[mythtv-users] MythTV and the ION

Tue Sep 29 10:01:49 UTC 2009

On 09/28/2009 12:17 PM, Micah Galizia wrote:
> Greetings Phil,
>
> Sorry for contacting you directly, but I noticed in your other post 
> that you have MythTV running with the ION, and I was hoping you had 
> time to answer a few questions on your impressions. I guess my main 
> question is how it performs wrt the UI and HD (mpeg4) playback.  Also, 
> are you using it with a capture card? If so, how does it handle the 
> recordings?
>
> Thanks again, and sorry for the private message.
> -- 
> "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a 
> cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live 
> humbly for one."   --W. Stekel

I received this as a PM, but thought that the response might help 
others.....

Hi Micah,

I have a combined FE/BE based on kubuntu 9.10 (beta) and MythTV trunk, 
based on an Asus M3N78-VM motherboard (integrated nVidia 8200 series).  
My only capture is an HD-PVR on this system, which grabs via component 
in 480p and 780p video with AC3 audio.  All of my "recording" content 
is, therefore, in H264 (and as a side-effect, natively PS3-friendly.)  
This is important because I don't need to run with any de-interlacing, 
and there's almost nothing taxing the main CPU during playback.  (I let 
the STB de-interlace 480i and put out a 480p signal.  Unfortunately, I 
haven't found any 1080i content coming from my cable provider that would 
require me to experiment with de-interlacing.)

I have two other stand-alone front-ends.... a PS3, and an ION box.   I 
have plans for potentially two or three additional ION boxes.

My ION front-end is as follows:

    1 x Zotac IONITX-A MINI-ITX Intel Atom N330 NVIDIA Ion DDR2 GBLAN
    802.11N HDMI Audio 90W PSU Motherboard
    1 x MINI-BOX M350 Universal MINI-ITX Computer Case Black 1X2.5INT
    2 x Crucial Rendition 2GB 1X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 240PIN DIMM Memory
    1 x Syba SD-ADA25001 USB Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR CLASS2 Mini Adapter with
    LED
    1 x OCZ Rally 2 High Performance 8GB USB2.0 Dual Channel Flash
    Memory Drive
    1 x nGear NG-HDMI-MM-10 HDMI M/M 10FT High Quality Video Cable
    1 x Sony BD Remote Control
    1 x Logitech Cordless Mediaboard Pro bluetooth keyboard with touchpad

Total cost for the above configuration was about $350 Canadian (plus 
tax), excluding the Bluetooth keyboard ($70) and remote control ($23) 
which already had.  I chose a Bluetooth remote and keyboard for the 
range (10m) and because it's not line-of-site.  I plan on mounting the 
ION box behind the TV at some point.  I personally think Bluetooth is 
the way to go, although I'm on the bleeding edge with getting the Sony 
BD Remote control working properly through uinput and MythTV (I still 
have some key mapping issues.)   The keyboard works well when needed.  
The case I'm using is great, because of the small size and it has a 
hidden compartment for two USB devices....  my USB stick and the 
Bluetooth adapter.  If I wanted an optical drive, I'd need to go with a 
different case however.

Software-wise, the ION front-end is running mythbuntu 9.10 alpha, 
although I've put MythTV trunk on it.  It boots from USB, and at the 
moment it's networked via a 100Mbps router to the BE, which I plan to 
upgrade to a NetGear WNDR3700 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit 
Router once I can find one available.   I run nVidia beta drivers 
190.36.  (Note, I had tearing on my combined FE/BE until a recent 
release of nVidia drivers....  so I'd recommend running with 190.*)  I'm 
using HDMI output, with stereo audio over the HDMI (5.1 works fine, but 
the TV the FE is hooked to has no surround).  I boot/run from USB.

Performance on the FE is very good for video playback.... It's fine with 
any of the content I throw at it, and to be honest even the single-core 
model would be fine (and cooler) as CPU load is usually in the single 
digits while playing back.   I went for the dual-core model mainly 
because I wanted to evaluate the board as a possible replacement system 
for my two sons' desktop computers.  They currently have older Windows 
PC's, and I plan to replace them with two Linux ION boxes hooked to 24" 
1080p computer monitors, giving them both MythTV FE capabilities and 
personal Linux workstations.    Once I have my new router, I plan to 
experiment with running the FE wireless, to see if that's a viable 
configuration for my sons machines.  (The PS3 runs fine wirelessly, 
provided the BE is wired directly to my wireless router, but the quick 
testing I did with the Zotac wireless showed playback issues.   I expect 
it to take some significant effort to tune the wireless in the Zotac to 
the point where it can be used as a wireless FE... if ever.  Good chance 
I'll be running CAT-6e to my sons rooms eventually.)

Others have done some testing to show that the Zotac can commercial flag 
just about in real time.  Clearly with something like an HD-PVR hooked 
to it, it would be fine as there isn't any real processing load put on 
it anyway.  I've toyed with the idea of running one with an HD-PVR as a 
slave back-end.    One challenge with using it as a BE may be 
firewire....  I use firewire for channel changing, and there's no 
firewire with the Zotac (a USB-to-firewire adapter is quite expensive, 
so I'd look at another MB before going that route.   There's an Asus ION 
board that has a more normal PCI slot on it that might be better as a BE 
choice if you need to add a firewire card.  My main reason for wanting 
to move from 100Mbps to 1Gbit ethernet is related to upgrading the 
wireless part of the router...although it might help with FFD/RWD 
performance on the FE as well (which is acceptable but could be better.)

The one performance caution I've heard related to the Atom processors 
has to do with running things like Flash under Linux....  as there is no 
VDPAU acceleration for Flash, you're relying on the Atom and from what 
I've read it sounds like the ION boards are underpowered for Flash.   I 
haven't tested this myself, although I'll need to as it's the one think 
that may keep me from using these boards as general purpose workstations 
for my sons.

Getting the board going was easy, apart from figuring out how to make a 
bootable USB DOS image so that I could flash the Zotac's 
firmware....that was frustrating.   HDMI audio took some 
research/tinkering, but works fine.

I put 4GB of memory on it for two reasons (1) with two memory modules 
you can run dual-channel, improving memory bandwidth which in turn could 
have an effect on VDPAU performance  (2) I'm booting from USB, and I 
didn't want to risk swapping to USB (indeed, I don't have a swap 
area).    However, 2GB is probably sufficient depending on what plug-ins 
or other software you intend to run.    If you boot from USB, 8GB seems 
like the right amount to allow for things like dist-upgrades.  I 
actually compile trunk on the ION (slow, but saved me figuring out how 
to configure/cross-compile it), NFS mounting the source code.. but all 
the dev tools/libraries are installed on the USB stick.

A note about cooling....  the case I'm using provides excellent airflow, 
and I find that (on it's side) the board runs cool enough, so I'm not 
using a fan and the FE is totally silent (Zotac says the fan is 
optional, and given that I run low on CPU, and with no hard drive, 
optical drive, or internal power supply adding to the heat dissipation, 
and my case is full of holes, I decided to test out "optional").   This 
has been fine for about 6 weeks, and even after hours of playing HD 
material, the system is still cool-enough to the touch (of course, the 
main CPU is not being taxed).  The main CPU is normally at or just below 
70(C) degrees.

My unresolved issues right now are:
(1) the frequent display of old frame-buffer information when starting a 
watch recording.... although I'm convinced this is easily solvable once 
one of the MythTV devs looks at it - must get around to opening that ticket!
(2) I haven't been able to get wake-on-USB working yet, even though my 
board supposedly supports this - could be a kernel or dist issue, but 
I'm hoping someone else will write a howto.
(3) Testing flash performance for things like youtube.

Once I've worked through these, I'll decide whether to order 2-3 more 
Zotacs.

Hope this helps.

Phil

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