[mythtv-users] Raspberry Pi suitability for MythFrontend

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:
> On 2/19/2012 14:03, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
>> I have been reading about the Raspberry Pi that is due to come out in
>> the next 10 days.
>> It is said to be capable of 1080 with no problems.  Due to come out
>> with fedora for ARM on launch.
>>
>> How suitable would this be for a MythTV front end?  No VDPAU
>> obviously, but at 3 watts of power usage, and an HDMI out, it seems
>> otherwise perfect.
>
> The chip it runs on is a 700MHz ARM11, giving it every bit as much grunt
> as the original i686 Pentium Pro from the mid 90's.  They may have put a
> big GPU on it, but in terms of CPU performance, it doesn't hold a candle
> to even the Cortex-A chips found in modern smart phones.  The 256MB
> wired version is the only one even worth considering.  The 128MB
> wireless version simply doesn't have enough memory to bother with.  I
> think the XBMC guys have been saying the same thing.  Even at 256MB,
> Mythfrontend still won't be happy running at 1920x1080.
>
> The big issue is playback.  That puny little processor won't cut it for
> much of anything, which leaves video decoding completely dependent on
> the hardware decoder.  With luck, they support OpenMAX, meaning one
> video renderer could be used for it, the Tegra systems, and a handful of
> other embedded systems.  That still requires someone to write an OpenMAX
> renderer in the first place, from scratch.  MythTV does not have even
> the beginnings of one.
>
> Will MythTV run on one? No.
> Could MythTV run on one? Sure, but someone better get to coding, and
> they've got a lot of work to look forward to.
> With support, would it be the "perfect frontend"?  Not hardly.  You're
> still restricted to absolutely nothing beyond what you can squeeze out
> of that hardware video decoder.

I have seen clips of it running xbmc, which does have openmax support.
With the mythbox plugin on top of xbmc it might work as a front end.

But as you say, it is limited compared to the usual suspects. But
powerful compared to other $25.00 computers.