Just a word of warning guys, apparently the mythbackend/mythfrontend combination is far more CPU intensive than I gave credit for. I figured I had plenty of CPU to get away without using a MPEG decoder card. Oh.....not so. :\

Mythfrontend is watchable upstairs, but the framerate is noticably smeared. If I watch remotely from my Mac, the picture is beautiful, although I do get some stops/starts that appear to be buffering issues, it's clearly improved.

I have an old DVD decoder card I'm tempted to pull out and see if it has support and plug it in. That would provide MPEG2 decoding and offload from the CPU. I hope.

Oh geez.

I have an AGP MPEG decoder card (marketed as a DVD decoder), but these compaqs have 1.5v AGP-only slots that make it appear as though your AGP card would have to slide in backwards, so that's a no-go.

Anyone know of a PCI card that would do MPEG decoding? (Yup, retreading the wheel rather than getting the PVR-350.)

Your PIV should be plenty powerful. With the sparse information you provided, it is hard to say where your problem maybe... Perhaps talking a look at your logs (search the wiki for details).

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Wow, no kidding?

Well...I'll look over the logs. It's a Compaq EVO (small form-factor desktop machine), has a standard ATA-133 hard drive. The RAM is PC133. Of course the PVR-150 and it has a NVideo AGP video card in there, listed as an MS-8830 Ver. 1.0, the chipset itself is listed as an NVideo Vanta-16.

I'm using all encoder/decoder defaults right now.

How are those specs not enough? I was running on a Dell Precision 340 workstation with near identical specs (512 Memory instead of 384, same processor). It had a PVR-150 and DLink GWL-510 Wireless network card in its two slots. I eventually upgraded because I couldnt fit a video card in with TV out and wanted the option of a second encoder card.

A box I built for someone else, an Athlon 600 with a PVR-150, showed a "normal" load of < 0.30.

And if you weren't using a PVR-150, why did you put it in the subject line?

Um, sorry. I didn't mention the PVR-150 because I mentioned it in the subject line and thought it would be redundant. My apologies.

Right now I have the box running upstairs, with LiveTV running..

I'm running htop and the cpu is jumping between 64 and 92% load. RAM is 287MB full.

One would think then all is well, but not so. The video framerate just isn't right. If I watch remotely it is more or less "fine". It's bizarre. I've grepped through the logged for the last 6 hours, and there's nothing of consequence in there. It's very odd.

I'm no expert, but is there any chance your video card is running on the VESA drivers?From what I understood, it takes a lot of load off of the CPU if you can get drivers to work.

The Vanta chipset if I remember correctly came out shortly after the Riva128's--mid 1998 or so. The Linux driver for Nvidia chipsets probably doesn't go back that far.

I'm running my Knoppmyth box with a PCI MX4000 that is supported by the NVIDIA drivers. It runs quite well, but would be a bit too slow to run high def etc... from what I understand.

Just a few thoughts,

L0o0ky

Well, I'm running standard def, and it *is* loading the NVidia drivers. From Nvidia's site, it is based on the TNT2 core, so I dunno. This machine just isn't that old...2002-ish. For the moment I have been playing with the encoding bitrate, and it helps, just slightly though.

Not to mention all of the colors are seriously washed out playing back on that system. Again, colors are great when played back remotely. :\

Actually, I owe you an apology. The figures I quoted were NOT during live TV, but under a normal load.

What does top show the CPU hogs are?

Which driver is it running the "nv" driver, the "nvidia" 6xxx series driver (sorry memory glitch 6639 maybe?), or the "nvidia" 7174 driver?

Have you checked the X log file to see if it's got working Xv support?

I only know of one card: RealMagic Hollywood+ MPEG
It's a pci card, which is no longer produced, but maybe you could get one at ebay.

I heard of it years ago, when I was interested in the german VDR project. There has to be linux drivers for it, the vdr guys used it together with budget dvb-s cards.

Sorry guys, my KnoppMyth box is offline today until I get some other tasks done, then I'll bring it up again and check top. The logfiles were worse than useless. :\

It seems to me XvMC didn't work. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head which NVidia driver was being used. I'll let you know.