[mythtv-users] Dual-CPU/Core & MythTV

[Galen]

I'm one of those lurkers... I'm not yet in possession of my own  
MythTV box, but I'm rather familiar with *nix and am working on plans  
(and finances) for an awesome HDTV MythTV box. When I get it done, it  
will be killer. (I am, however, somewhat of a newbie when it comes to  
x86 hardware. I've lived in RISC land too long...)

I've been looking into the specifications for a MythTV system, and it  
occurred to me, it seems like an awesome application for a dual-CPU/ 
core setup. HDTV decoding is pretty high-end in terms of system  
demands, so purchasing much more CPU than required for decent HDTV  
playback (~A64 3200, P4 3 GHz) gets really expensive, really fast,  
and it's simply impossible to purchase twice the CPU required for  
HDTV playback w/decent de-interlacing and various other functions.  
More CPU means you can do more post-processing, commercial flagging,  
maybe even background transcoding (with the proper nice values, of  
course).

It seems like a dual-CPU system would be an excellent solution to  
this problem. Size the CPUs such that one CPU is able to comfortably  
handle the single largest realtime function (HDTV decoding), and then  
the other CPU is free so you can do some *awesome* de-interlacing,  
commercial flagging, etc without ever impacting the HDTV playback.  
The same effect would happen with dual core CPUs, but they are only  
getting started. Dual CPUs are here, today. I've done enough work  
with dual-CPU systems to realize that while they don't offer "double"  
the performance for traditional mono-threaded applications, for some  
multi-threaded applications that rely on realtime response (i.e.  
video playback), they're better than a CPU that's twice as fast.

Does this make sense? I'm curious if anybody has tried this, and with  
what CPU/motherboard? Any thoughts as to some optimal hardware  
configurations (CPU speed/type/mobo)? What would my practical options  
for de-interlacing be with a setup like this?

-Galen