[mythtv-users] Apple TV hacked to use other codecs

[Kevin Kuphal]

Craig Partin wrote:
>>>>> That device is very interesting.  According to that thread and
>>>>> others, it has almost a full blown OSX installation on it.  It looks
>>>>> like a very promising SD MythTV frontend.
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> What's more, there's some evidence the box was intentionally designed
>>>> to make do-it-yourself projects easy:
>>>>
>>>> <URL:http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3473502&postcount=39>
>>>>
>>>> and the hardware is designed to support 5.1 sound, even if iTunes
>>>> doesn't yet:
>>>>
>>>> <URL:http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3473754&postcount=73>
>>>>
>>>> Raw technical specs, straight from bash:
>>>>
>>>> <URL:http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3473972&postcount=100>
>>>>
>>>> Lots of enthusiasm here:
>>>>
>>>> <URL:http://www.digg.com/apple/XviD_fully_functional_on_Apple_TV>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> | +1 650 776 7763 | San Francisco CA US
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> The two questions now are:
>>>
>>> 1. Can it run the OSX version of mythfrontend?
>>> 2.  Are the video drivers good enought to allow a 1Gig processor to playback HD.
>>>
>>>       
>> I doubt it.  It doesn't have any MPEG-2 decompression support, only
>> H.263 so the 1Ghz processor is unlikely to handle HD that we know it.
>>
>>     
>
> I thought H.264 was more cpu intensive to decode.  Would they have
> optimized GPU assist for this one codec?  It's supposed to do 720p out
> of the box
>   
Given their plans to do H.264 hardware decoding on all their systems, 
I'd say yes.   Since it is the only codec used by iTunes.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070308_001806.html

Kevin