Minimum requirements for HDhomerun

[slow_learner]

Question to the experts,

I'm running LMCE 0710 on a dell optiplex gx 270, p4 2.8GHZ processor, 2 gigs ram, nvidia 6000 graphics card.  using a linksys WRT54G as switch, LMCE is being used as router.  have hauppage pvr 150 and HDHomerun setup as well.  both card and hdhomerun are functional after some setup issues.  I have comcast cable in san francisco.  Problem comes when watching Live HD TV. analog tv on pvr150 not the issue.  there is a lot of stuttering, constant stuttering.  not enough to lock up mythtv, but too much to be satisfied with.  The picture is perfect otherwise.

The question is, do I have enough horsepower to run HDhomerun on my network?  right now I have no other MDs setup other than my core/hybrid.  I do have laptops running wirelessly on the network, but not in such a way to tie up a lot of bandwith. 

I feel if i threw another MD on the system, watching live HD tv on it would be impossible, given that I can't watch it now on the core.

thanks for any comments.

[totallymaxed]

Question to the experts,

I'm running LMCE 0710 on a dell optiplex gx 270, p4 2.8GHZ processor, 2 gigs ram, nvidia 6000 graphics card.  using a linksys WRT54G as switch, LMCE is being used as router.  have hauppage pvr 150 and HDHomerun setup as well.  both card and hdhomerun are functional after some setup issues.  I have comcast cable in san francisco.  Problem comes when watching Live HD TV. analog tv on pvr150 not the issue.  there is a lot of stuttering, constant stuttering.  not enough to lock up mythtv, but too much to be satisfied with.  The picture is perfect otherwise.

The question is, do I have enough horsepower to run HDhomerun on my network?  right now I have no other MDs setup other than my core/hybrid.  I do have laptops running wirelessly on the network, but not in such a way to tie up a lot of bandwith. 

I feel if i threw another MD on the system, watching live HD tv on it would be impossible, given that I can't watch it now on the core.

thanks for any comments.

We dont have a DVB-T version of the HDHomeRun yet so i have no direct experience with it but I would expect a 100mbit network to cope easily with multiple MD's and the HDHomerun simultaneously. So i guess there is some other issue at play.

Try adding an MD and then access some ripped DVD's stored on your Core or a NAS and see if they play ok.

Andrew

[Lexje]

Hello, just chiming in;

Andrew, do you have any knowledge of the HDHomerun being available for Europe?
I would be very interested in looking into one of these...

Thanks for your comment and a Happy New Year!!

Erwin

[totallymaxed]

Helo, just chiming in;

Andrew, do you have any knowledge of the HDHomerun being available for Europe?
I would be very interested in looking into one of these...

Thanks for your comment and a Happy New Year!!

Erwin

Hi Erwin,

Well the Euro version of the HDhomerun has been coming 'real soon now' for ages. I don't have any updated info what the current status is... but if I hear get any I will be sure to post it here on the forum.

Happy New Year

Andrew

[slow_learner]

thanks for the reply Andrew,

I've not had any problem playing 1.0 - 1.5 avi video files on MDs that are connected to the core through a 100Mbit linksys WRT54G.  I don't my DVD collection on my core in its original format, i compress them to better manage my storage space.  I will try an uncompressed movie just to make sure though.

To add to the list of strange symptoms, last night I had my core record a TV show using the feed from the HDHomerun, just to see if the stuttering would be present during playback of recorded content, in addition to the problems with watching live TV.  The results were surprising, but a disappointment.  Audio playback was smooth and clear, however the video playback still was stuttering.

I fear that its an issue with the core not having enough processing power to handle the HDHomerun, which surprises me because my experience with LMCE so far has been that you don't need an expensive machine to run it well.

Any more thoughts?

[Lexje]

Hi,

I suddenly realize I have been using a similar systems, all be it I used them as MD and not as core.
By coincidence I ran across one of my relevant notes today (dating from april 2008, and running an nvidia 6200 if memory doesn' t fail on me):

Code: [Select]

adapted /etc/X11/xorg.conf
However, there is a new options that you can put in the "Screen" sections of /etc/X11/xorg.conf: Option "UseEvents" "True" That fixes the high cpu usage. Now mythfrontend uses about 60% and Xorg only about 5%, a huge improvement.
- I also set nvidia logo to true just to verify the drivers were loading allright, and it worked!!
You never know..
All the best,

Erwin

[slow_learner]

thank you, I'll give it a go and let you know what happens.

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

I suddenly realize I have been using a similar systems, all be it I used them as MD and not as core.
By coincidence I ran across one of my relevant notes today (dating from april 2008, and running an nvidia 6200 if memory doesn' t fail on me):

Code: [Select]

adapted /etc/X11/xorg.conf
However, there is a new options that you can put in the "Screen" sections of /etc/X11/xorg.conf: Option "UseEvents" "True" That fixes the high cpu usage. Now mythfrontend uses about 60% and Xorg only about 5%, a huge improvement.
- I also set nvidia logo to true just to verify the drivers were loading allright, and it worked!!
You never know..
All the best,

Erwin

Hmmm... good point on the nVidia card... exactyl which nVidia '6000' series card are you using?

Andrew

[colinjones]

According to SiliconDust the HDHomeRun DVB-T is "in production" run now, for first deliveries sometime this month....

[slow_learner]

in response to the question about which nvidia card I'm using, I don't have the packaging anymore, but its the nivida GForce 6200 series card i think, pci, has DVI, S-video, and VGA out plugs.  256 MB onboard memory.

does that make sense?

[slow_learner]

OK,

I looked at my xorg.conf file and saw that the entry suggested by Erwin in a previous post was already there.  so I hit a dead end there. one peculiar thing I saw in reading through my config file was that when it mentions a graphics chipset, it names an intel chipset.  i would have thought that with an geforce card in the machine, it would not reference intel.  i've pasted in below my xorg file for someone to hopefully look at and see maybe what I'm seeing.  or to offer a solution.

# xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier   "Generic Keyboard"
   Driver      "kbd"
   Option      "CoreKeyboard"
   Option      "XkbRules"   "xorg"
   Option      "XkbModel"   "pc105"
   Option      "XkbLayout"   "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier   "Configured Mouse"
   Driver      "mouse"
   Option      "CorePointer"
   Option      "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"
   Option      "Protocol"      "ImPS/2"
   Option      "ZAxisMapping"      "4 5"
   Option      "Emulate3Buttons"   "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Driver      "wacom"
   Identifier   "stylus"
   Option      "Device"   "/dev/input/wacom"
   Option      "Type"      "stylus"
   Option      "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Driver      "wacom"
   Identifier   "eraser"
   Option      "Device"   "/dev/input/wacom"
   Option      "Type"      "eraser"
   Option      "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Driver      "wacom"
   Identifier   "cursor"
   Option      "Device"   "/dev/input/wacom"
   Option      "Type"      "cursor"
   Option      "ForceDevice"   "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier   "Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller"
   Driver      "nvidia"
   BusID      "PCI:1:8:0"
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option      "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "DELL E152FP"
   Option      "DPMS"
   Modeline    "800x600"       38.21   800  832  976 1008    600  612  618  631
   HorizSync   20-500
   VertRefresh   59-61
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier   "Default Screen"
   Device      "Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller"
   Monitor      "DELL E152FP"
   DefaultDepth   24
   SubSection "Display"
      Modes      "800x600"
      Virtual      800 600
   EndSubSection
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option   "TVStandard"   "800x600"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier   "Default Layout"
   Screen      "Default Screen"
   InputDevice   "Generic Keyboard"
   InputDevice   "Configured Mouse"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
#   InputDevice     "stylus"   "SendCoreEvents"
#   InputDevice     "cursor"   "SendCoreEvents"
#   InputDevice     "eraser"   "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
   Option "Composite" "false"
   Option "RENDER" "true"
EndSection

[colinjones]

Purely on the subject of your nVidia graphics chipset. You are right, Intel has nothing to do with the nVidia card you are using. But that line is just a text identifier, the fact that it says Intel and the Intel chip number is irrelevant - the only thing that matters is in the Screen section it refers to the same string as defined in the Device section.

As long as the Device section correctly selects the PCI Bus ID and the Driver then you are fine. You will probably find that the Intel string is a legacy of either xorg originally configuring itself to an onboard chipset before you switched/installed the nVidia and the string just didn't get updated, or perhaps even a legacy of the original xorg file on the build system used to create LMCE (less likely as this was a vmware instance for the DVD)

You can do an lspci from the command line and double check your PCI Bus ID for the nVidia card, but given the driver is correct, and it wouldn't work if it was still trying to use the Intel then I would say you are fine.

[slow_learner]

I'm getting about 70% - 75% signal strength with my HDHomerun and the cable setup in my home.  could that be the reason I'm getting the video stutter?

[colinjones]

Signal strength readings on tuners are highly arbitrary and certainly cannot be compared outside the same product/model, so perhaps others with an HDHomeRun can give you a feel - Thom perhaps? But generally, if by stuttering you mean the entire image freezes for a short period, then continues normally then this isn't likely to be signal strength. Signal strength, and indeed, stream errors are usually characterised by the image disembling, tearing, pixelating or generally corrupting. It is certainly possible that the signal becomes so bad that it just freezes (without corruption) and then continues again, but that would be the exception, you wouldn't expect to see this happening repeatedly, just occasionally among the more common errors i described...