[mythtvnz] freeview HD on an AMD X2 6000+

[Steven Ellis]

My X2 6000+ was delivered just an hour or so ago and now have working  
TV3 - subject to a couple of minor niggles below.

I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 with Paul's most recent patched MythTV release  
and loopfilter disabled in my playback profile. The motherboard is an  
M2NPV-VM with 2G Ram and a Hauppauge HVR-900 USB tuner.

Previously I had an X2 3600+ in my test rig which really didn't cut it.

X2 3600+
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
2000000 1800000 1000000

X2 6000+
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
3100000 3000000 2800000 2600000 2400000 2200000 2000000 1800000 1000000

Ok so a lot more speeds to play with but for the purposes of testing I  
changed the governor to performance which locks the CPU at its fastest  
speed.

echo "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ 
scaling_governor

So First a bunch of pre-recorded content

Channel		CPU		CPU with Bob
TV3			83%		100+
TV2			50%		50%
TV One		50%		50%

Live content

Channel		CPU		CPU with Bob
TV3			83%		100+
TV One		59%		59%
CTV8		21%		25%
TVNZ 6		21%		24%

So it appears that the Bob de-interlacer adds quite a bit of  
additional load, but thankfully most of that appears to be on the  
second core. For TV3 above I get 88% on one core and 29% on the second  
core with Bob. Without a de-interlacer almost all the load is on one  
cpu.

There doesn't appear to be much of a performance difference between  
playing AC3 or AAC on TV 3 which is good news.

So the niggles
1. The X2 6000+ is a 89W CPU part so the core is hotter and the fan  
faster than I'd prefer. There are rumours of some lower power parts,  
but they might only work in AM2+ compatible boards.

2. Occasionally I get a picture in picture effect when I switch  
between 720p and 1080i channels which I have two copies of the same  
video feed on screen, one of which is in a small box in the top left  
hand of the screen.

3. The AAC audio doesn't always lock on a channel change

So I have something that works, but I wouldn't consider it customer  
ready.

I think I need to consider an Intel compatible alternative, but can't  
find a board with integrated Composite/Component/SVideo as well as DVI/ 
HDMI in the Intel space.

Steve

Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email   - steven at openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz

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