[mythtv-users] requirements for front end

[Raphael Pooser]

Steven Adeff wrote:
> On 2/28/06, sn00p99 at aol.com <sn00p99 at aol.com> wrote:
> the reason i ask, is because my backend (at the moment) is a p4 1.8
> running a pvr-150. which is great for recording tv, but not so good for
> watching it. so i'm wondering if i put the front end on a faster
> computer, if it would work better.
> any advice would be great.
> thanks
> jp
>   
>
> thats more than enough cpu for watching the output of the pvr-150, if
> its not working you need to see whats eating up your cpu cycles.
>
> --
> Steve
>
>
>   
You can run top from a terminal window and whatever is taking the most 
processor cycles will be at the top of the list.  It helps if you can 
ssh from another machine.  Start watching video on the mythbox, then ssh 
from the other machine and watch top.  You can also run top from the 
same machine of course.  Anyway, if you see that mythfrontend or X is 
taking up an exorbitant amount of cpu, meaning upwards of 50% or more 
for watching SD, then probably you don't have accelerated playback and 
you need to enable xv or xvmc depending on your output card.  I get 
about 2% usage from X and 15% usage from mythfrontend to watch 640x480 
rtjpeg at 250 quality encoding.  Before getting xv enabled I got about 
55% usage from X and 15-20% from mythfrontend.
Raphael