[mythtv-users] Verdict on EPIA M 10000

[Matthew Phillips]

On 06/07/2005, at 2:11 PM, Peter Schachte wrote:


>     1.    How is the S-video out quality?  I plan to plug into a  
> decent
>     standard def wide-screen TV (Loewe Xelos); how much quality
>     will I lose relative to using the TV's component input?
>

The quality is very good, crisp with good colour fidelity. The  
noscale video patch from Terry Barnaby (http:// 
www.kingcot.eclipse.co.uk/unichrome/fc3/) is probably a big factor in  
the crispness of the picture.


>     2.    How good is the S/P DIF sound when run into a reasonably  
> good
>     stereo system (Yamaha reciever, Klipsch speakers)?
>

I'm no audiophile, but both AC3 and DTS (for DVD's) works fine via  
the coax connection. I listen to a lot of music via the myth box and  
am very happy with the quality.


>     3.  I understand the Epia is underpowered for transcoding and
>     commercial flagging.  I'd like to do both of these.  How many
>     minutes of TV could I transcode and commercial flag per hour?
>     I don't mind letting the machine do this overnight, if I can
>     handle 3 or 4 hours of recording per day.
>

It is fairly low powered, but after some experimenting, I have been  
able to get mplayer to transcode at 5-6fps from DVB TS recordings to  
mpeg4 with most of the key quality settings turned on. mplayer +  
ffmpeg's mpeg4 is far faster for this than xvid, which I was unable  
to get more than 2 fps from.

This is fast enough to transcode a couple of shows overnight and  
works fine for my archiving needs. Four hours of video would take  
about 20 hours though, which may or may not be adequate (the system  
works fine while running a transcode in the background at nice 19).

Matthew.