[mythtv-users] Alternative to zbox for a frontend

[Peter Bennett]

On 09/13/2017 10:21 AM, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> Turns out I was misinterpreting what I was seeing. tvservice seems to 
> be showing that the pi is picking up the 50Hz prefered mode of my tv. 
> The problem is performance. SD runs perfectly, but with 1080i25 
> content frames are dropped - I'd guess about 1 in 4 or 5 because the 
> result is so much like running at the wrong frame rate. Strangely some 
> 720p24 isn't quite perfect either although in that case it depends on 
> the scene and some parts are perfectly smooth (that's with the screen 
> mode changed to 24Hz).
>
> I'm pretty sure I've applied every optimisation you list, besides 
> trying greater than 256MB gpu mem. Perhaps I need to get a Pi 3. 
You never said what version of MythTV you are using - the 0.27 version 
for Raspberry Pi was an unofficial release and is missing many 
optimizations, so hopefully you are on 0.28 or 29.

Verify the mpeg2 license (vcgencmd codec_enabled MPG2).
You could try running with -v playback to see if it is dropping frames 
or there is some other problem.

Completely smooth video may not be achievable at this time. See ticket 
at https://code.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/12907

I use it for 1080i and 1080p at 30 fps on a pi2. If it is not 100% 
smooth all the time it does not worry me or my wife.

If you have done all of the performance steps I recommended, I don't 
think that a Pi 3 will make that much of an improvement. Perhaps you 
notice these things more than I do.

Peter