MythTV on nVidia ION platform

[Jarod Wilson]

On 08/08/2009 02:23 AM, Tom Metro wrote:
> Jarod Wilson wrote:
>> Generally speaking, clean HDTV recordings and the bulk of h.264 1080p
>> material plays back *flawlessly*...
>
> Neat.
>
>
>> Note that this means the single-core 32-bit atom ought to be just as
>> playback-capable.
>>
>> Note also that purchasing an nVidia GeForce 8 or 9 series will get
>> you the same sort of GPU-based VDPAU decoding offload.
>
> Hmmm...I see netbooks selling for under $200 now with CPUs that ought to
> be adequate. They'd make a nice small, quite platform. But I doubt any
> have adequate graphics adapters built-in.

Generally, no, they don't. They have Intel GMA950 graphics. But there 
are supposed to be a few ION netbooks coming Real Soon Now.

Ah, there's also another possible route that has recently come to my 
attention: a Broadcom BCM970012 decoder card. There's a linux driver for 
it in the works, and that, paired with Intel graphics, should be about 
on par with the ION for playback ability.

Its already available as a mini-pci-e card (though I don't know where to 
purchase one not bundled with a system outside of eBay), and will soon 
be available as a pci-e x1 card and an expresscard as well. Its bundled 
in some Dell systems as the 'Broadcom BD Accelerator', and in the new HP 
Mini 110 as something else. Its fairly recently sprouted more 
general-purpose than just BD acceleration capabilities via a firmware 
and driver update...

> I wonder if anyone has packaged a nVidia GeForce 8 or 9 into a USB VGA
> adapter? Given the limited USB bandwidth, probably not, but for this
> application it might do the job if decompression is happening in the
> video chipset.

Yeah, I'm only aware of PCI, PCIe and onboard variants. There isn't even 
an AGP version (which is annoying...).

--jarod