broadcasts at 1080i look really good.  Smooth
> motion (except for 3:2 pulldown judders).  ABC and FOX
> at 720p look pretty bad.  Lots of motion and scaling
> artifacts introduced by the conversion from 720p to
> 1080i.  Jaggies on diagonals are particularly bad.

Yes, this is annoying.  I don't know what the native resolution of
that CRT is, but what I found really strange was an HDTV I had which
like all DLPs today had a native resolution of 1280x720, but would only
take input at 1080i, not 720p.   I sent it back for that an many reasons.


Few TVs really have 1080 lines native resolution, though some of the
CRTs do, and apparently some very high end units of other types do.
In a few years, like everything this will drop.


So the call continues -- I know you corrected yourself about using VGA --
anybody driving their HDTV at 1080i with DVI (or HDMI if that's what you
have, since that is comaptible with DVI)


> I'm using an Intel 530 (3 GHz) processor, after
> failing with Athlon XP 2500 and 2800 processors.  I
> just threw money at it until it worked.

Actually, the Athlon XP 3000 seems able to do it, but yes, it does
from time to time max out the CPU.
> 
> > Secondly, the theory is that before too long, MythTV
> > will have nice
> > support for xvmc. 
> 
> I have not heard of anyone working on this.  It's a
> known problem but not an easy one.

You're right, I don't know where it sits in the priority chain.  The
EPIA people seem really keen on it, so I presumed there was work
being done on it.

Since mplayer does the job just fine with xvmc, the solution does exist,
one could possibly even rip out their code to some degree.

Good idea in general -- I have always found it very user unfriendly that
MythTV has different UIs when playing TV vs. a dvd or video (where it
invokes mplayer).