PVR - Celeron 500 and hardware encoder

[Pollock]

I wanted to be able to record TV from my DirecTV HD receiver and play it back just on the TV, really. I don't need to be able to play it on the recording box I'm going to be building, just store it and send it back. I was going to use a Celeron 500 with 128MB of ram and a TV tuner with a hardware encoder, something like that Leadtek one, or maybe the Hauppage PVR-150. I don't want to get an HDTV tuner because most cost >$200 and use software encoding, requiring me to use a good computer. Is this feasible at all? I figured the hardware encoder would relieve most of the strain from the Celeron and let it run MythTV (KnoppMyth, probably) or something, whatever you might suggest.

 

[Pollock]

Bump.

 

[CU]

It should work fine if you have a hardware encoder like the pvr-150.

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: CU
It should work fine if you have a hardware encoder like the pvr-150.

 

[Pollock]

All right, thanks. Plus I could always upgrade to a PIII or something later if I needed to.

 

[imported_Kensai]

I wouldn't want to use a Cel 500 though. I'd suggest you put a P3 or something instead.

 

[Pollock]

Originally posted by: Kensai
I wouldn't want to use a Cel 500 though. I'd suggest you put a P3 or something instead.

Would it matter from a recording viewpoint? As long as it's sufficient, I don't need overkill or anything, so I can avoid spending too much money. I only plan on letting it sit there and record stuff, then play it back. Never really using it for anything else.

 

[airfoil]

The minimum recommended configuration for a HTPC to handle HDTV is a 3.0 GHz or equivalent CPU, on the MCE 2005 OS.

There's no way that Celeron is going to make the grade.

You can get a lot more information here.

 

[Pollock]

I'm not doing HDTV because there aren't many hardware HD tuners, and they're all too expensive. I also didn't plan on getting MCE because that's another $120-$140. I figured a Celeron 500 could handle KnoppMyth or something.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Pollock
I'm not doing HDTV because there aren't many hardware HD tuners, and they're all too expensive. I also didn't plan on getting MCE because that's another $120-$140. I figured a Celeron 500 could handle KnoppMyth or something.

You'll probably be able to record just fine with a hardware encoder, but good luck playing anything back with a Celeron@500Mhz without a hardware decoder (a la PVR350). It might work, sort of, but I think you'd be really pushing it -- and forget about any scaling/filtering software.

If you want to read the files off of it and play them on something else you'll be fine, though.

 

[Pollock]

So would the TV decode the file (probably MPEG2 because few hardware encoders support DivX), and the box just need to stream the file to it or something?

I don't need to do anything fancy, I'm just trying to record TV and watch it again on the TV (ala Tivo, but for like ~$60 for a tuner).

 

[CU]

I am trying to do the same thing with my Celeron@550. I have gentoo installed from stage1 source. I left it installing mythtv last night. I should be able to play with it this weekend around Sunday and let you know how it plays back video files after this weekend. Your cpu, gpu, and/or hardware decoder card ie. pvr-350 do the decoding not your TV. I have an old 8500 that will help in decoding. I think you should be able to encode and decode like you are saying. You may even be able to do both at once since the hardware encoder will use very little cpu. I would say less than 5%. Also pvr-150 support is still alpha/beta in linux, but some people do have it working. Keep me posted on your success at this.

 

[Pollock]

I know this is probably stretching it a bit, but could I just use TV out instead of getting a card with a hardware decoder (the PVR-350 is about $200)? Or is decoding not very stressful on the CPU?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Pollock
I know this is probably stretching it a bit, but could I just use TV out instead of getting a card with a hardware decoder (the PVR-350 is about $200)?

Huh? Do you even understand the concept of decoding? Encoded/compressed video has to be decoded/decompressed before it can be viewed. And in a PVR, the CPU/GPU is usually responsible for that (although a good deal of the load goes on the CPU even with a pretty good GPU, and even then it's mostly useful for MPEG1/MPEG2).

"Using the TV out" -- unless the TV-out is on a hardware decoder card like the PVR-350 -- uses the CPU to decode the video.

Or is decoding not very stressful on the CPU?

Depending on the codec and the bandwidth of the video, and if the video card has some hardware assist (and if the codec you're using supports it), it can range from pathetic (say, 320x240 MPEG1) to brutally crushing (1920x1080p WMV9 HD content).

 

[Pollock]

No, apparently I don't have a very good idea of how this all works. I read about using TV-out somehow somewhere, but I guess it was about something else.

Looks like you need a 700MHz CPU to decode MPEG2. Looks like I'm better off just building a cheap socket A system.

 

[CU]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you but I had linux problems. My Celeron 366@550 with 196megs of ram and 8500le video card played back an avi file with mplayer while only using 30%-40% of the cpu. It was a 608x336 at 140kps xvid compressed file. Does anyone know where I could get a sample video from say a pvr 150/250. I would like a 720x480 one if possible. I want to see how it plays.

 

[CU]

Oops I have my celeron is running at the default 366 not 550. I set it back to default while I was compiling stuff.