[mythtv-users] MythTV - Video Distribution Solution?

[Brian Wood]

Rod Smith wrote:
> On Tuesday 15 January 2008 21:01:22 Brian Wood wrote:
>> Unless you are doing comm flagging or transcoding. Even these jobs don't
>> need much CPU if you are not in a hurry for the results.
> 
> Transcoding could be very helpful, since it would reduce I/O needs for 
> playback. If you transcode from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 and halve the file size in 
> the process, you also halve the network and disk I/O requirements for serving 
> that file to a frontend. Given the number of frontends being discussed, this 
> could be very important. OTOH, because no Linux video cards have any 
> acceleration for MPEG-4 video streams, this would increase the CPU 
> requirements on the frontends.
> 

Everything's a tradeoff. It would be nice if you could have a GB 
ethernet system, but a lot of low-cost potential frontends don't have 
that. Make sure your network topology is optimum.

You could record analog channels as MPEG4 in the first place, the 
Plextor units do this in hardware, taking a large load off the backend 
CPU and eliminating the need to transcode later. With digital sources 
you would have to transcode of course.

Needing the CPU to decode MPEG4 doesn't limit your potential frontends 
too much.

beww