[mythtv-users] Is NVIDIA worth the bother?

[jedi]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 01:10:07PM -0400, Tom Dexter wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Eric Sharkey <eric at lisaneric.org> wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Andy Wettstein <ajw1980 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> If you use the packaged versions of the nvidia driver from debian, you
> >> can use module-assistant to build the kernel package.  Usually this gets
> >> the job done (as root):  m-a a-i nvidia
> >>
> >> You can add the -l option to specify to build for a different version of
> >> the kernel.
> >>
> >> You may need to run 'm-a prepare' first.
> >
> > Yes, of course.  It's not all that hard.  It's not like you need to
> > write the driver yourself or anything, it's just one of those extra
> > things you need to do (and need to remember how to do).  If you
> > upgrade your kernel every six months or so you probably need to go
> > back and re-read the instructions to jog your memory and and see what
> > little tweak has been introduced into the preferred build procedure
> > since the last time you did it.  It's just a bit annoying.
> >
> > With open source drivers it's just not an issue.
> >
> > Eric
> 
> This is one thing I like about Gentoo...just doing "emerge
> nvidia-drivers" after a kernel upgrade is all you need.
> 
> But I agree with you in general about nVidia.  It's always amazed me
> that we all seem to be stuck with nVidia for something like MythTV
> that doesn't require 3D acceleration or any such thing.  I'm not using
> XvMC or VDPAU or anything...it's always seemed to me that there should
> be another option by now.

    If I didn't want to do HD h264 decoding and all of my TVs spat out
sensible PnP info then I would be more than happy using intel cards. As
it is, a lot of the other drivers suck to a greater or lesser degree.
I'm not sure the landscape would be much better with a different OS.

    I have 3 HDTVs and 2 of them will spit out bogus pnp info. I also have
2 HD-PVRs that I would like to take full advantage of. I can't really do that
with a nv7100 or i945.