[mythtv-users] mplayer still not in focus

[Carl Fongheiser]

On 7/30/05, Mike Green <mikey at linuxwiz.org> wrote:
> When using a lowend box I would rather use the video card's memory/gpu.  The
> PVR250 put very little load on the cpu of the box, I needed the remaining
> CPU and memory for decoding since I had no hardware decoder.

Memory is not really much of a constraint for decoding.  Also, small
window managers, like  ratpoison, or blackbox, don't consume very much
memory *or* CPU.
 
> I am no programmer so I really have no idea.  I assume the "we" you are
> referring to is you and other myth developers?  If you are a myth
> developer, then yes, I am saying it would be nice for mythtv to be able to
> run without an external window manager.  Again, I assume a window manager
> is simply making calls to the X libraries.  I am purely guessing that
> having myth directly call whatever functions needed to handle focus and
> full screen are already present in the myth code.  Myth handles swapping
> between viewing with it's own internal viewer/menus/modules just fine.

Well, yes, window managers use the normal X11 library calls to do
their work.  However, you're talking about apples and oranges here. 
Window managers are specifically made to handle the focus and layering
of windows from multiple applications.  There's really no need to add
this functionality to MythTV, because there are a number of fine
window managers that will suit your needs perfectly.
 
> So, the capability to full screen and focus windows resides in window
> managers, not the X libs?
 
For the most part, MythTV doesn't call the X11 libraries directly (the
video output stuff is the exception).  It uses Qt, which abstracts
away a lot of stuff.  This is a good thing.
 
> Am I incorrect in recalling that myth can use embedded QT instead of X?  I
> don't remember where I got that idea.  Regardless, admittedly, I am pretty
> much a complete dumbass when it comes to coding.  I hack around with
> various scripting languages, that is about it.  I apologize if I came
> across as "bitching".  I love my mythtv and highly appreciate the obvious
> effort that has gone into it.  No commercial product compares in my
> opinion.  My only wish is that myth could run on lower end boxes so that I
> can have 10 mythboxes running on old recycled hardware :)

You can certainly use embedded Qt.  You can also configure MythTV for
DirectFB output, which gets X11 out of the way entirely.  It's not
necessarily faster, though.  You don't get the benefits of XvMC or Xv
when you do it that way.

MythTV can run just fine on lower end machines, if you stick something
like a PVR-350 in them.  Of course, your definition of low-end might
not agree with mine.  Without hardware help, it pretty much takes a
550 MHz Pentium III to do real-time MPEG-2 decoding.  MPEG-4 is even
more demanding.  If you do have something that fast, or faster, and
256 MB RAM, or more, and an Xv-capable video card, you shouldn't have
any problem running X11 *and* a minimal window manager with your
frontend.

Carl Fongheiser