[mythtv-users] Should I be switching to 0.21?

[Paul Bender]

Tom Dexter wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Paul Bender <pebender at san.rr.com> wrote:
>> Tom Dexter wrote:
>>
>>  > I'm confused by the statement that slim is the same as 0.20.  0.20
>>  > didn't even offer ffmpeg as a decoder did it?  In any case, it would
>>  > depend on what the users previous settings were.
>>
>>  In 0.20, "The Preferred MPEG2 Decoder" option "Standard" is ffmpeg.
>>
>>
>>  > I'm still on 0.20.2.  I'm using bob and libmpeg2.  As I understand it,
>>  > in order to get those exact settings in 0.21, I'd need to create a new
>>  > profile group with only one profile for all resolutions that used
>>  > xv-blit (I believe), libmpeg2 as a decoder, and bob as a deinterlacer.
>>
>>  Correct.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>  mythtv-users mailing list
>>  mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>>  http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>
> 
> Ah...thanks for clearing that up.  I decided to do a little testing on
> my 0.20.2 frontend (P4 3.0 Ghz w/hyperthreading enabled).
> 
> Watching 1080i HD content with bob, it appears that the 'Standard'
> (ffmpeg) does use a bit more cpu than libmpeg2 that I've been
> using...about 10% more overall...certainly acceptable, but it does
> seem to use more.
> 
> I've been a little concerned with all the talk about extra CPU usage
> in 0.21.  I have the CPU to spare for sure, but my frontend's fan
> noise might start getting noticable if, for example, it went up by 15%
> or more.

I upgraded my frontends form 0.20.2 to 0.21 without changing any 
software other than MythTV. Using the same MythTV settings as I did for 
0.20.2, I have not seen any measurable increase in CPU usage on either 
my two Athlon64 (single core) + NVIDIA 6150 (XvMC disabled) based 
frontends, or my one VIA SP8000E (XvMC-VLD enabled) frontend.

 From all the posts, I have not been able to tell whether there are 
certain hardware configurations that have CPU usage problems, or whether 
all the CPU usage problems can be attributed to compilation and 
configuration problems.

I know that when I updated MiniMyth, it took some configuration work and 
a couple of patches (all but one of which has been included in fixes) to 
get 0.21 to work as well as 0.20.2. Once I did, the improvements in DVD 
menu support made it worth the hassle. I have yet to make much use of 
the other improvements.