[mythtv-users] transcoding HD material to ease playback

[Dan Christensen]

I've got a frontend/backend that is just barely able to play some HD
material:  it's a 32-bit single-core mobile Athlon at 1.9GHz, with an
FX5200 video card.  I was surprised that it can play HD material at all,
but it does fine on most of the sample clips I've downloaded, using
60-80% cpu.  (I'm not using xvmc.)  However, in a few cases it is not
able to play the HD sample.  So I thought that I could transcode such
material into a format that requires less cpu to play:

1) The most obvious thing is to do the scaling ahead of time.  My
HDTV has non-square pixels, so almost all material needs scaling,
and I'm guessing that this will help a lot.  Or does the video card
do all of that work??

2) I wonder if lowering the bitrate a bit might help?

3) What codec should I use?  I'm not too concerned about disk space,
as these are just short clips I'm playing with to see how my HDTV
looks.

Comments, and even specific command lines, are welcome.

Thanks,

Dan