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A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready?

  

 
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ylee at pobox

Feb 12, 2008, 2:14 AM

Post #1 of 64 (1587 views)
Permalink
A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready?
For the past several years the benchmark for North American high
definition (1080i MPEG-2 content recorded via FireWire or OTA at
7.5-8GB/hour)-capable MythTV frontend has been a Pentium 4 2.8-3.0GHz
with an Nvidia 5200. Anything slower is asking for trouble.[1]
Anything that meets this level of performance or better is in fine
shape.

This is about to change, thanks to two imminent developments:

* The pending release of 0.21. The creation of an 0.21-fixes branch in
SVN is the latest sign that a final 0.21 is coming very, very soon.
* The forthcoming Hauppauge capture device that encodes 1080p video
and S/PDIF audio to h.264.

Let me use my frontend, a Pentium 4 Hypertransport-enabled 3.0GHz with
an Nvidia 6200TC, to illustrate. 0.21 brings both a new, OpenGL-based
video renderer and two new deinterlacers, Greedy and Yadif. My
frontend is incapable of using the OpenGL renderer at all due to
insufficient horsepower. Even with the Xv renderer, the Yadif (2X),
Yadif, and Greedy (2X) deinterlacers are too much for my frontend;
only Greedy works. Xv and the Bob (2X) deinterlacer still work
wonderfully well in turning 1080i content into output for my 1080p
panel, of course.

The Hauppauge device is another story. I've been playing the 1080p
h.264 videos at <URL:http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/> in the
MythVideo internal player and the results aren't encouraging. Besides
the lack of audio (Anyone know why?), most of the videos play with a
brief pause every few seconds and accompaning "NVP: Waiting for
prebuffer" messages in the mythfrontend log. Seeking is
problematic. Some, like the Ducati and Barber of Seville clips, don't
play at all. mplayer can play all the clips, properly handles the
audio, and seeks better, but of course doesn't try to deinterlace by
default; using -vf yadif=1 results in a flickering display and frame
drops.

I don't know if I need more CPU horsepower or GPU horsepower;
<URL:http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/HD_Playback_Reports> implies
CPU is more important, but a faster video card would surely help. As
noted above Xv and Bob are quite satisfactory and I don't need the
Hauppauge device, per se, because all my HD channels are available via
FireWire. I strongly suspect, however, that many of those who are
going to be jumping to 0.21 and the Hauppauge device in the coming
weeks and months are going to be mightily disappointed without
upgrading their previously-satisfactory setups first.

[1] Anyone who here jumps up and says "I can use a way slower system
with XvMC!" or "I can play 1080i with my MX440!" is both missing the
point and misunderstanding the meaning of "benchmark."

--
Yeechang Lee <ylee[at]pobox.com> | San Francisco CA US
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dsr-myth at tao

Feb 12, 2008, 2:59 AM

Post #2 of 64 (1561 views)
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Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 02:14:15AM -0800, Yeechang Lee wrote:
> problematic. Some, like the Ducati and Barber of Seville clips, don't
> play at all. mplayer can play all the clips, properly handles the
> audio, and seeks better, but of course doesn't try to deinterlace by
> default; using -vf yadif=1 results in a flickering display and frame
> drops.

You are playing a 1080P clip on a 1080P display; why do you need
to deinterlace?

-dsr-

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w.munson at comcast

Feb 12, 2008, 3:07 AM

Post #3 of 64 (1560 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
Yeechang Lee wrote:
> For the past several years the benchmark for North American high
> definition (1080i MPEG-2 content recorded via FireWire or OTA at
> 7.5-8GB/hour)-capable MythTV frontend has been a Pentium 4 2.8-3.0GHz
> with an Nvidia 5200. Anything slower is asking for trouble.[1]
> Anything that meets this level of performance or better is in fine
> shape.
>
> This is about to change, thanks to two imminent developments:
>
> * The pending release of 0.21. The creation of an 0.21-fixes branch in
> SVN is the latest sign that a final 0.21 is coming very, very soon.
> * The forthcoming Hauppauge capture device that encodes 1080p video
> and S/PDIF audio to h.264.
>
> Let me use my frontend, a Pentium 4 Hypertransport-enabled 3.0GHz with
> an Nvidia 6200TC, to illustrate. 0.21 brings both a new, OpenGL-based
> video renderer and two new deinterlacers, Greedy and Yadif. My
> frontend is incapable of using the OpenGL renderer at all due to
> insufficient horsepower. Even with the Xv renderer, the Yadif (2X),
> Yadif, and Greedy (2X) deinterlacers are too much for my frontend;
> only Greedy works. Xv and the Bob (2X) deinterlacer still work
> wonderfully well in turning 1080i content into output for my 1080p
> panel, of course.
>
> The Hauppauge device is another story. I've been playing the 1080p
> h.264 videos at <URL:http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/> in the
> MythVideo internal player and the results aren't encouraging. Besides
> the lack of audio (Anyone know why?), most of the videos play with a
> brief pause every few seconds and accompaning "NVP: Waiting for
> prebuffer" messages in the mythfrontend log. Seeking is
> problematic. Some, like the Ducati and Barber of Seville clips, don't
> play at all. mplayer can play all the clips, properly handles the
> audio, and seeks better, but of course doesn't try to deinterlace by
> default; using -vf yadif=1 results in a flickering display and frame
> drops.
>
> I don't know if I need more CPU horsepower or GPU horsepower;
> <URL:http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/HD_Playback_Reports> implies
> CPU is more important, but a faster video card would surely help. As
> noted above Xv and Bob are quite satisfactory and I don't need the
> Hauppauge device, per se, because all my HD channels are available via
> FireWire. I strongly suspect, however, that many of those who are
> going to be jumping to 0.21 and the Hauppauge device in the coming
> weeks and months are going to be mightily disappointed without
> upgrading their previously-satisfactory setups first.
>
> [1] Anyone who here jumps up and says "I can use a way slower system
> with XvMC!" or "I can play 1080i with my MX440!" is both missing the
> point and misunderstanding the meaning of "benchmark."
>
>
Such is life with a "older" system. Personally I have no problems
playing that material with xvmc so your benchmark misses the mark in
that your system is not fully optimized. Your choices, upgrade, dont
play it or use all your options. Dual and quad core systems are getting
cheaper by the week. Maybe its time to upgrade your system and/or
perhaps go with a split front/back end combo. The minimum system is
always going to increase with a package in active development.

On another note. 0.21 - Bring it on. Will be nice to not have to run SVN
to get the features I need.

Cheers!
Bill

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jedi at mishnet

Feb 12, 2008, 7:08 AM

Post #4 of 64 (1549 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
> Yeechang Lee wrote:
>> For the past several years the benchmark for North American high
>> definition (1080i MPEG-2 content recorded via FireWire or OTA at
>> 7.5-8GB/hour)-capable MythTV frontend has been a Pentium 4 2.8-3.0GHz
>> with an Nvidia 5200. Anything slower is asking for trouble.[1]
>> Anything that meets this level of performance or better is in fine
>> shape.
>>
>> This is about to change, thanks to two imminent developments:
[deletia]
>> I don't know if I need more CPU horsepower or GPU horsepower;
>> <URL:http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/HD_Playback_Reports> implies
>> CPU is more important, but a faster video card would surely help. As
>> noted above Xv and Bob are quite satisfactory and I don't need the
>> Hauppauge device, per se, because all my HD channels are available via
>> FireWire. I strongly suspect, however, that many of those who are
>> going to be jumping to 0.21 and the Hauppauge device in the coming
>> weeks and months are going to be mightily disappointed without
>> upgrading their previously-satisfactory setups first.
>>
>> [1] Anyone who here jumps up and says "I can use a way slower system
>> with XvMC!" or "I can play 1080i with my MX440!" is both missing the
>> point and misunderstanding the meaning of "benchmark."
>>
>>
> Such is life with a "older" system. Personally I have no problems
> playing that material with xvmc so your benchmark misses the mark in

...well. MythTV h264 seems to be crappy in general. Even new and
powerful systems are affected by this. Hopefully the new Hauppauge
device will help get those issues sorted out.

As things stand right now, I happily use an external player for
all of my h264 content. Given the features I've cobbled together
for myself, that will likely not change. Although I do hope that
MythTV can exploit the HD PVR in a timely fashion. Realtime h264
transcoding would be just too cool. It doesn't even have to be HD.

[deletia]

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ylee at pobox

Feb 12, 2008, 7:33 AM

Post #5 of 64 (1550 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
Dan Ritter <dsr-myth[at]tao.merseine.nu> says:
> You are playing a 1080P clip on a 1080P display; why do you need to
> deinterlace?

Even without deinterlacing per se, the "refresh doubling" that a 2X
deinterlacer like Bob adds noticeably smooths out video during pans.

--
Frontend: P4 3.0GHz, 1.5TB software RAID 5 array
Backend: Quad-core Xeon 1.6GHz, 6.6TB sw RAID 6
Video inputs: Four high-definition over FireWire/OTA
Accessories: 47" 1080p LCD, 5.1 digital, and MX-600
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brian.phillips at gmx

Feb 12, 2008, 7:35 AM

Post #6 of 64 (1549 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
jedi[at]mishnet.org wrote:
> ...well. MythTV h264 seems to be crappy in general. Even new and
> powerful systems are affected by this. Hopefully the new Hauppauge
> device will help get those issues sorted out.
>
> As things stand right now, I happily use an external player for
> all of my h264 content. Given the features I've cobbled together for
> myself, that will likely not change. Although I do hope that MythTV
> can exploit the HD PVR in a timely fashion. Realtime h264 transcoding
> would be just too cool. It doesn't even have to be HD.

Which brings me to something that's ruffling my feathers recently, the lack
of sufficient hardware to do all this decoding/transcoding.

We have a sufficient platter of encoders/tuner boards. These provide
invaluable services to people like me with a P3-550 so I can watch standard
definition.

But tax time is here, refunds are on their way, and I am looking at moving
to HD. I have my display, tuner/encoder, and system all set up except for
one thing, the mode of outputting these MPEG2/MPEG4 streams to my
television. It seems that any nvidia after the 6 series (or earlier) will
do, as long as you have a sufficiently good processor. My question is, why
do we need to purchase an $80+ processor to handle this stuff? Why can't we
get some hardware to do this decoding for us? XvMC is offered as a way of
unloading _part_ of the decoding onto a dedicated piece of hardware, but
looking here:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC#Example_CPU_Savings and based on
my own experiences, it doesn't help _that_ much. As well, I didn't go the
HD route and become a videophile so I could watch the OSD in black and
white.

I'm pretty new to this stuff, so if I've misspoken about the state of
things, please keep the flames low. I've just been looking to make the
plunge into HD but don't want to buy a whole new system that will be bogged
down just decoding HD content for display. Why don't we have more options
for dedicated hardware for MPEG2/MPEG4 decoding and even, transcoding? Is
the hardware there in video cards, but non-supported in Linux? I read
somewhere that directx was the method for using these GPUs to their fullest,
so is linux therefore locked out of these GPUs to a point?

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dsr-myth at tao

Feb 12, 2008, 8:14 AM

Post #7 of 64 (1550 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 07:33:13AM -0800, Yeechang Lee wrote:
> Dan Ritter <dsr-myth[at]tao.merseine.nu> says:
> > You are playing a 1080P clip on a 1080P display; why do you need to
> > deinterlace?
>
> Even without deinterlacing per se, the "refresh doubling" that a 2X
> deinterlacer like Bob adds noticeably smooths out video during pans.

Ah -- you're using it for processing that current HDTVs call
'120HZ' or similar.

-dsr-

--
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http://tao.merseine.nu/~dsr/eula.html is hereby incorporated by reference.
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kkuphal at gmail

Feb 12, 2008, 8:18 AM

Post #8 of 64 (1550 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Feb 12, 2008 9:35 AM, Brian Phillips <brian.phillips[at]gmx.net> wrote:

> jedi[at]mishnet.org wrote:
> Is
> the hardware there in video cards, but non-supported in Linux? I read
> somewhere that directx was the method for using these GPUs to their
> fullest,
> so is linux therefore locked out of these GPUs to a point?
>

This is exactly the problem. Take nvidia for example, the premier driver
for Linux for HD playback IMO. If I take the same card from my MythTV box
and put it in Windows with the stock drivers, my Athlon 2000 PC could not
play back HD content. But, if I download the 30 day trial of Nvidia's
PureVideo player with accelerated drivers for Windows, voila, my lowly
processer can chew through HD no problem.

Drivers are the issue and until Linux gets *full* featured drivers with the
necessary hooks for applications to use them, it will always lag behind and
be more about the CPU than the graphics board.

Kevin


kkuphal at gmail

Feb 12, 2008, 8:20 AM

Post #9 of 64 (1549 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Feb 12, 2008 10:18 AM, Kevin Kuphal <kkuphal[at]gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Feb 12, 2008 9:35 AM, Brian Phillips <brian.phillips[at]gmx.net> wrote:
>
> > jedi[at]mishnet.org wrote:
> > Is
> > the hardware there in video cards, but non-supported in Linux? I read
> > somewhere that directx was the method for using these GPUs to their
> > fullest,
> > so is linux therefore locked out of these GPUs to a point?
> >
>
> This is exactly the problem. Take nvidia for example, the premier driver
> for Linux for HD playback IMO. If I take the same card from my MythTV box
> and put it in Windows with the stock drivers, my Athlon 2000 PC could not
> play back HD content. But, if I download the 30 day trial of Nvidia's
> PureVideo player with accelerated drivers for Windows, voila, my lowly
> processer can chew through HD no problem.
>

I should note, that in Linux, I require a 3.2Ghz P4 processor + XvMC to do
the job with the Linux drivers that my Athlon 2000 could do with the
PureVideo drivers.


>
> Drivers are the issue and until Linux gets *full* featured drivers with
> the necessary hooks for applications to use them, it will always lag behind
> and be more about the CPU than the graphics board.
>

Kevin


gallatin at cs

Feb 12, 2008, 8:29 AM

Post #10 of 64 (1545 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
Brian Phillips [brian.phillips[at]gmx.net] wrote:
> one thing, the mode of outputting these MPEG2/MPEG4 streams to my
> television. It seems that any nvidia after the 6 series (or earlier) will
> do, as long as you have a sufficiently good processor. My question is, why
> do we need to purchase an $80+ processor to handle this stuff? Why can't we
> get some hardware to do this decoding for us? XvMC is offered as a way of

FWIW, I'm in the same situation as the OP. I have a 3.0GHz P4 with an
Nvidia 5200 which has been (barely) playing back 1080i sitting next to
my TV for 3 years.

What I wish is that MythTV could work better with "extender" type
hardware. I'd rather have some thin client in the $200 range with a
5-10W power envelope which does excellent playback via hardware
offloads than a PC sitting next to my TV. But the lack of the MythTV
UI, and the lack features like commercial skipping on UPNP type
devices makes them a nonstarter for use with Myth in my house.

I'm actually thinking about jumping ship for Sage because of their HD
extender (which does comskip), since it will only cost me $280 for
perfect HD playback and will allow me to move all the PC hardware out
of the livingroom. There was some talk of reverse engineering their
extender and using it with Myth, but I haven't heard much on that for
a while... I sure hope that happens.

Drew
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nico at youplala

Feb 12, 2008, 8:46 AM

Post #11 of 64 (1545 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:18 -0600, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2008 9:35 AM, Brian Phillips <brian.phillips[at]gmx.net>
> wrote:
> jedi[at]mishnet.org wrote:
> Is
> the hardware there in video cards, but non-supported in
> Linux? I read
> somewhere that directx was the method for using these GPUs to
> their fullest,
> so is linux therefore locked out of these GPUs to a point?
> This is exactly the problem. Take nvidia for example, the premier
> driver for Linux for HD playback IMO. If I take the same card from my
> MythTV box and put it in Windows with the stock drivers, my Athlon
> 2000 PC could not play back HD content. But, if I download the 30 day
> trial of Nvidia's PureVideo player with accelerated drivers for
> Windows, voila, my lowly processer can chew through HD no problem.
> Drivers are the issue and until Linux gets *full* featured drivers
> with the necessary hooks for applications to use them, it will always
> lag behind and be more about the CPU than the graphics board.

This is where I fore see that nVIDIA will not be the GPU of choice for
MythTV in the medium term.

The Intel chpsets (965 and up) have pretty decent capabilities for what
we want to do with them.

They have all the good parts for MPEG2/H.264 acceleration.

Now 2 things are happening these days. X is changing its infrastructure
for video acceleration.

Intel has released stuff that was only in the hands of a few people: the
full specs. So expect a lot more people to be able to code on the Intel
driver from now on.

There is hope in having relatively cheap motherboards with integrated
GPUs, one board less, one fan less, that will be able to do HD in all
formats. The Intel chipset already has that nice way of adding ports
(HDMI, DVI, Components, s-video, composite) through cheap add-on cards.

I have such a combination. But I am currently using an nVIDIA card. The
intel driver was not mature enough (v2.1) and lacked features. It was a
complete rewrite from the i830 stuff, and only a limited people had
access to the specs.

I would be ready to bet that within 1 year we will all be laughing at
our nVIDIA days.

Then again, nVIDIA could wake-up.

nico
http://www.youplala.net/linux/home-theater-pc



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brian.phillips at gmx

Feb 12, 2008, 9:22 AM

Post #12 of 64 (1545 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
Nicolas Will wrote:
> The Intel chpsets (965 and up) have pretty decent capabilities for
> what we want to do with them.
>
> They have all the good parts for MPEG2/H.264 acceleration.
>
> Now 2 things are happening these days. X is changing its
> infrastructure for video acceleration.
>
> Intel has released stuff that was only in the hands of a few people:
> the full specs. So expect a lot more people to be able to code on the
> Intel driver from now on.

So, if I were a gambling man, and wanted to bet the farm on Intel hardware
becoming "fully unlocked" ie nvidia purevideo...for linux, I would go with
an intel chipset instead of an nvidia?

I haven't followed or heard of the intel full specs being released. Do you
think that if I were to get a board based on the 965 or G33 that as the
driver matured and more of the MPEG2/H.264 acceleration would be taken away
from the CPU and the CPU would actually have spare cycles in the future?
Interesting...

You don't normally think of your CPU aging and becoming less burdened, but
that's exactly what I want. I don't want to buy a new system with a new CPU
and then in 2 years have to change it all out because new HD formats are
pushing it too hard.

Brian

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nico at youplala

Feb 12, 2008, 9:35 AM

Post #13 of 64 (1546 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:22 -0700, Brian Phillips wrote:
> > Intel has released stuff that was only in the hands of a few people:
> > the full specs. So expect a lot more people to be able to code on
> the
> > Intel driver from now on.
>
> So, if I were a gambling man, and wanted to bet the farm on Intel
> hardware
> becoming "fully unlocked"

It is fully unlocked:

http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html



> ie nvidia purevideo...for linux, I would go with
> an intel chipset instead of an nvidia?

This is my bet. Each his own bets.


>
> I haven't followed or heard of the intel full specs being released.

I had sent an email on this list on the date of the announcement.

Intel Releases Programmers Reference Manual

The Intel Graphics Development Group and Intel Open Source
Technology Center are pleased to announce the release of the
Intel® 965 Express Chipset Family and Intel® G35 Express Chipset
Graphics Controller Programmers Reference Manual under the
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United
States License. This four volume set of manuals documents all
portions of the hardware necessary to produce and maintain a
complete driver, including accelerated media encoding and
decoding, 2D and 3D graphics.

Containing over 1600 pages of text and figures, the Programmers
Reference Manual includes everything from low level register
definitions and discussions on how each functional hardware
block works through descriptions about the hardware
architecture. Each documented feature includes a discussion on
how the hardware works and how the hardware designers expected
the software to operate.

The manual was written to support external software developers,
allowing them to work independently of Intel support resources.
The availability of this manual enables the free software
community to develop and maintain software related to Intel
graphics hardware for many applications and operating systems.
This release demonstrates Intel's continued commitment to
supporting the free software community using the best practices
of open source software development.
http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/index.html

Now coders need to take that and turn it into a full-featured driver.


> Do you
> think that if I were to get a board based on the 965 or G33 that as
> the
> driver matured and more of the MPEG2/H.264 acceleration would be taken
> away
> from the CPU and the CPU would actually have spare cycles in the
> future?

I do think that, yes. This is what i said in my previous post.

Do I want to be held accountable for my posts? No.

But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with preliminary
hardware acceleration.


> Interesting...

Isn't it?

Nico

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Rich.West at wesmo

Feb 12, 2008, 11:03 AM

Post #14 of 64 (1539 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
Nicolas Will wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:18 -0600, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>
>> On Feb 12, 2008 9:35 AM, Brian Phillips <brian.phillips[at]gmx.net>
>> wrote:
>> jedi[at]mishnet.org wrote:
>> Is
>> the hardware there in video cards, but non-supported in
>> Linux? I read
>> somewhere that directx was the method for using these GPUs to
>> their fullest,
>> so is linux therefore locked out of these GPUs to a point?
>> This is exactly the problem. Take nvidia for example, the premier
>> driver for Linux for HD playback IMO. If I take the same card from my
>> MythTV box and put it in Windows with the stock drivers, my Athlon
>> 2000 PC could not play back HD content. But, if I download the 30 day
>> trial of Nvidia's PureVideo player with accelerated drivers for
>> Windows, voila, my lowly processer can chew through HD no problem.
>> Drivers are the issue and until Linux gets *full* featured drivers
>> with the necessary hooks for applications to use them, it will always
>> lag behind and be more about the CPU than the graphics board.
>>
>
> This is where I fore see that nVIDIA will not be the GPU of choice for
> MythTV in the medium term.
>
> The Intel chpsets (965 and up) have pretty decent capabilities for what
> we want to do with them.
>
> They have all the good parts for MPEG2/H.264 acceleration.
>
> Now 2 things are happening these days. X is changing its infrastructure
> for video acceleration.
>
> Intel has released stuff that was only in the hands of a few people: the
> full specs. So expect a lot more people to be able to code on the Intel
> driver from now on.
>
> There is hope in having relatively cheap motherboards with integrated
> GPUs, one board less, one fan less, that will be able to do HD in all
> formats. The Intel chipset already has that nice way of adding ports
> (HDMI, DVI, Components, s-video, composite) through cheap add-on cards.
>
> I have such a combination. But I am currently using an nVIDIA card. The
> intel driver was not mature enough (v2.1) and lacked features. It was a
> complete rewrite from the i830 stuff, and only a limited people had
> access to the specs.
>
> I would be ready to bet that within 1 year we will all be laughing at
> our nVIDIA days.
>
> Then again, nVIDIA could wake-up.

IMHO, I see that having Intel graphics drivers as an option would be a
welcome addition to the mix of hardware for mythtv. I am definitely in
the "slim/thin frontend client" camp, and for that purpose, I cannot see
the sense in tweaking up the horsepower of my slim/thin frontend clients
to push HD video content when the GPU's I already have can (and should
be able to) do it..

-Rich
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gull at gull

Feb 12, 2008, 11:26 AM

Post #15 of 64 (1540 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Feb 12, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Nicolas Will wrote:

>
> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:22 -0700, Brian Phillips wrote:
>>> Do you
>> think that if I were to get a board based on the 965 or G33 that as
>> the
>> driver matured and more of the MPEG2/H.264 acceleration would be
>> taken
>> away
>> from the CPU and the CPU would actually have spare cycles in the
>> future?
>
> I do think that, yes. This is what i said in my previous post.
>
> Do I want to be held accountable for my posts? No.
>
> But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with preliminary
> hardware acceleration.

Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?

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nico at youplala

Feb 12, 2008, 11:41 AM

Post #16 of 64 (1538 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 11:26 -0800, David Brodbeck wrote:
>
> On Feb 12, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Nicolas Will wrote:
>
> >
> > On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:22 -0700, Brian Phillips wrote:
> >>> Do you
> >> think that if I were to get a board based on the 965 or G33 that as
> >> the
> >> driver matured and more of the MPEG2/H.264 acceleration would be
> >> taken
> >> away
> >> from the CPU and the CPU would actually have spare cycles in the
> >> future?
> >
> > I do think that, yes. This is what i said in my previous post.
> >
> > Do I want to be held accountable for my posts? No.
> >
> > But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with
> preliminary
> > hardware acceleration.
>
> Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
> were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?

If you are playing 3D shooters, they are not comparable to high-end
nVIDIA chips.

For our use in MythTV, they are way more than enough.

My mother-in-low is running a full 3D Compiz desktop on an old Intel 830
GPU without any slow-down.

GMA900, 950, 300 and 3100 were great improvements.

Nico

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johnrobertmassengale at gmail

Feb 12, 2008, 11:45 AM

Post #17 of 64 (1540 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Feb 12, 2008 11:41 AM, Nicolas Will <nico[at]youplala.net> wrote:

>
> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 11:26 -0800, David Brodbeck wrote:
> >
> > On Feb 12, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Nicolas Will wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:22 -0700, Brian Phillips wrote:
> > >>> Do you
> > >> think that if I were to get a board based on the 965 or G33 that as
> > >> the
> > >> driver matured and more of the MPEG2/H.264 acceleration would be
> > >> taken
> > >> away
> > >> from the CPU and the CPU would actually have spare cycles in the
> > >> future?
> > >
> > > I do think that, yes. This is what i said in my previous post.
> > >
> > > Do I want to be held accountable for my posts? No.
> > >
> > > But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with
> > preliminary
> > > hardware acceleration.
> >
> > Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
> > were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> > acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?
>
> If you are playing 3D shooters, they are not comparable to high-end
> nVIDIA chips.
>
> For our use in MythTV, they are way more than enough.
>
> My mother-in-low is running a full 3D Compiz desktop on an old Intel 830
> GPU without any slow-down.
>
> GMA900, 950, 300 and 3100 were great improvements.
>
> Nico
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users[at]mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>



What is the name/model number of this upcoming hardware from Hauppauge that
will encode directly to h.264?

John


brian.phillips at gmx

Feb 12, 2008, 11:50 AM

Post #18 of 64 (1539 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
David Brodbeck wrote:
> Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
> were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?

Browsing the link he gave in his post yields yet another link to this
website:
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboard/index.htm

Which is a list of intel boards. They have a set that seems to cater to
multimedia PCs. 6 USB ports, DVI outputs, mATX, etc.

If Intel has the "business class" stigma, IMO, it's left over from the days
when gamers ruled the market and there was nVIDIA vs ATI, and then Intel was
the "economic" choice. I don't think you need to have the 3D acceleration
for games that nVIDIA and ATI have, you just need the Intel chip to be able
to decode MPEG2 and MPEG4 content. I don't think MPEG2 and MPEG4 algorithms
are bleeding edge...

>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users[at]mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users


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itsbruce at workshy

Feb 12, 2008, 11:54 AM

Post #19 of 64 (1540 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
> > But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with preliminary
> > hardware acceleration.
>
> Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
> were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?

NVidia cards are better for games but the Intel chipsets have decent
support for motion compensation and other features that are useful to
MythTV. If all you are using a box for is a media centre, then Intel
offers good value, particularly if you are trying for a quiet, small
form-factor machine. I think the new Intel Mac Minis (or something
custom-built to a similar spec) would be perfectly capable of handling
HDTV, for example.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC

--
Bruce

The ice-caps are melting, tra-la-la-la. All the world is drowning,
tra-la-la-la-la. -- Tiny Tim.
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kawayanan at gmail

Feb 12, 2008, 11:58 AM

Post #20 of 64 (1539 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
John Massengale wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2008 11:41 AM, Nicolas Will <nico[at]youplala.net
> <mailto:nico[at]youplala.net>> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 11:26 -0800, David Brodbeck wrote:
> >
> > On Feb 12, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Nicolas Will wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 10:22 -0700, Brian Phillips wrote:
> > >>> Do you
> > >> think that if I were to get a board based on the 965 or G33
> that as
> > >> the
> > >> driver matured and more of the MPEG2/H.264 acceleration would be
> > >> taken
> > >> away
> > >> from the CPU and the CPU would actually have spare cycles in the
> > >> future?
> > >
> > > I do think that, yes. This is what i said in my previous post.
> > >
> > > Do I want to be held accountable for my posts? No.
> > >
> > > But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with
> > preliminary
> > > hardware acceleration.
> >
> > Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
> > were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> > acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?
>
> If you are playing 3D shooters, they are not comparable to high-end
> nVIDIA chips.
>
> For our use in MythTV, they are way more than enough.
>
> My mother-in-low is running a full 3D Compiz desktop on an old
> Intel 830
> GPU without any slow-down.
>
> GMA900, 950, 300 and 3100 were great improvements.
>
> Nico
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users[at]mythtv.org <mailto:mythtv-users[at]mythtv.org>
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>
>
> What is the name/model number of this upcoming hardware from Hauppauge
> that will encode directly to h.264?
>
> John
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users[at]mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
Here is the press release, but be warned, its a pdf.
http://www.hauppauge.com/PDFs/Hauppauge_HD_recorder.pdf

It looks pretty nice to me, I just wish it was cheaper. :(
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nico at youplala

Feb 12, 2008, 12:01 PM

Post #21 of 64 (1538 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 12:50 -0700, Brian Phillips wrote:
> David Brodbeck wrote:
> > Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that they
> > were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> > acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?
>
> Browsing the link he gave in his post yields yet another link to this
> website:
> http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboard/index.htm
>
> Which is a list of intel boards. They have a set that seems to cater
> to
> multimedia PCs. 6 USB ports, DVI outputs, mATX, etc.

I have this board:

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DG965WH/index.htm

lot's of SATA, if needed, RAID, if needed, optical S/PDIF, and a good
enough (when the drivers will be written from the just released docs)
GPU.

It doesn't have DVI or HDMI on-board, but it can use this:

http://prolink-usa.com/item_disp.php?upc=2006886907073

And this is already supported, and it is cheap.

Here is my full setup:

http://www.youplala.net/linux/home-theater-pc

I'm waiting on the WD GP 1 TB disk that will replace the 2 noisy 250
Gigs spindles.

Nico

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myth at dermanouelian

Feb 12, 2008, 12:02 PM

Post #22 of 64 (1538 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Feb 12, 2008, at 11:58 AM, kawayanan wrote:

> Here is the press release, but be warned, its a pdf.
> http://www.hauppauge.com/PDFs/Hauppauge_HD_recorder.pdf
>
> It looks pretty nice to me, I just wish it was cheaper. :(

Before this announcement, the only hope of doing the same thing is
with pro equipment at thousands of dollars. I'm thrilled with the
price. :)

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nico at youplala

Feb 12, 2008, 12:08 PM

Post #23 of 64 (1540 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 19:54 +0000, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> > > But there is already a git branch of the intel driver with
> preliminary
> > > hardware acceleration.
> >
> > Hmm. How good is it? My impression of Intel chipsets is that
> they
> > were intended for business use, and didn't have much in the way of
> > acceleration. Is that an outdated assumption?
>
> NVidia cards are better for games but the Intel chipsets have decent
> support for motion compensation and other features that are useful to
> MythTV. If all you are using a box for is a media centre, then Intel
> offers good value, particularly if you are trying for a quiet, small
> form-factor machine. I think the new Intel Mac Minis (or something
> custom-built to a similar spec) would be perfectly capable of handling
> HDTV, for example.
>
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC

If your read the Intel part, you will see that the situation is not rosy
*now*.

XVMC is only supported on the i810 driver, and only on very old Intel
GPUs.

XVMC is supported in a weird branch of git on the intel driver, and with
GPU limitations too.

In any case, both drivers could only do stuff around MPEG2, not H.264,
and not the best stuff either

i810 is an old driver not seeing development anymore.
intel is the new driver, used to be called the modsetting branch. It is
seeing active development, with great guys involved. Until the docs
release, only a few people had access to the proper information for
advance functionality. This situation has now changed.

Not great now, will certainly be great quickly.

And yes, H.264 has pretty nifty algorithms involved.

Nico

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aclose at gmail

Feb 12, 2008, 12:20 PM

Post #24 of 64 (1532 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Feb 12, 2008 1:50 PM, Brian Phillips <brian.phillips[at]gmx.net> wrote:

> Browsing the link he gave in his post yields yet another link to this
> website:
> http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboard/index.htm
>
> Which is a list of intel boards. They have a set that seems to cater to
> multimedia PCs. 6 USB ports, DVI outputs, mATX, etc.

fairly impressive list of specs. you can get the intel dg33tl at
TigerDirect.com with a 2.4GHz Quad Core processor right now for ~$370
US before tax/shipping
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3538876&Sku=MBM-G33TL-Q6600&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&CMP=OTC-GOOGLEBASE

that board has some pretty impressive specs and would be awesome if it
had the full array of drivers to go with it.
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nico at youplala

Feb 12, 2008, 12:29 PM

Post #25 of 64 (1532 views)
Permalink
Re: A paradigm shift is coming. Are you ready? [In reply to]
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 14:20 -0600, Andrew Close wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2008 1:50 PM, Brian Phillips <brian.phillips[at]gmx.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Browsing the link he gave in his post yields yet another link to
> this
> > website:
> > http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboard/index.htm
> >
> > Which is a list of intel boards. They have a set that seems to
> cater to
> > multimedia PCs. 6 USB ports, DVI outputs, mATX, etc.
>
> fairly impressive list of specs. you can get the intel dg33tl at
> TigerDirect.com with a 2.4GHz Quad Core processor right now for ~$370
> US before tax/shipping
> http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3538876&Sku=MBM-G33TL-Q6600&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&CMP=OTC-GOOGLEBASE
>
> that board has some pretty impressive specs and would be awesome if it
> had the full array of drivers to go with it.

Those drivers exist. Everything is supported on it.

The video will provide full 3D acceleration and all.

It "just" needs the MPEG-2/H.264 acceleration. It's not worse than a
current nVIDIA today.

Nico

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