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

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 9:05 PM, Aaron Whitehouse
<lists at whitehouse.org.nz> wrote:
> Nick Rout wrote:
>>
>> Why are you using analogue encoders in this day and age?
>> Anyway you can only use one card for the set  top box. Keep the PVR150
>> and get a satellite card.
>
> I only have a VHF aerial and I don't want to pay to have a satellite
> installed when I ultimately want to move to DVB-T as soon as
> practicable.  That is also why I'm not overly keen to spend much more
> time and money setting up additional analogue options.
>
> There are too many missing links in the chain for me to move to digital
> now: I understand support for NZ DVB-T still requires patches, UVD
> support for ATI cards is not yet in fglrx and the USD exchange rate has
> put all hardware prices up by so much that I am buying as little as
> possible.
>
> I also only have a remote for the bttv card, so I'd rather leave that in
> there.  Thank you to those who offered me additional hardware encoding
> options - I really appreciate the offers, but I'll wait and see how the
> current setup works, first.  I will be in contact if things don't work out!
>
> Thank you to Steve for the resolution suggestion - that seems to have
> cut the CPU usage by enough without destroying the quality.  I am still
> quite disappointed by how much CPU decoding MPEG-2 takes - it is
> significantly more than MPEG-4, which is a much more compressed format.
>

OK I can understand all that. DVB-T is possible now, but of course you
need a capital injection as far as processing power an/or GPU power is
concerned, as well as a bit of time ot get the right repos going.