[mythtv-users] xvmc can't play 720p content at 1080i

[Rick St. Pierre]

On 12/5/06, Daniel Walton <dwalton at cisco.com> wrote:
> I have an older HDTV that doesn't support 720p so I need to play everything at
> either 480p or 1080i.  I'm using XvMC and can playback 1080i content fine but
> any 720p content gives my myth box fits (the audio stuters like crazy and the
> video plays a little slow).  I see the following in the logfile:
>
... cut logfile
>
> I searched the archives and found a few other people who have hit these errors
> but not in the same scenario as me.  None of them posted a solution though.
> Any ideas on how to fix this?  Is it a bug in myth or do I just not have enough
> horsepower? I have a Athlon XP 2800, nvidia FX5200 running the latest drivers
> (1.0-9629), running svn 12206.
>

I had similar problems, although just the prebuffering pauses when
playing 720p on a 1080i output.  Unfortunately, I never solved the
problem.  Well, I solved it by upgrading my system to one which
doesn't require XvMC.  In my case it was always X that was gobbling up
the CPU.  For me, it was intermittent and mainly watchable (although
you could definitely see dropped frames watching sports).  I tried to
get it working on an old VIA chipset socket A board with Fedora and a
newer NForce2 board with Debian with the same results for both.  Your
CPU should have enough horsepower .. I was using an XP 2000.

Did you try the troubleshooting tips from the XvMC page on the wiki?
That seems to have worked for some people.

Good luck!
Rick.

-- 
Rick St.Pierre
rick at rspacoustics.com