[mythtv-users] How to transcode to SD within mythtv - system too slow to play HD

[A. F. Cano]

On Mon, Dec 09, 2013 at 12:21:55AM -0500, Raymond Wagner wrote:
> On 12/8/2013 10:35 PM, A. F. Cano wrote:
> >I installed myth 0.26.1+fixes20 from deb-multimedia (deb packages for
> >Debian Wheezy).  Combined FE/BE.  I've recorded a few shows, but they
> >are in HD and the computer is too slow to play HD, even though the
> >display is 1920x1200.
> 
> Are you sure the hardware is inadequate and it's not a configuration
> issue? Any desktop hardware from ~2005 on should be able to handle

While it is possible that there might be some configuration item that
might help with low performance (I'm all ears, but I thought that's
what the low quality or "slim" acceleration options did) this is a
pretty old laptop, with a 1.4GHz cpu (pentium M) and a not so modern
video chip (Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go).  I'm using the Nvidia
proprietary driver, which presumably takes full advantage of what the
GPU can do.

Playing 720p files with mplayer really pushes it.  SD plays fine.
I'm willing to live with SD at the cost of lots of (background) CPU
usage for transcoding.  At least I'll be able to watch the shows.

> HD MPEG2, and anything a few years after that can handle HD H264,
> assuming your graphics hardware cannot accelerate decoding of
> either.

Given that I have such a good display, even though old, I'm reluctant to
spend thousands for an upgrade that will have a comparable or better
display and the horsepower to display 1080i while also handling backend
duties and general computing/internet.  This is my main machine which is
on all the time, so it also needs to be power-efficient.  I understand
that there are HTPC-style machines that could do, but that's a whole
other project.  Still, if someone has a recommendation for such a
machine, I'll consider looking into it, but I'd still like to use my
freshly installed myth with what I have now.

Augustine