I'm looking at changing my tv to a widescreen HDTV, and possibly adding some sort of an HD card.

Are there any pitfalls I should look out for? I know I need to change my output to 16:9 for the widescreen tv. Will that affect my SD recordings?

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150

No. No.

Do your homework before buying an HDTV. Make sure it has all the inputs you want/need. Some sets (even the high end ones) have some pretty nasty overscan issues. There are some workarounds but if your buying new you might as well make it as easy on yourself as possible and make sure you don't buy a set with know issues.

Martian

-chuckle- Actually, my question wasn't really about the HDTV. I've already done my research into those. I was more asking about moving Myth from SD to HD.

If I set the Myth output to be 16:9 for the HDTV, will it stretch or box my SD recordings?

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150

The default is to preserve the 4:3 aspect ratio and to "windowbox" your SD recordings. However, the (I think) W key will cycle through a number of stretch modes.

Okay, cool. So are there any gotchas in the change from SD to HD?

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150

The main thing I run into is that my systems are only able to play back HD with the assist of turning XvMC on. Thus, with my version of MythTV, I have to travel back and forth to settings, turning it on to watch HD recordings, and turning it back off so my on-screen display is in color and so editing commercials works better.

In MythTV 0.20, there is a setting that turns XvMC on only for HD playback, which will be nice once I get motivated and upgrade my systems.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Xv ... and_Tricks

(also includes some "caveats")

From the sounds of your system, it's powerful enough to decode HD without XvMC support, so hopefully you won't have any gotchas.

Well, I've tried some of the BBC H264 clips and my system goes to 100% cpu usage, and starts having issues. This is on R5D1 upgraded to .20 I haven't tried the new version yet(R5E50?).

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150

Not a good comparison. Over-the-air HD recordings will be in MPEG2 format, not H264, and I believe that MPEG2 is far easier to play back. Plus, if the H264 clips are 1080p, again, you'll only be getting 1080i or 720p over the air, so you can't compare there either.

Any idea where it is? This would be perfect but so far I haven't found it...

Found this on the mythtv.org wiki:
Use XvMC For HD Only

To use ffmpeg as your decoder for all content less than 720x*, insert a row into settings where value = 'UseXvMCForHDOnly' and data = '1' such as with the following SQL command:

INSERT INTO settings (value,data,hostname) VALUES ('UseXvMCForHDOnly', '1', 'yourhost');

Naturally, substitute your frontend's host name for 'yourhost'. Be sure your frontend has PreferredMPEG2Decoder set to Standard XvMC.

ceenvee703,

Just for info, the BBC HD stuff is H.264 over the air on satellite, (DVB-S thankfully so no new card needed) and DVB-T in the UK. Thats why its such hard work to watch : -)

Its always a bit confusing to follow threads on HD playback, as everyone assumes the format used is mpeg2 (if they are from NA), or h.264 if they are from europe. I am still waiting for a post from someone saying they have a frontend fast enough (or tuned enough) for BBC HD.

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Good to know, thanks for the correction and sorry for the assumptions!

Ah, okay. Now I jus' gotta find the budget to do the HD upgrade. The funds for the myth box got eaten by my file server. But on the plus side, I'll have plenty of room to store stuff.

BTW, is it worth it to reencode the HD stuff to H264? Or is there a better codec to use? I tend to keep a lot of stuff for a while before I get around to watching it, so I'd like to save room.

And secondly, is there a way to improve the playback of H264 files on my system?

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150

So there are H264 OTA stations in the US?

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150