[mythtv-users] latest recommendation for VDPAU PCI card

[R. G. Newbury]

William wrote:
> sdkovacs wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> With the soon to be released .22, I hope to move to a real video card.
>> Currently I'm using the TV-OUT of a PVR-350. What is the recommended
>> NVIDIA PCI card? Will I run into PCI bus saturation problems if I'm
>> running a PVR-150, PVR-350 and a video card all on the PCI bus?
>>   
> 
> I am running a 9400GS on a PCI bus using the nVidia vdpau support in 
> myth and have had no problems displaying any vdpau supported video modes 
> however forget about playing anything that does not.  Even with vdpau I 
> ended up removing one of my pvr250's as both running would saturate the 
> bus while playing back avi video.  Another limitation is that you will 
> only be able to use the temporal 1x and bob2x filters. One frame works 
> too. Anything more advanced will play with pauses. Even temporal 1x 
> experiences jitters on fast moving scenes.
> 
> All in all, avoid the PCI bus cards unless you have no other option.

Whether you have problems seems to depend on the motherboard (and 
therefore bus speed) and the graphics card's capabilities.

I have a 9300 chipset in this desktop. It plays nicely, but I have no 
tuners/recorders in this box.
The mythbox at home is a 2.6GHz Intel dual core, with a 9500GT graphics 
card. It will do Temporal 2X with the odd jittery section if I am 
recording. It never seems to jitter or pause with Advanced2X. And that 
is with a PVR500 on the same PCI bus, and network traffic from an 
HDHomerun. I have recorded 5 streams at once and played back at the same 
time (2 PVR in SD and 3 streans, one multirec, from the HDHR).

BUT NOTE: all of those streams are direct digital streams as the PVR 
does in-hardware A->D and compression as does your 150. ISTR the PVR350 
does the same. You will just stop using the 350's output and transfer 
that to the nvidia card which will handle the hard work in hardware.

Presuming you have a spare slot, and the cooling needed, it should work.

Geoff



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