I see some people have had success with an XP 2400+ with HD, but with XvMC enabled. I have a 5200 nvidia card and use either the 6629 or 7174 (don't remember which is installed, and don't know how to tell either). When i enable XvMC on my pvr-250's recordings, the playback is a little jumpy, the picture is sweet, but it's very noticable especially when there is writiing on the screen, and i can still tell at time during a show, when it's like a slow action scene or something. Is the XvMC support better in the newer nvidia drivers? I guess it can be said that at least my system doesn't crash like it used to when i enable XvMC before. Someone said they have 50% cpu utilization with an XP 2400+, HD and XvMC, would itbe able to handle HD without XvMC? or is it just one of those try it and see things?
(I don't do any commercial flagging).

Does HD content over the firewire port use much CPU power? I've read that the HD cards don't really use any power, but wasn't sure abou from the cable box over firewire.

Finally, i know there is a way to determine output of a video file with a specific size of input, but can you also specify to use XvMC and/or deinterlacing (such as if it comes in 720x480 i know that that's from my pvr's, so playback in 720p, and use deinterlacing; if it comes in 1280x720, playback in 720p, don't use deinterlacing and use XvMC), is this possible?

My personal experience would suggest the XP 2400 is underpowered to display HDTV signals unless you use XvMC. I upgraded my m/b to a 3GHz Intel P4 which plays HD very well. I tried XvMC (this was over a year ago now) but had very poor luck with it. At that time it had many bad habits, like hanging the machine when you skipped forward or backward. It is probably much better now.

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I see that too. I want to say that it's an issue with having both XvMC and Bob deinterlacing on, but I'm not sure.

Basically, I turn XvMC on when I'm going to watch something recorded in HD, and turn it off when I'm going to watch regular PVR-x50 recordings.

I am able to run 720P with a XP2500M overclocked to about 2Ghz with an FX5200.

This is DVI->HDMI

No Xvmc

I have an xp2400 and the only way I've been able to run HD is with Xvmc. That's why I'm looking to upgrade.

I have an Intel P4 2.53GHz and I need XvMC to watch HD.

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Girkers

I just re-read this thread and I should have specified this is with recorded HDTV...I will check live TV via Firewire tonite.

You need to take the actions listed below to reduce the jumpy OSD problems when using XVMC.

In /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 add the following line to 'Section "Monitor"'



You should also set the OSD fadeout to zero. This is done by editing /usr/share/mythtv/themes/blueosd/osd.xml and changing

To


My experience of XVMC on vs. XVMC off is as follows:

XVMC off, using libmpeg2: Playback is very stable. CPU utilization averages 80% - 90% during HDTV playback. Insignificant CPU utilization on SDTV playback.

XVMC on, not using libmpeg2: CPU utilization averages 60% during HDTV playback. Stability varies based on content: Very stable playing SDTV; reasonably stable playing 1080i HDTV; very unstable playing 720p HDTV. The issue is the classic “OSD” problem with XVMC enabled.


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My configuration:

Knoppmyth version R5A30.2
System: Dell P4-2.4GHZ, 512MB ram
Video card: Powerspec FX5200
Tuner#1: Motorola DCT-6200 connected via firewire
Tuner#2: Hauppauge PVR-250
Video signal source: Comcast cable
Nvidia driver version: 6629
XVMC is turned off
Display: Samsung HLR-5067 50” DLP TV
Connection via VGA, accepts resolutions up to 1920x1080i


Marc