[mythtvnz] freeview HD on an AMD X2 6000+

[Steven Ellis]

On 14/10/2008, at 10:35 AM, Steven Ellis wrote:

>
> 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.
>

Turned CPU scaling back on which is rather interesting

For 720p channels it is happy to peg the cpu at 1.8 GHz, for  1080i it  
goes all the way upto 3.1 GHz.. The SD channels go all the way down to  
1GHz which is the lowest speed setting.

Going to leave the box playing TV3 for a couple of hours and see how  
it copes with the load.

Steve


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

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