[mythtv-users] HDTV solution @1080i ???

[Marc]

--- Monkey Pet <monkeypet at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll tell you what doesn't work (at least for me). 
> A mac mini
> frontend and the mythfrontend.  It plays 720p
> beautifully, but the
> mythfrontend has a hard time with 1080i shows.  This
> really pisses me
> off since I recently bought the mac mini just for a
> HD frontend.
> However, VLC plays it fine at full resolution.  The
> mac is running osx
> and the osx port of the mythtv frontend.  There are
> many threads on
> this mailing list that talks about this.

Sorry to hear about your difficulties with the mac. I
googled myth HD with high def, nVidia cards, HDMI,
different TVs, etc., and I found a lot of
difficulties. So I assumed it would be a difficult
thing to get it going right.

It wasn't, at least for me, as I describe elsewhere in
this thread. It was mostly plug-n-play (used mythbuntu
this time, vs before which was roll-yer-own system
based on SuSE 9.2 what a nightmare). I guess if you
google stuff about myth you see lots of problems when
things don't work, and you don't see much when things
work fine.
_______________________________________________

I just installed Gentoo on an Apple TV and am using it for my mythfrontend.
Found a slew of help online but some of it was hard to find. And I still
don't know what I did wrong to cause one of the issues.
USB signals were being sent twice for some reason, used someone elses posted
kernel config and that resolved it.
Once I got myth running I was having trouble with playback stutter, forgot
completely about needing to add the nvidia xvmc information to
/etc/X11/XvMCConfig. Even thou I had done it before with my old machine.
Even after that I ran into an issue with the system locking up on me when
playing video, live tv or recorded. You have to underclock the nvidia card
in the system to resolve that one.

In the end I have an Apple TV Myth Frontend outputting at 720P, that down
samples 1080I/P to 720P for output to my Syntax Olevia.
Oh and I did all this without voiding the warranty by opening the system and
pulling out the HDD. And it is completely reversible, in case I have to RMA
it for any reason.