[mythtv-users] performance problem on old PC

Chris Ribe chrisribe at gmail.com
Wed Nov 2 21:53:42 EST 2005


I used a 1Ghz PIII w/ a bt878 card for awhile as a backend/frontend system.
Using a resolution of something like 480x372 and RTJPEG, I was able to
play/pause live TV without any stuttering.

I ended up using the PIII exclusively as a backend, though, and using a PII
450Mhz as a front end. With that setup I was able to record and playback
640x480 RTJPEG.

That said, the picture quality with the bt878 card was crap. I recently
purchased a PVR-150 and was delighted with the picture quality during the 3
hours that it actually worked. The downside, of course, is that I haven't
been able to get it to work reliably.

So, my advice, depending on cash/time at hand would be:

ample cash/no time: Get a PVR-350, easily the most supported card in the
MythTV community.

ample time/short cash: Get a PVR-150 and figure out how to get it working.

little time or cash: Find an old sub $100 computer on eBAy or your local
classifieds to use as a frontend.

just plain broke: Record at 320x240 and pretend you have the world's biggest
iPod.

On 11/2/05, Michael T. Dean <mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/02/05 18:32, Todd Houle wrote:
>
> > I have been raving about MythTV to a friend of mine who finally
> > decided to try it himself. He had an old PC (1GHz Dell GX150) and 2
> > old tuner cards (avermedia and hauppauge win-Tv). I don't know the
> > details of the cards other than they both use the bt878 chips.
> >
> > We installed KnoppMyth as that is what he heard about elsewhere.
> > KnoppMyth detected everything perfectly and ran great. I added the
> > cards in Myth-setup, but we couldn't use it happily. There was a 1
> > second pause, for every second of live tv... I guess these cards
> > don't have hardware MPEG encoders on them and the computer couldn't
> > handle the load.. I lowered the quality way down, but still couldn't
> > get a smooth playback..
> >
> > I told him to get a better computer, or a TV card that supports
> > hardware encoding. Was I right? or was there something else I could
> > have done?
>
> Yep. Although you might be able to make something work with RTJPEG (at
> least for a single tuner), it's not worth the effort and the
> compromises, IMHO. And make sure he has Xv support for the video card
> (probably won't be an issue with a newer system, but might be with the
> old one).
>
> Mike
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