Well, this is a bit of a wet blanket. I'd like to add a question to the survey:
How many people are running Freevo as part of their ordinary PC (I.E., second
display/head while having their X desktop on the primary) and how many are
using a stand-alone box, hooked up to the living room TV (or something
similar)? I've always felt (and it's probably true) that most people were in
the former category, so all the talk of going to TFT displays over CRT
displays... does it apply to me? I'm not chomping at the bit to run out and get
a flat-screen TV.
My setup is stand-alone to an HD Rear Projection CRT TV. It's old, but I got it
for a deep discount from a friend and it was quite a step up from the 27" SD
CRT we used to have in the apartment. Besides, as old as it is, it still looks
GREAT. My Freevo runs on an Athlon XP1900+ and a MiniATX of a similar vintage,
with a Matrox G400 (I actually had one already) and a PVR-250 for recording.
It's been running the SVN version flawlessly for a long time (excepting the
upgrade to Python 2.5, which was a hiccup) and I love having it around.
I guess one of the things I liked the most about the Freevo was being able to
cobble it together out of leftovers (the CPU, video card and audio card),
giveaways (motherboard from work) and low cost purchases (PVR-250, refurb Antec
case). I understand eventually we have to give up and move on (I'm going
through that struggle with my main PC right now) but I'm always at a loss with
what to do with the old hardware. The CPU, sound and video for the Freevo were
former main PC parts. A trickle-down system. ^_^
Now I'm currently using SDL/DFB to drive the video... Dischi said he didn't
know how well the clutter SDL backend would drive DFB. Assuming it works, would
the 2.0 interfaces run on a setup like mine? I'm not hot to upgrade to HD
recording/playback just yet (nothing HD to record except the XBox 360) but I'm
so excited about the 2.0 interface, especially the ability to overlay graphics
on the video playback. If it's just a matter of my setup not supporting HD
video, that's totally fine with me. I have no way to pipe HD content to the TV
from the Freevo anyway. The TV is pre-HDMI/DVI and the VGA input is limited to
640x480.
Yes, I know: "You need a new TV!" Not yet. This one does everything I want. I
don't need to run out and spend money on a new TV when it could be better spent
elsewhere. And it occurs to me that for those in the first category mentioned
at the start of this e-mail, an upgrade to HD display is easy! Heck, my PC is
on a 16:10 LCD display. That wasn't expensive. A brand shiny new 16:9 LCD TV?
They don't cost what they used to, but they're still 10x the cost of this
monitor.
In the end I suppose I just wanted to add my dissent to the poll. I totally
understand that new features are going to exceed the capabilities of old
hardware. I just question the complete and total cutoff. Give me the 2.0
interface on my old hardware, and I'll be happy. When I get to the point I have
HD content to record and/or play back, I'll start upgrading the box. Not all of
us are bent on riding the bleeding edge of the wave. ^_~
Thanks for reading this far. I know I usually end up writing long e-mails...
and sorry for that. And yes, eventually I'll post up some of the fixes I've
made lately... I promise!
James
Burbank, CA USA
----- Original Message ----
> From: Jason Tackaberry <t...@urandom.ca>
> To: freevo-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> Cc: freevo-us...@lists.sourceforge.net; dun...@freevo.org
> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 3:21:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [Freevo-devel] Please Read: Making Python 2.5 a requirement
>
> On Mon, 2009-01-19 at 23:53 +0100, Dirk Meyer wrote:
> > So after the 2.4 question, here a new one: anyone not using X11 and why?
>
> I'm also interested in answers especially that don't involve old
> hardware.
>
> This may be a controversial statement, but we're not considering older
> hardware at all for Freevo 2.0. Your trusty old Matrox G450 might
> handle interlaced content like nobody's business, but it's not going to
> cut it. :)
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