[mythtvnz] Best way to reduce CPU use (by ~10%) during software encoding/decoding

[criggie]

>> I have two cards in the machine - a bttv software encoder and a
>> Hauppauge PVR-150 with MPEG-2 hardware encoding. I will probably switch
>> the default card to be the hardware encoder (MPEG-2 takes heaps of room,
>> but I have a new HDD), but I will still need to be able to record one
>> hardware, one software and play one back. Playing MPEG-2 actually seems
>> to take slightly more CPU than playing back MPEG-4, which surprised me.
>> So here is my question (after all of that background): I only think that
>> I need to reduce CPU use by about 10%, but I am not sure which settings
>> are the best to change in order to get that. Disabling 4MV or HQ
>> encoding saves a lot, but the picture isn't very good. Tweaking the max
>> and min quality makes some difference, but I'm not sure which to change.
>> What is the best thing for me to change?
>>
> 
> Why are you using analogue encoders in this day and age?
> My guess: either you are recording from a set top box like sky, or you
> haven't bothered updating :)
> Anyway you can only use one card for the set  top box. Keep the PVR150
> and get a satellite card.
> Software encoding is sooo last century!

Agreed - a PVR-150 is where you want to be.  Or dump the bttv card and 
buy a DVB-S or T card or more.

As for your request,  kill all other unneeded tasks (do you require 
cron?  How about killing NFS or Samba or whatever)

How is it for memory usage?  try disabling swap if you have enough ram 
(512MB or more)

Last resort might be to try overclocking the box - but AMD tends to be 
close to its limits already.

I doubt all of this together would make more than a few percent.

Consider a CPU upgrade
The fastest CPU you could fit would have to be an AM2 socket which 
limits you to Athlon X2.  5000+ is around $150 and 6000+ is about $200.
Everything else would need an AM2+ socket, which I doubt is backwards 
compatible.



-- 
Criggie

http://criggie.dyndns.org/