[mythtv-users] New System - Looking for Feedback

[Andre Newman]

On 10 Feb 2010, at 16:37, Raymond Wagner wrote:

> On 2/10/2010 09:02, Andre Newman wrote:
>> On 9 Feb 2010, at 23:21, Brian Fischer wrote:
>> 
>>   
>>> Next bump was $90 for a GTS 240.  Will upgrade to a GTS 220 fanless when they are cheaper.  However, this review is pretty damning of the 210: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gf-210-gt220_7.html
>>> Anyone have feedback on this review?
>>>     
>> Sounds much like what I've experienced.
>> 
>> I'm very puzzled by the products touted for HTPC:
>> Nvidia ION, 9400M GPU almost good enough to manage good quality 1080i but not quite.
>> G210, same story, almost good enough but not quite, not even for European 1080i50 rather than 1080i60.
>>   
> 
> All VDPAU capable hardware can handle 1080i/p just fine.  They all use roughly the same hardware decoder, and the only advantage the more modern cards have is the capability of VC1 entropy decoding (otherwise emulated in software) and ASP decoding.  What the lower end cards lack is deinterlacing.  That task is performed on the shader hardware, and the two cards you mention don't have the power for 'Advanced 2x', or spacial-temporal deinterlacing.  They can run all of the lesser filters, and all of us on lower end hardware get by fine without it.

Understood, I've messed around with a lot of different  vdpau cards as well as software decoding & de-interlacing. I went through four that I bought and many more borrowed before the GT220 arrived and I was happy.

What I don't get is that these specific configurations are marketed as "best for htpc" when they are (annoyingly only just) underpowered for spatial-temporal-deinterlacing, seems very odd to me that the manufacturers don't make an effort to produce a best for purpose part, especially when the disparity is 20% or much less in the case of the G210. On paper the G210 does 1080i56 (so good for European HDTV) but I've seen that MythTV seems to need some headroom above what the benchmarks suggest.

At least there are some reviews around that take video playback seriously, most are so excited that gpu playback works at all that they don't pause to actually look at the video that came out.

Sorry to harp on but it saddens me to see so many comments on this list like "wow it's nearly as good as my set top box" when they could or should be "wow it's better than my set top box". Most domestic set top boxes are pretty lousy mpeg2/4 decoders, not a benchmark to aim for.

My 2p

Getting back OT for a European frame rate system the G210 might be 100% with the recent nvidia 190 drivers, I've seen a lot less glitches in the last couple of versions. If it works it works and a very slight gpu overclock might get Advanced 2X working for 60fps.

Andre


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