[vdr] Re: VDR and LCD-TV

[Nicolas Huillard <nhuillard@ghs.fr>]

Michael Reinelt a écrit :
> Hi there,
>
> anybody out there played with this configuration?
That's what I plan for the future.

> I've got a VDR-System based on a (diskless) EPIA-M with a Nexus-S (2.1 
> or 2.2, don't remember, but without J2), so no RGB signal. VGA on board, 
> but no DVI. Don't know if the Hardware-MPEG-Decoder of the EPIA is 
> supported by VDR or softdevide or something, 'cause I didn't need it 
> till today.
Xv supports it, and it actually works quite well. I use it through 
Debian packages provided here :

# Debian-EPIA-Packages (Sebastian AKA Kron) (http://via.animeland.de/)
deb     http://via.animeland.de sarge main
deb-src http://via.animeland.de sarge main

He provides the XFree86 and XvMC stuff, and rely on others for VDR 
packages themselves.


> Today I bought me a 30" LCD-TV (Thompson 30 LB 020 S4), 1280x768 Pixels. 
>  Cool device, but the picture quality of VDR is quite poor, not much 
> better than analog tv. I think it's because of the S-Video signal.
>
> The TV set has 3 SCART inputs (at least one with RGB), a VGA and a DVI 
> input.
>
> I've seen the device in the shop connected via DVI to a little PC, 
> playing a DVD: Excellent quality! I want this level of quality here!
>
> But - how to achieve?
>
> Lots of questions come to my mind:
>
> - would it make sense to get a Rev. 1.3/1.5/1.6 card to try the RGB signal?
I think the VGA output can provide a 1 to 1 pixel mapping between video 
memory to the actual display device, scaling would be done in the 
computer (on the CLE266). The RGB Scart output is not as flexible.

> - is it possible to use the onboard VGA (and the onboard MPEG decoder of 
> the Epia-M) with VDR? Would that improve quality?
I can't compare to the FF card output, but VGA is much better than 
S-video, and the onboard MPEG decoder is better than ffmpeg used by 
softdevice, mostly due to hardware video scaling at the decoding stage. 
If you can get the CLE266 to output 1280x768 (my /var/log/XFree86.0.log 
reports trying 1280x960, 1280x1024 et al, but not x768), and use 
hardware video scaling, I think you will have the best image possible. 
The refresh rate and interlace problems are still to be tested.

> - is it possible to use any VGA-card with DVI with VDR? Is the 
> EPIA-M6000 (600 MHz) powerful enough to do the MPEG decoding (from 
> Sat-TV *and* DVD/(s)VCD?
You have a good onboard video card (IMHO) : don't bother with another. 
600Mhz is enough for hardware decoding. I think it's also enough for 
software decoding, but others don't (might be really tight).

> - as the EPIA has only one PCI slot, the question above becomes a bit 
> obsolete :-)
Yes. Idem for the question below...

> - I want an absolutely noiseless VDR system, which means passively 
> cooled CPU. But I'd need two PCI slots (one for DVB card, one for VGA). 
> Are there such boards available?
Don't bother with another VGA. You system is good as-is.
Just remember that in "passively cooled", the word "cooled" remains : 
the CPU and VGA and DVB card will generate heat, that you have to get 
out of the case. The easiest way is to use a low-speed extractor fan. 
The not so easy way is to open vents in the case, to improve convection 
cooling, but mobos and PCI cards and general internal architecture of 
PC's are not convection-friendly...

--
NH