I've been running some tests lately...usings some mpg2 samples at 720p and 1080i.

I'm running these on a monitor and I'm trying to test my system to see if it's ready for watch HD before I upgrade my TV. The samples are a little jumpy in spots and overall just don't run smoothly. The 1080i file was very wavy.

When I run these, I watch my processor through top. Mplayer sits around 30-40% and XF86 is at around 10-15%. Overall, my CPU is about 55% working and 45% idle.

If my CPU was tacked to 100% the whole way, I could understand the videos not playing right. But since it didn't seem to be a CPU issue, I'm wondering what exactly is happening. In previous posts, I've read people run HD poorly with 99% CPU usage (i.e. no power to spare) or running successfully with 70% CPU usage (i.e. power to spare), but I haven't heard of anyone running HD poorly while still having only moderate CPU usage.

Does anyone else have this issue?

My hardware for this test is in my sig.

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV

I would suggest running them from xterm with mplayer. It is rather verbose and generally gives you an idea of playback problems.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Is there anything that I have to configure to do this? Ran mplayer from a shell as root and got:

"couldn't open the x11 display"

The other message worth noting is "To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection"

Is there really a purpose to recompiling for my CPU? Will I notice an improvement?

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV

you have to run it as mythtv as root doesn't have permissions to mythtv users x display.


This is the old how much does cpu compile optimizations really help and has been debated far too much generally it doesn't make that much difference, however in video playback it can/might but there's no way I would ever expect any distro developer to compile a separate version for every cpu type.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

For some reason I get the same problem running as mythtv

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV

you are running from an xterm as I stated and not from a console right?

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

The easiest way to get a terminal window and ensure your are in X is while running the MythFE, press ALT+X and this will open a terminal window.

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Girkers

Well, I got mplayer to work from an xterm and ran some tests that failed again. Then my stupidity hit me and I realized the obvious problem. The sample files that I was playing were located on a mount that is outside of my myth machine...hence they were running through a 100Mb network, not straight from a hard drive. (Yeah, I know...stupid move.) It didn't hit me at first, because I set that mount up a few months ago and called it /myth/video ...so it seemed like a good place to toss some sample video files.

Anyway, I'm delighted to say that running off of the local hard drive, these files running pretty nicely and my CPU still stays around 50% idle for a 720p and around 60% idle for 1080i. I think I'm pretty happy with that.

Being that most people say 3Ghz/3000+ is the minimum to run HD with, I guess having the 64 with the better cache, etc. has it's benefits, as I obviously have some horsepower to spare. Of course, this is mplayer, which may just be better at playing video than actual myth-recorded programs played through the myth interface, so we'll see what happens when I get an HD3000.

Xsecrets-- thanks for the xterm tip, because it was the output messages from it that made me think about what else in my system could be affecting the playback.

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV