[mythtvnz] New silent Nvidia card / USB DVB-S tuner

[Nick Rout]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 7:15 PM, stuart <stugo at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>
>>  On 9/11/2010 4:19 PM, stuart wrote:
>> >  I am running a Asus gt 220 bravo that you a looking at and nova t 500
>> > for hd on a 2 gig dual core with 2gig of ram with no problems on the
>> > mythbuntu.
>> > Stu
>>
>
> I have ordered that card too and will report back. The only problem I
> envisage is fitting it in my small form factor case. If it doesn't fit you
> will probably see it for sale here soon...
>
>

The card arrived yesterday and is now installed and tentatively seems to be
working well. Playing back Avatar at 1080p in XBMC it hasn't got above 61
deg yet - and that's in the fast moving battle scenes towards the end.

For those that haven't followed the thread, the card is this one:

http://www.pp.co.nz/products.php?pp_id=AA22908

Is low profile and has a massive heatsink. It takes two slots but as my
system is a front end only I don't need to use the PCIe x1 slot that it
takes up. It comes with a low profile bracket. There are hdmi, dvi and vga
outputs, I am using the DVI because the old card was DVI and  that's the
cable that's in place. I see no reason why the HDMI wouldn't work and also
there is an HDMI audio device detected by alsa|kernel so that should work
fine too. (Presently i have a 5.1 amp that requires a spdif input so I am
using an external usb audio device and have no need of hdmi audio anyway).

Even to my tired old eyes the picture is way better than the old GT8400 it
replaced, and the lack of a fan is very nice. I don't (yet) have DVB-T HD
setup, I am on satellite only but the SD myth stuff looks very nice on the
vdpau-high quality setting. I do have ripped HD stuff, like the 1080p
Avatar, and it looks gorgeous.

Playing onto a Sony Bravia 46" LCD - model number escapes me but it's about
18 months old, just before the ones with ethernet connectors came out :(

My case is a HP/Compaq DC7100 Small form factor. Nice box, quite quiet and
has the now obligatory PCIe slot, albeit half height. It has 512MB ram, same
as the video card LOL. Networking via wired 100M ethernet. CPU is a P4
2.8GHz.

The video card also also came with a remote control and a remote
receiver/light sensor in the box too. The remote receiver is reported by
lsusb as:

Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0471:2088 Philips

and googling reveals this to be:

'MCE IR Receiver with ALS- Spinel plus for ASUS'

After plugin dmesg reveals:

[21870.332141] usb 4-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address
2
[21870.516434] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[21870.643641] usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
[21870.744514] input: PHILIPS MCE USB IR Receiver with ALS- Spinel plus for
ASUS as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb4/4-1/4-1:1.0/input/input16
[21870.745245] generic-usb 0003:0471:2088.0001: input,hiddev96,hidraw0: USB
HID v1.00 Keyboard [PHILIPS MCE USB IR Receiver with ALS- Spinel plus for
ASUS] on usb-0000:00:1d.2-1/input0
[21870.745566] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[21870.745574] usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver


So it looks like an HID device, ie the remote will appear as a keyboard.  I
will experiment further with this.

I believe the remote receiver is also an ambient light sensor, enabling the
system to shine brighter on a sunny day. I have yet to see any linux info on
this capability. Anyway the manual says of your TV has a light sensor you
should switch the software off, and the Sony has a light sensor so I am
unconcerned about the light sensor working (although that won't stop me
playing with it).
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