Hi,
Simon Baxter wrote:
I'm building a remote VDR device on a Dell GX260 SFF PC, which has 1x AGP low-rise slot and 1x PCI I'm having trouble finding a selection of video cards which will fit in the SFF case. Can someone recommend a card? It needs to have s-video out (doesn't need to have VGA - but must have s-video/Component/RGB)
This probably isn't the group for this, as I'm running XV and VDR really shines with FF DVB cards. Looks like there's very few options for s-video TV-OUT XV support in Linux. I've searched the Matrox, Savage and NVIDIA - nothing has particularly good support for accelerated s-video. I am running another VDR machine with an S3 Unichrome 2D/3D chipset and s-video - works really well! This new VDR box is low-rise though, so I need a small card....
Are you looking for a "mini-PCI" card, a low-profile PCI or low-profile AGP? A mini-PCI card usually goes in a laptop or a very tiny appliance.
I'm not sure where you're getting the "no on makes good accelerated s-video for Linux", any new ATI or nVidia card has TV-out support in Linux (by using the vendors proprietary driver).
For an AGP/PCI card, something based on the nVidia MX-4000 or FX5200 should be cheap and low-profile.
Here's a link to a low-profile AGP card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127128
And here's a link to a low-profile PCI card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814139174
You aren't very specific by "hardware acceleration" -- do you mean MPEG2 decoding, or something else? Regardless, any newish nVidia card (> Ti4xxx series), like the MX4000, supports XvMC which allows the video card's GPU to perform the MPEG-2 decoding. Xine/xinelibouput supports XvMC as an output method, so you could get fully hardware accelerated video decoding.
I am using an nVidia 6200TC with VDR and softdevice and my TV-out (via s-video), without any XvMC my CPU utilization when playing StandardDef content is acceptable, <30% on a Pentium-M running at 800 MHz.
I've done testing with XvMC on the 6200TC playing back a 1080i stream (via mplayer) and I get CPU utilization < 10%...that's pretty low to me.
Regards, CR.
This probably isn't the group for this, as I'm running XV and VDR really shines with FF DVB cards. Looks like there's very few options for s-video TV-OUT XV support in Linux. I've searched the Matrox, Savage and NVIDIA - nothing has particularly good support for accelerated s-video. I am running another VDR machine with an S3 Unichrome 2D/3D chipset and s-video - works really well! This new VDR box is low-rise though, so I need a small card....
Are you looking for a "mini-PCI" card, a low-profile PCI or low-profile AGP? A mini-PCI card usually goes in a laptop or a very tiny appliance.
Sorry, I guess I'm mixing my technologies. I'm just looking for a low-profile AGP
I'm not sure where you're getting the "no on makes good accelerated s-video for Linux", any new ATI or nVidia card has TV-out support in Linux (by using the vendors proprietary driver).
In my searching, on the MythTV support pages etc, the support for XvMC and s-video seemed very poor. I was searching Matrox, nVidia & Savage.
For an AGP/PCI card, something based on the nVidia MX-4000 or FX5200 should be cheap and low-profile.
Here's a link to a low-profile AGP card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127128
And here's a link to a low-profile PCI card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814139174
These look ideal
You aren't very specific by "hardware acceleration" -- do you mean MPEG2 decoding, or something else? Regardless, any newish nVidia card (> Ti4xxx series), like the MX4000, supports XvMC which allows the video card's GPU to perform the MPEG-2 decoding. Xine/xinelibouput supports XvMC as an output method, so you could get fully hardware accelerated video decoding.
Yes, just MPEG decoding for use with Xine/xineliboutput
I am using an nVidia 6200TC with VDR and softdevice and my TV-out (via s-video), without any XvMC my CPU utilization when playing StandardDef content is acceptable, <30% on a Pentium-M running at 800 MHz.
I've done testing with XvMC on the 6200TC playing back a 1080i stream (via mplayer) and I get CPU utilization < 10%...that's pretty low to me.
Thanks for your help
On 26 Oct 2006, at 15:08, Simon Baxter wrote:
In my searching, on the MythTV support pages etc, the support for XvMC and s-video seemed very poor. I was searching Matrox, nVidia & Savage.
If you can swap motherboard & processor, then there's support for accelerated mpeg2 decoding using via epia boards with the cle266 chipset using the softdevice plugin. See http://www.mellander.org/per/ projects/linux/?chapter=epia-hw-cle266. field parity with interlaced output is still not perfect though.
hi,
CR writes:
I'm not sure where you're getting the "no on makes good accelerated s-video for Linux", any new ATI or nVidia card has TV-out support in Linux (by using the vendors proprietary driver).
I would warn against ATI chipsets. My radeon 9200 has been just dropped out of support by the proprietary driver.
The last version (that still works with my current kernel) does not support XV, Xorg, and TVout combination (shows only the top half of the picture), so I have to use Xshm (and waste natural resources, not to mention CPU cooler humming). And the Xorg open driver does not give TVout. The next time I would upgrade kernel, the card would become garbage.
And it was not possible to upgrade to the newest kernel, as typically the proprietary driver would support it a month or two later. So kernel upgrading is two phase: download the source package, then wait for a couple of months, download the ATI driver, then compile and install.
I guess I would prefer to buy a new flat TV with VGA input instead of another graphics card. At least: no ATI any more.
yours, Jouni
In 17729.44695.157412.200851@tele.netlab.hut.fi, Jouni Karvo wrote:
CR writes:
I'm not sure where you're getting the "no on makes good accelerated s-video for Linux", any new ATI or nVidia card has TV-out support in Linux (by using the vendors proprietary driver).
I would warn against ATI chipsets. My radeon 9200 has been just dropped out of support by the proprietary driver.
The last version (that still works with my current kernel) does not support XV, Xorg, and TVout combination (shows only the top half of the picture), so I have to use Xshm (and waste natural resources, not to mention CPU cooler humming). And the Xorg open driver does not give TVout. The next time I would upgrade kernel, the card would become garbage.
You might be able to carry on using it with the free driver, and get a much better picture via RGB than the nasty S-Video scaler. See the TV-out Howto on my website (below). Making the lead isn't easy though. It would probably be easiest to start with a VGA lead and cut one end off. And most video players don't support vsync with X so although it should be possible in theory to play interlaced programmes "perfectly", in practice you'll need to use a CPU-hungry deinterlace filter.
For good quality S-Video or composite you can easily get a used Matrox or Voodoo 3 from eBay. But probably not half height like the OP wanted. The Matrox is trickier to use because it uses DirectFB, but it has the advantage of vsync for interlaced programmes.
And it was not possible to upgrade to the newest kernel, as typically the proprietary driver would support it a month or two later. So kernel upgrading is two phase: download the source package, then wait for a couple of months, download the ATI driver, then compile and install.
I found that annoying when I was using an ATI card too. Mine was a 9600 so I had to go without 3D acceleration most of the time. Even if the closed driver did catch up with the kernel, it didn't support Xinerama, which I was using. And you couldn't just shut down X then restart it with the other driver. You had to do a full reboot otherwise the card would lock up.
I guess I would prefer to buy a new flat TV with VGA input instead of another graphics card. At least: no ATI any more.
Whatever faults LCD TVs have compared with CRTs (personally I like them, but choosing carefully is essential), being able to connect a PC just like a monitor is a big advantage.
-
CR -
Jouni Karvo -
Simon Baxter -
Tony Houghton -
Torgeir Veimo