[mythtv-users] I just want to make a wife-friendly MythTV system

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Nov 23, 2008, at 12:21 AM, Raymond Wagner wrote:

> Marc Barrett wrote:
>> The documentation on the Hauppauge web page says that
>> a 2Ghz dual-core would be sufficient to play back HD-PVR programs,
>> but I have seen it said elsewhere that Linux has greater requirements
>> (something about HD playback not being threaded on Linux, so a
>> faster core clock rate is needed).
>>
> The h.264 codec has built in threading capability, in the form of
> 'slices'.  The video is literally sliced into multiple domains, and
> these domains are encoded and decoded independently, allowing for
> multi-threaded operation.  This is available in both Linux and Windows
> decoders.  The HD-PVR outputs single sliced streams, meaning all
> decodes, Windows or Linux, will be single-threaded.  Single or dual  
> core
> makes little difference.  A 2GHz Core2 will get you decoding of  
> moderate
> bitrates out of the HD-PVR (maybe 10mbps), and a similarly clocked AMD
> chip will get you slightly less.  3GHz is really needed for smooth
> software decoding of the highest bitrates it will output.

Don't forget that the requirement here is "wife-friendly" which I  
presume means "works a great deal of the time." Using an HD-PVR means  
running unstable code from trunk which doesn't meet that requirement.  
If you choose HD-PVR as a solution, you should wait until there's a  
stable release with supported code in it for the device.

-Brad