[vdr] A new generation of DVB devices

[Guido Fiala]

On Wednesday 12 October 2005 19:20, Luca Olivetti wrote:
> En/na Morfsta ha escrit:
> > At the moment I am experimenting with HDTV on my Pioneer PDP435XDE. I can
> > receive all the test broadcasts via Astra(s) and Hotbird. I use vdr-xine
> > on an Athlon 3000+ (2.3Ghz), 512Mb RAM, Skystar2 and a Nvidia MX440 using
> > X11 at 720p. The picture is perfect and perfectly smooth. Unfortunately I
> > cannot receive the DVB-S2 MPEG4 broadcast of the SKY UK HD demo at 28.2
> > degrees East.
>
> how much cpu is used with this setup?
>

I'am almost certain, that no matter how much cpu power you have, there will 
always be audio/video glitches with software decoding under certain 
circumstances - high i/o-load, other processes running etc.
(a friend of mine has such a ultra-mega-high-end-system running XP but didn't 
hear and bought just a budget card - he must run the system completly 
unloaded to be able to watch TV, otherwise all sorts of glitches apear)

Remember - linux still hasn't realtime scheduling for multimedia purposes 
included, KURT was once the right way to go, IMHO, but it didn't made it.

##A dedicated hardware decoder is therefore really useful for undisturbed 
watching.##

Besides you can use a much less power hungry system and still have some cycles 
to make your box more than a media-center - mine is used as a workstation at 
the same time, doing email, internet, programming etc.