I'm getting a 43" Pioneer 435XDE plasma TV delivered and want to connect to it using the HDMI connection - obviously it will be much better quality and capable of delivering High Definition. Has anyone done this before?
Yes. With DVI/HDMI the quality is superb. All the defects of DVB-picture are _too_ visible. With HDTV material system is great.. :-)
But just to note, your display cannot make HDTV 720p resolution. Native resolution is 1024x768, 720p is 1280x720. But they advertise it being HD ready, so it should understand HDTV timings.
What's the best way to do it and the best video card (I guess a DVI based card with a DVI->HDMI cable??)
I use NVIDIA cards, which have full XXMC / XVMC acceleration with X11. My system is DVI->DVI cable to Sony projector. I tried Radeon 9200 -card with DVI, but I could not get picture with 10m cable. NVIDIA worked instantly.
Do people generally use X11 to display the output from VDR xine, or do people use framebuffer? If so, which card has acceleration best supported?
I'd say NVIDIA card has best acceleration (MPEG-playback) support for X servers. It includes 2048x2048 XV overlays for HDTV support if card is new enough (Geforce 3 I think is the oldest model, but I might be wrong).
Lot of people are running with G400 series card, but I think it doesn't allow accelerated HDTV playback. But for SDTV it is ok.
Are there any problems with aspect ratio, how does this work and what's the best X11 set-up if using X? Is the desktop properly hidden?
vdr-xine manages aspect ratios automatically. And on full screen mode desktop is hidden. I hope VDR could do aspect ratio thing this via signal tweaking (dreambox always 16:9-mode) or WSS-signals.
My setup isn't the best, I run standard KDE desktop and it works. But it is a bit heavy system.. :-) Initial trials I made with TVWM which worked ok.
You just need to make a decision how you want to drive your plasma TV: - 1080i, probably TV's deinterlacer generates progressive frames with low VDR cpu - 720p, xine has to make deinterlace => eats cpu cycles - native 1:1 resolution of plasma TV => same as 720p
Also Europeans sucked at defining 50Hz HDTV-modes (IMHO), not neccessarily you TV-set supports that. Major HDTV material is 60Hz or 24fps, and now for us it needs to be downconverted, because it was decided by 'idiots'. With PAL we got a larger resolution with 50Hz system compared to NTSC on similar video bandwidth. But with 720p/50 or 1080i/50 we do not gain anything. Just degraded quality. Ok, enough whining.
So your plasma might not support 1080i @ 50Hz, so euro-DVB video might judder. This information should be found on manual or net.
SMPTE 296M-2001 (720p/50Hz) modeline is already archived at vdr mailing list. I also have SMPTE 274M timings (1080i/50). ATSC 60Hz modelines are available on multiple places at Net.
Best regards, Jori
I've been trying to compile xine for the VDR plugins.
got the latest cvs for xine and applied the patches -did a ./autogen.sh --enable-vdr-keys on the xine-lib -did a ./configure -when I tried the make, after lots of output I get :
image.c:46:30: wand/magick_wand.h: No such file or directory image.c: In function `image_decode_data': image.c:86: error: `MagickBooleanType' undeclared (first use in this function) image.c:86: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once image.c:86: error: for each function it appears in.) image.c:86: error: syntax error before "status" image.c:87: error: `MagickWand' undeclared (first use in this function) image.c:87: error: `wand' undeclared (first use in this function) image.c:95: warning: implicit declaration of function `NewMagickWand' image.c:95: warning: nested extern declaration of `NewMagickWand' image.c:96: error: `status' undeclared (first use in this function) image.c:96: warning: implicit declaration of function `MagickReadImageBlob' image.c:96: warning: nested extern declaration of `MagickReadImageBlob' image.c:99: error: `MagickFalse' undeclared (first use in this function) image.c:100: warning: implicit declaration of function `DestroyMagickWand' image.c:100: warning: nested extern declaration of `DestroyMagickWand' image.c:105: warning: implicit declaration of function `MagickGetImageWidth' image.c:105: warning: nested extern declaration of `MagickGetImageWidth' image.c:106: warning: implicit declaration of function `MagickGetImageHeight' image.c:106: warning: nested extern declaration of `MagickGetImageHeight' image.c:108: warning: implicit declaration of function `MagickGetImagePixels' image.c:108: warning: nested extern declaration of `MagickGetImagePixels' image.c:108: error: `CharPixel' undeclared (first use in this function) image.c:109: warning: nested extern declaration of `DestroyMagickWand' make[3]: *** [xineplug_decode_image_la-image.lo] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/share/xine-cvs/xine-lib/src/libxinevdec' make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/share/xine-cvs/xine-lib/src' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/share/xine-cvs/xine-lib' make: *** [all] Error 2
help ! anyone ?
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:32:06 -0000, Simon Baxter linuxtv@nzbaxters.com wrote:
I've been trying to compile xine for the VDR plugins.
got the latest cvs for xine and applied the patches -did a ./autogen.sh --enable-vdr-keys on the xine-lib -did a ./configure
by running ./configure again, you are nullifiying your efforts to use the --enable-vdr-keys option... You don't need to run it after you run autogen [if you do, use that option for configure also]
-when I tried the make, after lots of output I get :
image.c:46:30: wand/magick_wand.h: No such file or directory
This one is too easy...you need to install 'libmagick6-dev'
hope this helps :)
whoMAN
jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com wrote:
Also Europeans sucked at defining 50Hz HDTV-modes (IMHO), not neccessarily you TV-set supports that. Major HDTV material is 60Hz or 24fps, and now for us it needs to be downconverted, because it was decided by 'idiots'. With PAL we got a larger resolution with 50Hz system compared to NTSC on similar video bandwidth. But with 720p/50 or 1080i/50 we do not gain anything. Just degraded quality. Ok, enough whining.
The principal reason Europe has 50Hz frame rates and the US has 60Hz, is because these are the frequencies used by the respective countries mains electricity generators.
Video being only 1Vp-p in level means only small (20mV or so), levels of mains hum (due to ground loops etc.) are visible in the picture and by keeping the frequencies the same, the hum bars appear stationary or very slowly drifting through the picture and so much less intrusively visible.
Regards,
Richard
Richard Scobie wrote:
jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com wrote:
Also Europeans sucked at defining 50Hz HDTV-modes (IMHO), not neccessarily you TV-set supports that. Major HDTV material is 60Hz or 24fps, and now for us it needs to be downconverted, because it was decided by 'idiots'. With PAL we got a larger resolution with 50Hz system compared to NTSC on similar video bandwidth. But with 720p/50 or 1080i/50 we do not gain anything. Just degraded quality. Ok, enough whining.
The principal reason Europe has 50Hz frame rates and the US has 60Hz, is because these are the frequencies used by the respective countries mains electricity generators.
Video being only 1Vp-p in level means only small (20mV or so), levels of mains hum (due to ground loops etc.) are visible in the picture and by keeping the frequencies the same, the hum bars appear stationary or very slowly drifting through the picture and so much less intrusively visible.
Originally yes. To my understanding these problems have been long gone (due PSUs) so choice of 50Hz for HDTV makes little sence - especially when it comes to digital broadcasting. Most likely the decision was based on history and politics.
What I'm wondering also is the WUXGA resolution (1366x768 - or something like that) that is claimed to be HDTV resolution. I haven't seen such a resolution anywhere. IIRC, in standard HDTV resolutions are 1920x1080 (i/p) and 1280x720p. I'd really hate to see if movies are again remastered to different formats (ala NTSC -> PAL)..
Br, Pasi
On Friday 18 February 2005 14.44, jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com wrote:
I'd say NVIDIA card has best acceleration (MPEG-playback) support for X servers. It includes 2048x2048 XV overlays for HDTV support if card is new enough (Geforce 3 I think is the oldest model, but I might be wrong).
[ .. ]
You just need to make a decision how you want to drive your plasma TV:
- 1080i, probably TV's deinterlacer generates progressive frames with low
VDR cpu - 720p, xine has to make deinterlace => eats cpu cycles
- native 1:1 resolution of plasma TV => same as 720p
One 'warning' though; with nvidia, you will most likely not be able to do 1920x1080i through DVI, many have tried and failed. ;-( (Obviously me being one of them..) (I'd very much be proven wrong, but so far, I have not heard about one single sole that has been able to do this)
It does work with 720p though. (But with all this 1080i material out there, that would be a shame). I currently run my projector with 1920x1080p over the VGA port instead, which is not as nice, but what can one do..
- Micael
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jori.hamalainen＠teliasonera.com -
Micael Beronius -
Pasi Juppo -
Richard Scobie -
Simon Baxter -
whoMAN