[mythtvnz] Laptop recommendation for HD MythTV

[Nick Rout]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Joel Wiramu Pauling <joel at aenertia.net> wrote:
> VAAPI Works with MythTV on most recent ATI hardware, and has done for
> a while now.

Only if you use 0.25 as far as I understand. (Listed as a new feature
in 0.25 release notes http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Release_Notes_-_0.25)

VAAPI does not offer all of the features that nVidia/VDPAU offer.
nVidia drivers have great support for EDID problems and other features
that are a real bonus for an HTPC. Of course in a laptop with a built
in screen that may not be a problem, but if you want to HDMI it to
random TVs/Screens then it may be even more of an issue.

Also ATi cards do not de-interlace in hardware, meaning you still need
to have a grunty CPU for that function. Whether that goes for VAAPI as
a whole, or just ATi cards I do not know.

>
> I use XBMC as a frontend in these situations to tvheadend (rather than
> Myth) - PVR functionality is still no where near Myth... it does the
> trick.
>

Out of interest are you using mythbox or some other plugin?

> Nvidia is still a better bet if you don't want to muck around as much
> and trust to proprietary blobs, you will almost certainly need to be
> running catalyst drivers (ati's binary blob) anyway... so really you
> are not gaining much. If you want a truely FOSS solution (but crappier
> performing) you can use any intel core integrated chip from Ironlake
> onwards... I have 2 laptops with i965 (ironlake) graphics and VAAPI
> support is pretty good now - supporting a few different H264 profiles.
>
> Any of the New A8/A6 integrated APU's from ATI/AMD are very good value
> for performance, and there are alot of cheap HTPC's based on either
> these or the older E series APU's ... all work pretty well.
>
> -JoelW
>
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