[mythtv-users] Hardware h264 via plug-in card?

[Brian Wood]

jedi wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 04, 2008 at 01:02:38AM +1000, Lindsay Mathieson wrote:
>> Brian Wood wrote:
>>> This one looks interesting:
>>>
>>> http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/10/02/2244229.shtml
>>>
>>> A PCI Express card with a Cel processor that can do h264 and mpeg2
>>> encoding and decoding.
>>>   
>> And until it has linux drivers *and* mythtv supports more than mpeg2 
>> acceleration it will be quite useless.
> 
>     You make it sound like Linux never gets support for this sort of thing.
> 
>     Given how things are going with the Hauppauge 1212, that's a somewhat
> narrowminded view of how things have gone lately when it comes to Linux
> and 3rd party support.

I agree, Linux support is starting to become a marketplace factor, but
it is still very dependent on vendor attitude.

But even that is changing, Sony, hardly a bastion of FOSS promotion,
assisted TerraSoft Solutions in developing a Linux port to run on the
Cel platform, work which may well help in supporting this type of
co-processor board. I also notice that the latest Linux Journal has a
feature on programming the Cel.

I'd like to think that IBM, Sony and Toshiba had something in mind
beyond just the PS3 for their development dollars. A plug-in card that
could turn a minimal PC into something that can playback high bitrate
h264, transcode large files quickly and fill up that otherwise wasted
second PCI Express slot (SLI notwithstanding) would certainly get my
attention.

beww