[mythtv-users] What hardware do I need to be able to dual record using Comcast cable?

[Fred Squires]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 11:09 AM, Greg Woods <greg at gregandeva.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 08:25 -0600, Brian Wood wrote:
>
>> >
>> > My FE is a P4 3.0 and it is enough for playing HD (720p & 1080i), it is
>> > JUST enough, so before you buy newer hardware first check. Also what you
>> > can do is make your P4 be a BE only where a P4 is plenty and but new FE.
>>
>> Do you have to use XvMC to get your 3Ghz. cpu to do HD?
>
> I've got a similar setup, and yes, I do have to use XvMC to get HD
> playback (from an HDHomerun) to work. I have a Hauppage HD-PVR box too
> but I haven't tried using it yet (haven't had time to try reinstalling
> Myth from source). It's on my list to try some of the HD-PVR clips that
> are out there to see how they playback on my system. I also got much
> better playback without sacrificing quality when I switched the X server
> to 720p from 1080i, since that's what my TV actually is anyway. Prior to
> that, I had lots of "prebuffering pause" problems and playback was
> choppy. Bottom line: it can be done with a 3Ghz P4, but it takes a lot
> of fiddling to make it work. I ended up trying several versions of the
> Nvidia drivers before I found one that worked well; it was a royal pain
> and took a lot of time to get right.
>
> I have never gotten firewire (from a DCT-6400) to work reliably. Channel
> changing works fine, so I know the device is properly detected and
> configured. But recordings sometimes work and sometimes don't. When they
> do, the quality is as good as the HDHomerun, but it's not reliable
> enough to use in practice. Firewire is another thing that's a royal
> pain. Some people have it working well, but there are so many variables
> that it's a crap shoot as to whether it will work on your system.
>
> So I'm wondering: what are people using that's better than a P4? Do you
> have to go to a 64 bit processor?
>
> --Greg

They're using the Core 2 duo, and newer Athlons, they're both faster,
use less power and run cooler than the P4.  They are 64 bit, but I
don't see how that's relevent.

-- 
It was supposed to be so Easy.