MythTV + vdpau now playing 1080i HD content well in 0810 alpha

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

Together with niz23 we have been testing adding vdpau support to MythTV to allow it to exploit hardware acceleration of HD content playback in MythTV. Today we have successfully tested a Core running a AMD 4800+ processor with an nVidia 9400GT card and an MD based on the Zotac ATOM 330 / nVidia Ion motherboard with a range of programming from the BBC HD channel on the UK 's Freesat service. The BBC HD channel is broadcast in h.264 format at 1080i and we have successfully watched and recorded 4-5 hours of shows on both the Core and the MD with glassy smooth playback on both. On the the Core we see about 15-17% CPU utilisation and on the ATOm board we see around 25%. In both cases the playback is the smoothest we have ever seen and we are totally blown away by it.

Here is the url to the patched MythTV with vdpau (0804, 0810 & 0904 versions are available here)  http://avenard.com/media/Ubuntu_Repository/Ubuntu_Repository.html

***Be aware this patch will only work if you have nVidia hardware in the 8000 and above range...and will almost certainly break systems with other graphics cards***

More later.

Andrew

[darrenmason]

Very impressive guys. Well Done.

[chriss]

Wow, great work and impressive results!

[sp00nhead]

Nice work

[geekyhawkes]

Good work, now if only there was a patch so my mrs could appreciate the difference between SD and HD content!

[niz23]

So far it seem to work fine.

One thing I have noticed is that vdpau seem to need a good quality mpeg streams.
Have a dvb-t channel at my place with only 30% signal quality. Sometimes myth-frontend lock up for 5-6s.

As totallymaxed mentioned. Do not install this mythtv version unless you have a 8xxx or 9xxx class nVidia GPU.
According to the guy that wrote the patches later versions of the code check if your system is vdpau enabled.

I have not tested if that is the case.

/niz23

[totallymaxed]

Good work, now if only there was a patch so my mrs could appreciate the difference between SD and HD content!

I have to say that when you look at them side by side there is a pretty impressive difference. Here in the UK if you add DVB-S to your system of course you get a sprinkling of HD channels anyway and so the 'cost' of using HD is really negligible if your TV's are already HD ready.

Andrew

[geekyhawkes]

Andrew;

out of interest which DVB-S are you using to get Freesat in the UK?  Im thinking this could be a nice addition to my setup as I would have the Kworld twin tuner for most recordings / MD and then the DVB--S for BBC HD and the other free to air channels

[totallymaxed]

Andrew;

out of interest which DVB-S are you using to get Freesat in the UK?  Im thinking this could be a nice addition to my setup as I would have the Kworld twin tuner for most recordings / MD and then the DVB--S for BBC HD and the other free to air channels

We use a range of DVB-S tuners but the ones we are testing Myth & Freesat HD with are DVBWorld HD-2104's. See my wiki page on this tuner here; http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php/DVBworld_HD-2104-USB-S2

Andrew

[geekyhawkes]

Thanks.  I am assuming this will be supported by your updated V4l package that includes Kworld USB support in 810?  Looks a nice solution but bloody difficult to find anyone that stocks it (uk wise).  I did find one website that offered me 1000 of them (albeit at 36USD ea)!

[totallymaxed]

Thanks.  I am assuming this will be supported by your updated V4l package that includes Kworld USB support in 810?  Looks a nice solution actually and sensibly priced for HD capable DVB-S

If we build an 0810 v4l package then it should be available in the Beta's. the big advantage of the 2104 is that it has its own power supply and therefore puts no load on the Core's power supply whatsoever...this is important with DVB-S as multiple cards can draw considerable amounts of power if in a PCI slot or powered from the USB bus.

Andrew

[colinjones]

Andrew - can I ask a fairly obvious question? Why MythTV, not VDR? I thought both CHT and Niz23 both used VDR exclusively?

Also, I think, from the nVidia documentation, that even 7000 series _integrated_ chipsets _with_ the PV feature will also support VDPAU, such as the 7050PV.

[totallymaxed]

Andrew - can I ask a fairly obvious question? Why MythTV, not VDR? I thought both CHT and Niz23 both used VDR exclusively?

Also, I think, from the nVidia documentation, that even 7000 series _integrated_ chipsets _with_ the PV feature will also support VDPAU, such as the 7050PV.

Hi Colin,

Well since last Friday we have been running some tests on MythTV 0.21 (the current stable version available for 8.10/9.04)...initially this was just out of interest to compare how it handled 'weak' or disrupted signals from DVB-S...as part of our prep for 0810. However once we go it installed we very quickly realised how far MythTv has come since we last looked at it (probably 3'ish years ago now!). What we discovered was Myth has evolved to have;

- Full Multiplex recording (the original reason why we went with vdr)
- Very powerful and sophisticated recording timers that integrate really well with off-air EPG data
- A really well designed and easily skinnable OSD
- An equally well designed/skinnable EPG that uses all of the off-air EPG data (like 'Genre'...record all the 'Thrillers' automatically for me)
- A fully integrated MHEG interactive services engine...this means that all the UK off-air MHEG based broadcast services are now accessible to
- Excellent support for capture cards and configuration options to squeeze as much quality out of them as possible
- Excellent support for HD from DVB-S and support for the vdpau Nvidia api NOW.

So the upshot is that weare almost certainly going to transition as a company to MythTV in the very near future. All our vdr code and changes are in the svn I believe and will be part of 0810 Beta's but we will focus from now on MythTV and you will see in time any changes, fixes etc for Myth uploaded by us to the svn too.

I know this might seem a big change (and it is!) but when we weighed up all that MythTV can do now against vdr and the uncertain time we will wait for the 1.7x release...it really was an easy decision.

All the best

Andrew

PS I'm happy to discuss this in more detail here if people want to understand why we have made this decision

[wierdbeard65]

Grrrrrr!

So, are you suggesting that those of us in the UK, about to go with 810 alpha (and starting the journey) are recommended to use Myth not VDR?

Initially, I'll be using a single PVR150 connected to my Sky STB, but as soon as everything is up and ruinning and the family are happy, I intend to add a couple of DVB-S cards and a Quad LNB (Or possibly DVB-T cards and an aerial - but that's another discussion).

I'm keen to have the most painless experience as possible

[colinjones]

Andrew - can I ask a fairly obvious question? Why MythTV, not VDR? I thought both CHT and Niz23 both used VDR exclusively?

Also, I think, from the nVidia documentation, that even 7000 series _integrated_ chipsets _with_ the PV feature will also support VDPAU, such as the 7050PV.

Hi Colin,

Well since last Friday we have been running some tests on MythTV 0.21 (the current stable version available for 8.10/9.04)...initially this was just out of interest to compare how it handled 'weak' or disrupted signals from DVB-S...as part of our prep for 0810. However once we go it installed we very quickly realised how far MythTv has come since we last looked at it (probably 3'ish years ago now!). What we discovered was Myth has evolved to have;

- Full Multiplex recording (the original reason why we went with vdr)
- Very powerful and sophisticated recording timers that integrate really well with off-air EPG data
- A really well designed and easily skinnable OSD
- An equally well designed/skinnable EPG that uses all of the off-air EPG data (like 'Genre'...record all the 'Thrillers' automatically for me)
- A fully integrated MHEG interactive services engine...this means that all the UK off-air MHEG based broadcast services are now accessible to
- Excellent support for capture cards and configuration options to squeeze as much quality out of them as possible
- Excellent support for HD from DVB-S and support for the vdpau Nvidia api NOW.

So the upshot is that weare almost certainly going to transition as a company to MythTV in the very near future. All our vdr code and changes are in the svn I believe and will be part of 0810 Beta's but we will focus from now on MythTV and you will see in time any changes, fixes etc for Myth uploaded by us to the svn too.

I know this might seem a big change (and it is!) but when we weighed up all that MythTV can do now against vdr and the uncertain time we will wait for the 1.7x release...it really was an easy decision.

All the best

Andrew

PS I'm happy to discuss this in more detail here if people want to understand why we have made this decision

Wow - that is big!!! Well I guess then its time for me to head that way as well. The main issues I had with MythTV (and I only really tried it twice, so harly a fair run, and never really got it working!) was the initial setup config was really confusing to me, and the interface was so obviously different from LMCE's GUI. I know the latter was a concern to you in the past, as well. What is your position now, and do you intend addressing that at all, can it be addressed, and how much work is involved, do you think?