Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
BEWARE: decoding. From the unichrome sourceforge project site says: It provides support for VIA CLE266 and KM400/KN400. K8M800 and PM800/CN400 support is still limited. I'm not sure if that statement is up to date. I have seen messages from people using the CN400. That statement is refering to the Unichrome X driver, NOT XvMC specifically, the next paragraph refers to Unichrome XvMC, and only explicitly mentions CLE266. I have a KM400, which is a great board for the price, but it does not have MPEG2 hardware accel (XvMC). It does have working Xv, though it is still a relatively new driver and may not work out-of-the-box in some distributions. Dave ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
Is there anywhere all of this current status info is covered? The K8M800 has Unichrome Pro integrated graphics, and I see mentions of XvMC support for Unichrome Pro. But, will these two work together? On 8/2/05, David Collett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BEWARE: decoding. From the unichrome sourceforge project site says: It provides support for VIA CLE266 and KM400/KN400. K8M800 and PM800/CN400 support is still limited. I'm not sure if that statement is up to date. I have seen messages from people using the CN400. That statement is refering to the Unichrome X driver, NOT XvMC specifically, the next paragraph refers to Unichrome XvMC, and only explicitly mentions CLE266. I have a KM400, which is a great board for the price, but it does not have MPEG2 hardware accel (XvMC). It does have working Xv, though it is still a relatively new driver and may not work out-of-the-box in some distributions. Dave ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
Todd Ignasiak wrote: Is there anywhere all of this current status info is covered? The K8M800 has Unichrome Pro integrated graphics, and I see mentions of XvMC support for Unichrome Pro. But, will these two work together? Yeah, it would be nice to know more about this. I have a K8M800-MLVF and I couldn't get the video working on itat all for Mythtv l(ast october.) So, I got a cheap MX440 board with SVideo and used that. I still have FC2 running on it but will upgrade soon. The K8M800 doc states the following for the Onboard Graphics features: Integraded UniChrome2 3D/2D graphics controller Integrated S3 Graphics with 2D/3D acceleration no mention about Unichrome Pro nor MPEG2. brad On 8/2/05, David Collett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BEWARE: decoding. From the unichrome sourceforge project site says: It provides support for VIA CLE266 and KM400/KN400. K8M800 and PM800/CN400 support is still limited. I'm not sure if that statement is up to date. I have seen messages from people using the CN400. That statement is refering to the Unichrome X driver, NOT XvMC specifically, the next paragraph refers to Unichrome XvMC, and only explicitly mentions CLE266. I have a KM400, which is a great board for the price, but it does not have MPEG2 hardware accel (XvMC). It does have working Xv, though it is still a relatively new driver and may not work out-of-the-box in some distributions. Dave ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
Is Unichrome2 different than Unichrome Pro? The Abit KV-80 specs say: Integrated UniChrome Pro Graphics with 2D/3D/Video controller http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1model=238 The VIA pages on their chipsets with Unichrome Pro make plenty of mention of MPEG2 decode, and HDTV: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/p4-series/pm800/ On 8/2/05, Brad Fuller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Todd Ignasiak wrote: Is there anywhere all of this current status info is covered? The K8M800 has Unichrome Pro integrated graphics, and I see mentions of XvMC support for Unichrome Pro. But, will these two work together? Yeah, it would be nice to know more about this. I have a K8M800-MLVF and I couldn't get the video working on itat all for Mythtv l(ast october.) So, I got a cheap MX440 board with SVideo and used that. I still have FC2 running on it but will upgrade soon. The K8M800 doc states the following for the Onboard Graphics features: Integraded UniChrome2 3D/2D graphics controller Integrated S3 Graphics with 2D/3D acceleration no mention about Unichrome Pro nor MPEG2. brad On 8/2/05, David Collett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BEWARE: decoding. From the unichrome sourceforge project site says: It provides support for VIA CLE266 and KM400/KN400. K8M800 and PM800/CN400 support is still limited. I'm not sure if that statement is up to date. I have seen messages from people using the CN400. That statement is refering to the Unichrome X driver, NOT XvMC specifically, the next paragraph refers to Unichrome XvMC, and only explicitly mentions CLE266. I have a KM400, which is a great board for the price, but it does not have MPEG2 hardware accel (XvMC). It does have working Xv, though it is still a relatively new driver and may not work out-of-the-box in some distributions. Dave ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
Todd Ignasiak wrote: Is Unichrome2 different than Unichrome Pro? that was my question too! I didn't find it on the VIA site either. I dnl'd the latest user donc of K8M800-MLVF and it mentions UniChrome2 not Pro The Abit KV-80 specs say: Integrated UniChrome Pro Graphics with 2D/3D/Video controller http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1model=238 The VIA pages on their chipsets with Unichrome Pro make plenty of mention of MPEG2 decode, and HDTV: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/p4-series/pm800/ ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On 7/31/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh yeah, one more thing :) I thought I read that some or all of the unichrome chips had a limitation on video out where they could not output 1280x720 (720p) video or above. Obviously this is a problem if you're trying to hook your unichrome based board to a HDTV that wants to accept either 720p or 1080i input sources. On a mailing list that gets archived and searched quite often it's best NOT to post things you thing you read as it confuses things. Next thing you know you've got people quoting your post in irc saying I read that some guy said he thought that they didn't do HDTV. ;) For the record, the Unichrome Pro chipset DOES offer hardware acceleration of HDTV streams as well as MPEG4 acceleration. (Though the open source drivers don't support MPEG4 acceleration). That being said, unless you REALLY want/need the mini-ITX form factor, you're much better off with a Celeron and a decent nVidia AGP based graphics card. The mini-ITX based systems make great little silent frontends but they're seriously lacking in the horsepower needed for a good general Myth box. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On 7/31/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had two issues that for me are critical. When using xvmc with Xine none of the OSD overlays would work. This meant no on screen information, subtitles, or closed captions during playback. I didn't investigate this to much however I think it could be worked around. One possibility seems to be with the Xine xxmc support. XvMC appears to do very simple one-field deinterlacing in hardware. Xine 1.1.0 has experimental XvMC bob deinterlace support which I enabled and saw some improvements. I compared various DVD (480i content) scenes played via Xv with Xine deinterlace post processing and XvMC with hardware deinterlace. It was pretty clear to me that Xv with deinterlace post processing was producing a much better picture than XvMC using hardware deinterlacing. You know, you *might* want to test with Myth instead of Xine since neither of those issues apply to Myth. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Aug 1, 2005, at 9:15 AM, Donavan Stanley wrote: On 7/31/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh yeah, one more thing :) I thought I read that some or all of the unichrome chips had a limitation on video out where they could not output 1280x720 (720p) video or above. Obviously this is a problem if you're trying to hook your unichrome based board to a HDTV that wants to accept either 720p or 1080i input sources. On a mailing list that gets archived and searched quite often it's best NOT to post things you thing you read as it confuses things. Next thing you know you've got people quoting your post in irc saying I read that some guy said he thought that they didn't do HDTV. ;) I think I qualified my statements enough to provide sufficient warning about the accuracy of my comments. Next time I'll add some blink tags and under construction graphics. For the record, the Unichrome Pro chipset DOES offer hardware acceleration of HDTV streams as well as MPEG4 acceleration. (Though the open source drivers don't support MPEG4 acceleration). Exactly why I was posting in the first place. Thanks for the follow up. -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Aug 1, 2005, at 9:17 AM, Donavan Stanley wrote: On 7/31/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had two issues that for me are critical. When using xvmc with Xine none of the OSD overlays would work. This meant no on screen information, subtitles, or closed captions during playback. I didn't investigate this to much however I think it could be worked around. One possibility seems to be with the Xine xxmc support. XvMC appears to do very simple one-field deinterlacing in hardware. Xine 1.1.0 has experimental XvMC bob deinterlace support which I enabled and saw some improvements. I compared various DVD (480i content) scenes played via Xv with Xine deinterlace post processing and XvMC with hardware deinterlace. It was pretty clear to me that Xv with deinterlace post processing was producing a much better picture than XvMC using hardware deinterlacing. You know, you *might* want to test with Myth instead of Xine since neither of those issues apply to Myth. I'm assuming by 'Myth' you are referencing the Myth Internal video player? For 480i DVD playback using xine seemed like a valid test to me as I was able to directly compare the same source material via two different display methods. I gather what you're suggesting is that I should have also used the Myth Internal video player with xvmc support and compare the results against xine + xv. Honestly, I didn't think to try the Internal video player because it seems most people, including myself, use Xine for DVD playback to get DVD menu support. Is there technical documentation on how the Myth Internal video player uses XvMC along with any other post processing filters? (Besides the source code, of course!) I've seen posts to the list suggesting that when using XvMC with Myth it's best to also disable the deinterlace option in Myth as well as the two could conflict. Does this sound accurate to you and does that mean that Myth + xvmc relies strictly on the xmvc deinterlace routines in hardware? It may be possible that the Myth Internal video player with xvmc can provide better quality deinterlace and post processing than Xine + xv. Obviously a deeper understanding of how Myth works with xvmc and more objective tests are needed. -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On 8/1/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You know, you *might* want to test with Myth instead of Xine since neither of those issues apply to Myth. I'm assuming by 'Myth' you are referencing the Myth Internal video player? Your stated goal was HDTV playback. Given that you're most likely going to be playing back HD content using Myth not xine then it stands to reason you'd actually test using Myth. It may be possible that the Myth Internal video player with xvmc can provide better quality deinterlace and post processing than Xine + xv. Obviously a deeper understanding of how Myth works with xvmc and more objective tests are needed. There is *no* post processing using XvMC. Not with xine nor with Myth. It's decoded by the hardware and displayed (to put it simply), things like kerneldeint, denoise3d and the like will not work with XvMC. Myth does support the use of bob under XvMC as well as a full OSD which is why I suggested testing with Myth not xine. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Aug 1, 2005, at 12:52 PM, Donavan Stanley wrote: Your stated goal was HDTV playback. Given that you're most likely going to be playing back HD content using Myth not xine then it stands to reason you'd actually test using Myth. But seeing as I don't yet have a HDTV capture card yet I ended up using 1920x1080i samples. One was from the pchdtv.com site and the other was a custom made 1080i mpeg2 demo with full 5.1 sound. A third sample was a LotRclip2.mpg clip which can be found via google. It may be possible that the Myth Internal video player with xvmc can provide better quality deinterlace and post processing than Xine + xv. Obviously a deeper understanding of how Myth works with xvmc and more objective tests are needed. There is *no* post processing using XvMC. Not with xine nor with Myth. It's decoded by the hardware and displayed (to put it simply), things like kerneldeint, denoise3d and the like will not work with XvMC. Myth does support the use of bob under XvMC as well as a full OSD which is why I suggested testing with Myth not xine. Based on available XvMC information that's what I understood the case to be. So really it shouldn't matter so much if I'm using Xine + XvMC with bob deinterlacing or Myth Internal Player with XvMC. In both cases the output should have very similar results. It would be nice to actually test this situation but from what you describe I don't think I should expect much difference? As I mentioned in my first post, I wasn't worried so much about the lack of OSD when using Xine + XvMC. I know that Myth Internal Video player + XvMC works with OSD as I've heard all about the grayscale OSD issues. Chances are I would use Xine + xv with post processing for DVD playback and stick to Myth Internal Video player + XvMC for 1080i streams I did test Xine + XvMC with both one-field and bob deinterlace methods and it was clear that bob deinterlacing produced better results for my 1080i test clips and on 480i DVD sources. I'm glad to hear the Myth Internal Video player supports bob with XvMC. I also noted in the Xine docs that there is an apparent work around for grayscale OSDs with XvMC. This wasn't something I tried as I was mostly focused on deinterlace quality and artifacts that might be seen when using XvMC. Have the Myth developers considered adding the OSD grayscale work around from Xine to the Myth Internal Player or is that not something which is feasible? ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On 8/1/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Have the Myth developers considered adding the OSD grayscale work around from Xine to the Myth Internal Player or is that not something which is feasible? There's a patch which enables color OSDs with XvMC, but the real solution is to use a chromakeyed OSD and that's not yet ready for primetime due to some extensive XvMC rework that happened recently. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
The Unichrome integrated graphics chipsets are available on more than just Mini-ITX boards. VIA makes P4, Athlon, and even Athlon64 boards with the Unichrome video. This seems like an interesting option to me.It allows for the most offloading of MPEG2 processing, while still using a fast CPU for everything else in the system. S3/VIA also has standalone video cards (Deltachrome and Gammachrome) but I don't know if they support full hardware decoding. -- Also, I am confused on the controversy about open source from VIA. Are the Unichrome drivers completely open source? Or, do they rely on binary code from VIA for full support? A fully open source driver would be a big plus over the Nvidia drivers. On 8/1/05, Donavan Stanley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/31/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh yeah, one more thing :) I thought I read that some or all of the unichrome chips had a limitation on video out where they could not output 1280x720 (720p) video or above. Obviously this is a problem if you're trying to hook your unichrome based board to a HDTV that wants to accept either 720p or 1080i input sources. On a mailing list that gets archived and searched quite often it's best NOT to post things you thing you read as it confuses things. Next thing you know you've got people quoting your post in irc saying I read that some guy said he thought that they didn't do HDTV. ;) For the record, the Unichrome Pro chipset DOES offer hardware acceleration of HDTV streams as well as MPEG4 acceleration. (Though the open source drivers don't support MPEG4 acceleration). That being said, unless you REALLY want/need the mini-ITX form factor, you're much better off with a Celeron and a decent nVidia AGP based graphics card. The mini-ITX based systems make great little silent frontends but they're seriously lacking in the horsepower needed for a good general Myth box. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Aug 1, 2005, at 9:13 PM, Todd Ignasiak wrote: The Unichrome integrated graphics chipsets are available on more than just Mini-ITX boards. VIA makes P4, Athlon, and even Athlon64 boards with the Unichrome video. Is this with the CLE266 chip? I thought that was the only one that supported XvMC which is why I ask. Again, I could be wrong (blink under construction/blink -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
No, it uses the VIA K8M800. The CLE266 is the oldest chipset that had this. I believe it was more limited than the later chipsets (maybe this is the one that didn't support HD.. the others do.) There are several VIA chipsets that support the hardware MPEG2 decoding. From the unichrome sourceforge project site says: It provides support for VIA CLE266 and KM400/KN400. K8M800 and PM800/CN400 support is still limited. I'm not sure if that statement is up to date. I have seen messages from people using the CN400. On 8/1/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Aug 1, 2005, at 9:13 PM, Todd Ignasiak wrote: The Unichrome integrated graphics chipsets are available on more than just Mini-ITX boards. VIA makes P4, Athlon, and even Athlon64 boards with the Unichrome video. Is this with the CLE266 chip? I thought that was the only one that supported XvMC which is why I ask. Again, I could be wrong (blink under construction/blink -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Aug 1, 2005, at 10:34 PM, Marc Tousignant wrote: Setup of nvidia + xvmc on Gentoo is well documented and went off without a hitch using nvidia-kernel 1.0.7667. Over all I was impressed with the results. Using xvmc I was able to easily playback 1080i clips with about 35% cpu use. Considering the low end PCI bus on the Pundit system board and the low end GPU on the FX 5200. SNIP Can you point me to this well documented location? I'm having trouble hehe. I used these resources: 1) The Gentoo Desktop Guide has a nVidia Howto: http://www.gentoo.org/ doc/en/index.xml?catid=desktop 2) The Gentoo Wiki has some good info on nVidia in general. Just search for nvidia and you'll get a bunch of interesting hits. http:// gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page 3) The Gentoo forums are a fantastic resource. http:// forums.gentoo.org. Search on 'nvidia' or on 'xvmc' and you'll find lots of QA threads. On my box (Asus Pundit SIS P4 Northwood + PCI eVga FX5200) I was able to emerge the most current masked nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx, and then run opengl-update. A few quick changes to my existing xorg.conf and I had the nvidia driver with dri up and running in an hour. After that I followed the desktop guide instructions to rebuild a few packages like xine-lib and mplayer to include xvmc support and was able to use Xine 1.1.0 / 0.99.4 to view HDTV content with xvmc. -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
Having been on the list for some time I was familiar with nvidia + xvmc combination and wanted to try it out. I picked up an evga GeForce FX 5200 PCI adapter and stuck it into my SIS based P4 Northwood 2.4GHz Pundit system. (Note: not the Pundit-R) Setup was done under Gentoo 2005.0 using all stable packages with kernel 2.6.12- r4. I wanted to put down some notes for others who might be considering the same. My goal was to evaluate the xvmc + nvidia playback quality for future HDTV use. For playback I used xine-lib 1.1.0 and xine-ui 0.99.4 along with a few 1920x1080i and 1280x720p clips. I also used some standard DVD video to compare xv with xvmc processing. My viewing was focused around deinterlacing and artifacts that might be seen from post processing. For a display I used DVI out at 1280 x 720 to my Panasonic PT-L500U projector. Setup of nvidia + xvmc on Gentoo is well documented and went off without a hitch using nvidia-kernel 1.0.7667. Over all I was impressed with the results. Using xvmc I was able to easily playback 1080i clips with about 35% cpu use. Considering the low end PCI bus on the Pundit system board and the low end GPU on the FX 5200. I had two issues that for me are critical. When using xvmc with Xine none of the OSD overlays would work. This meant no on screen information, subtitles, or closed captions during playback. I didn't investigate this to much however I think it could be worked around. One possibility seems to be with the Xine xxmc support. XvMC appears to do very simple one-field deinterlacing in hardware. Xine 1.1.0 has experimental XvMC bob deinterlace support which I enabled and saw some improvements. I compared various DVD (480i content) scenes played via Xv with Xine deinterlace post processing and XvMC with hardware deinterlace. It was pretty clear to me that Xv with deinterlace post processing was producing a much better picture than XvMC using hardware deinterlacing. Based on my testing I think using nvidia + xvmc could be acceptable when dealing with HDTV streams but should be avoided for standard NTSC 480i content or where ever else it isn't absolutely needed. The best solution, from an image quality standpoint, would be to avoid XvMC and use a powerful system to handle the HDTV content decoding and playback. Obviously that solution brings with a host of other problems dealing with heat and noise. Right now I'm unsure of which direction I'll go in. I know I will be scraping my pundit and setting up a full FE/BE in a nice HTPC case like the ones Silverstone makes. The cheap solution, for me, is to get a socket 478 ATX board that supports my existing P4, memory, and other hardware then add in a quality Nvidia AGP based adapter. Considering the prices of nice looking HTPC cases and silent power supplies this might be the way to go as an interim step. -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
Hi Scott, I've been doingh the same analysis on HD playback . I've been doing XvMC with an FX5200 AGP card. When it's working well, it's very good. But, I get the prebuffering pause issues, which causes choppy playback. I'm surprised that you were able to do HD playback via the PCI bus. I didn't think the bandwidth was sufficient for [EMAIL PROTECTED] Maybe XvMC changes the equation a bit.. Can you still get decent HD playback without XvMC? Another thing I'm interested in is the 'Unichrome' display adapters. This S3/VIA video chips do full MPEG decoding, not just the iDCT+MC done with XvMC. I don't know if it is any more/less capable with things like de-interlacing. Also, the 'Unichrome' version is integrated into the motherboard, I don't know if they have the same capabilities in their add-in cards. Prior to moving to MythTV, I used a 'MyHD' card in Windows. It had a hardware MPEG decoder, which did a nice job of scaling and de-interlacing, which almost no CPU requirements. I would love to find something similar for MythTV. On 7/31/05, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Having been on the list for some time I was familiar with nvidia + xvmc combination and wanted to try it out. I picked up an evga GeForce FX 5200 PCI adapter and stuck it into my SIS based P4 Northwood 2.4GHz Pundit system. (Note: not the Pundit-R) Setup was done under Gentoo 2005.0 using all stable packages with kernel 2.6.12- r4. I wanted to put down some notes for others who might be considering the same. My goal was to evaluate the xvmc + nvidia playback quality for future HDTV use. For playback I used xine-lib 1.1.0 and xine-ui 0.99.4 along with a few 1920x1080i and 1280x720p clips. I also used some standard DVD video to compare xv with xvmc processing. My viewing was focused around deinterlacing and artifacts that might be seen from post processing. For a display I used DVI out at 1280 x 720 to my Panasonic PT-L500U projector. Setup of nvidia + xvmc on Gentoo is well documented and went off without a hitch using nvidia-kernel 1.0.7667. Over all I was impressed with the results. Using xvmc I was able to easily playback 1080i clips with about 35% cpu use. Considering the low end PCI bus on the Pundit system board and the low end GPU on the FX 5200. I had two issues that for me are critical. When using xvmc with Xine none of the OSD overlays would work. This meant no on screen information, subtitles, or closed captions during playback. I didn't investigate this to much however I think it could be worked around. One possibility seems to be with the Xine xxmc support. XvMC appears to do very simple one-field deinterlacing in hardware. Xine 1.1.0 has experimental XvMC bob deinterlace support which I enabled and saw some improvements. I compared various DVD (480i content) scenes played via Xv with Xine deinterlace post processing and XvMC with hardware deinterlace. It was pretty clear to me that Xv with deinterlace post processing was producing a much better picture than XvMC using hardware deinterlacing. Based on my testing I think using nvidia + xvmc could be acceptable when dealing with HDTV streams but should be avoided for standard NTSC 480i content or where ever else it isn't absolutely needed. The best solution, from an image quality standpoint, would be to avoid XvMC and use a powerful system to handle the HDTV content decoding and playback. Obviously that solution brings with a host of other problems dealing with heat and noise. Right now I'm unsure of which direction I'll go in. I know I will be scraping my pundit and setting up a full FE/BE in a nice HTPC case like the ones Silverstone makes. The cheap solution, for me, is to get a socket 478 ATX board that supports my existing P4, memory, and other hardware then add in a quality Nvidia AGP based adapter. Considering the prices of nice looking HTPC cases and silent power supplies this might be the way to go as an interim step. -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Jul 31, 2005, at 3:06 PM, Todd Ignasiak wrote: I've been doingh the same analysis on HD playback . I've been doing XvMC with an FX5200 AGP card. When it's working well, it's very good. But, I get the prebuffering pause issues, which causes choppy playback I don't have a tuner in my MythTV box right now. For my setup with the SD DirecTIVO it doesn't make sense for me to invest in a MythTV box for SD. My Pundit strictly handles DVD playback using MythTV as a nice front end to Xine. I'm surprised that you were able to do HD playback via the PCI bus. I didn't think the bandwidth was sufficient for [EMAIL PROTECTED] Maybe XvMC changes the equation a bit.. Can you still get decent HD playback without XvMC I have a few test clips I used. One of which was the test clip found on the pchdtv.com site. Others are available from various locations on the Internet. On the Pundit with a 2.4GHz Northwood P4 chip I cannot playback any HDTV streams without serious stuttering. All to be expected. Once I popped in the PCI FX 5200 I was able to play back the same test clips with the previously noted issues. CPU was around 35% during playback. Another thing I'm interested in is the 'Unichrome' display adapters. This S3/VIA video chips do full MPEG decoding, not just the iDCT+MC done with XvMC. I don't know if it is any more/less capable with things like de-interlacing. Also, the 'Unichrome' version is integrated into the motherboard, I don't know if they have the same capabilities in their add-in cards. I've thought about this too. Right now the investment is to high for me to pick one up on the cheap to try out. As such, I think the way to go would be a nice powerful CPU and a quality DVI based video card. Together with existing Linux post processing software in Xine (which uses stuff based on tvtime) I think the quality would be as good as it gets for a HTPC. Prior to moving to MythTV, I used a 'MyHD' card in Windows. It had a hardware MPEG decoder, which did a nice job of scaling and de-interlacing, which almost no CPU requirements. I would love to find something similar for MythTV. I think lots of us would. Right now such a solution doesn't exist. i would expect as HDTV becomes more popular here in the US we'll see something for Linux in the next 5 years. Right now hardware HDTV decoding and playback on Linux seems to be where V4L was 5-6 years ago. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Experiences with XvMC
On Jul 31, 2005, at 4:55 PM, Scott wrote: Another thing I'm interested in is the 'Unichrome' display adapters. This S3/VIA video chips do full MPEG decoding, not just the iDCT+MC done with XvMC. I don't know if it is any more/less capable with things like de-interlacing. Also, the 'Unichrome' version is integrated into the motherboard, I don't know if they have the same capabilities in their add-in cards. I've thought about this too. Right now the investment is to high for me to pick one up on the cheap to try out. As such, I think the way to go would be a nice powerful CPU and a quality DVI based video card. Together with existing Linux post processing software in Xine (which uses stuff based on tvtime) I think the quality would be as good as it gets for a HTPC. Oh yeah, one more thing :) I thought I read that some or all of the unichrome chips had a limitation on video out where they could not output 1280x720 (720p) video or above. Obviously this is a problem if you're trying to hook your unichrome based board to a HDTV that wants to accept either 720p or 1080i input sources. I went looking for where I might have read this can couldn't find it. Take this with a grain of salt and consider it something to follow up on before purchasing a unichrome based board for use with HDTV displays. -- Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: BlueCame1 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
