Mar
27
2010
I need a new videocard for playing hd recordings on my HTPC
Posted by Robert Verspuy in Hardware, HTPC, Linux, tags: Hardware, HDMI, HDtv, HTPC, MythTV, nvidia, vdpauSince a few weeks, I can record tv programs in HD quality (1080i), but unfortunately my htpc isn’t powerfull enough to play these HD recordings. I currently have a nVidia GeForce 7300LE video card. Which is good enough for SD quality video’s but not for HD. So I ordered online the XFX nVidia GeForce GT 220. This card supports VDPAU, which should let me play video’s in HD quality with only 5-10% CPU load. MythTV also has support for VDPAU. The card also has a HDMI output, so I can really watch the recordings in HD quality with 5.1 sound in a few days.
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Good choice! I also ordered two of those for my HTPCs (I’m running a multiple front/backend configuration of MythTV) and particulary choose the GT 220 as it’s a low end videocard, quite suiteble for watching Movies/Video with its capability of HW acceleration of H.264, MPEG2, VC1 and MPEG4.
Can’t wait until I can order a fiberconnection at home. I currently live in Rotterdam which is part of the UPC mafia and watch television from KPN Digitenne. As digital TV from digitenne is far from good (lot of interferrence, no HD channels and only 23 channels to watch) I was planning on upgrading to satelite, however, IPTV over a fiber connection would be a really good alternative!
I’ve placed the videocard into my mythtv a week ago. Running at a resolution of 1900×1080, HD video is now very smooth. I did have to upgrade to the newest fedora 12 kernel, and newest nvidia drivers (195.something). There’s only two issues I haven’t fixed yet.
First, when the mythtv pc is started, but the amplifier isn’t turned on and not the correct video input is selected, and the tv is not on, I will have no signal on the hdmi output. This is because the nvidia driver is looking at which hardware is connected to setup the correct timings. I have to fix this with retrieving the EDID from the tv, save it to local disk, and feed it to the nvidia driver when x-windows is started.
The second things, is that audio over hdmi is not working (yet..). There are is a small patch for the sound driver, that should work, but haven’t had anytime yet to look at that. In the mean time, I use the optical output of the mainboard. maybe I just wait a few kernels until the audio over hdmi works with this videocard, and then switch over, instead of running some manual patches.