The question of how much RAM to use comes up and the general rule of thumb is 1gb for an HD system. I was able to get another gig of ram pretty cheap and put it in my box, bringing it from 1gb to 2gb.

I'm now able to watch a 720p HD recording smoothly white running multiple Xvid conversion jobs. 1080i recordings are almost smooth. I should now be able to transcode throughout the day (instead of just overnight) without fear of ticking of my wife

Anyways, just thought I'd share.

Athlon 3200
2gb RAM
Nvidia AGP 6200 / 256mb
250gb SATA + 320gb SATA

Slightly off topic but, wow dude. A 3200+ for transcoding HD? You'll be doing it all day. Have a look at the x264 benchmark data for 3200+ compared to some other chips

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

I am surprised how much a 3200 can do when it is working correctly. For the last 5 days now I have the backend option enabled to start commercial detection flagging when recording starts. If a show hasn't been watched in a couple of days I cut commercials and transcode my HD down to 720 X480. A 7.2 gig 1080i file is reduced to 1.5gig. During prime time it is 100% guarantee that my system is ether transcoding or commercial flagging and I have no problems after I made this change.

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16990

From 7:00 to 11:00 I run a 100% utilized processor and I have lesser hardware that you. Wife also has low tolerance for stuttering or software problems of any kind and I have not had one complaint of any kind.

FYI I just finished a 720p commercial flag with all features turned on at 159fps. The one hour show took about 22 minutes. Only commercial flag was running.

AMD 64 3200
1024 Ram PC3200 DDR
FXF GeForce FX5200 128MB, VGA/TV/DVI
3 pcHD3000

TVBox

_________________
TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

TVBox,
I'd be interested in knowing how you do the transcode of HD down to 720 x 480. Could you do a step-by-step for a noob? Or point me at a link? Thanks!

Well, my last cpu was a Sempron 2800+! My mobo is socket 754, so this is almost as fast as I can go. I realize I can rebuild with an x2 cpu and new mobo, but time and money are limited, and this mobo has 3 pci slots, not common on mATX boards and handy for the number of tuners ultimately required in a 4 tv home.

Anyways, your reply is not OT. I think its good for people to know what can be done with older, and in some cases much older hardware. I like the idea of keeping it out of a landfill, and many people have access to corporate and educational "scrap" that is perfect for a myth system.

This is how I am set up.

Make this change so every thing works right. At this time it is my theory (theory means current guess) that if you are at 3000 or below you should choose a low setting. 3000 to 3800 medium. and 3800 and above a high setting. I believe the feedback problem still exist in the high power machines but threw brute force they overcome the video to screen problems but a large portion of the processor power is wasted and can not be productively utilized for commercial flagging or transcoding.

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16990

Note: I am set up for HD Recording only using R5F27

Mythtv Menu>>Utilities / Setup>> Setup>>TV Settings>>Recording Profiles>> ------Select Transcoders
-----In the High Quality section I have only Lossless Transcoding checked.
-----In the Medium Quality section I have Resize Video while transcoding. Width 720, Height 480
-----In Low Quality section I have Resize Video while transcoding. Width 480, Height 480

Use all methods for commercial detection
---Mythtv Menu>>Utilities / Setup>> Setup>>TV Settings>>General>>---page ---General(Jobs)
-----Commercial Skip Method: All Available Methods

In the MythTV Backend Setup Alt-s
MythTV backend menu>>1. General>>---page --- Host-specific Backend Setup
-----Check box Delete files slowly
MythTV backend menu>>1. General>>---page --- Job Queue (Global)
-----Check box Start Auto-Commercial Flagging Jobs when recording starts

In operation I Auto flag all commercials. If I have time I will start a show and edit the commercials out. Press e for edit, press z to load commercial cut. Commercial detection in not 100% but after you bring up the commercial cuts you will see where to go looking for a commercial. It now takes me about 2 minutes to check and clean up the cut list per show. If you have a cut list the show will play back using the cut list. If you don't check your cut list you some times will have show parts cut out of the program. A cut list dos not edit the file content, all of the original show is there until you transcode.

Editing TV Recording
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=VideoEditHowTo
---Start playing a show.
-----Hit e to edit. You are now in edit mode. Hit e again to exit
-----Hit i to invert cut list ( to record commercials only )
-----Hit z to load the cut list from detected commercials.
-----Hit q to clear all cut points.
-----Hit Enter for cutting options. To change length moved forward or back use the up & down arrows
-----Hit ? to save the marks for cutting . This don’t work for me

Transcoding: I have about three programs a night that I transcode. I go to program directory and highlight the program I want. arrow right to bring up the menu >>> job options>>>Begin Transcoding and I select what transcoding method I want. It is at this point that the cut list is removed from the file.

-----High Quality: only removes the cut list and leaves the HD Show intact. If you edited out the commercials you will drop the file size about 25%. It takes very little time / power to do lossless transcoding and you can drop 2GB of of that 7.5 GB 1080i file size. 720 would be less.

-----Medium Quality:removes the cut list and transcodes the file down to a 720 X 480 resolution. It will normal reduce a 1 hour 1080i files from 7.5GB down to 2.8GB to 1.5GB. A one hour 720p show took about 74 minutes to complete at 36fps. This show went from 5.5 GB to 2.3 GB.

-----Low Quality: removes the cut list and transcodes the file down to a 480 X 480 resolution. A 1 hour 1080i show took about 45 minutes to complete at 29fps. This show went from 7GB to 1.4GB.

TVBox
Asus K8N-E Deluxe, nForce 3- 250Gb
8 channel sound, S/PDIF optical out, Gigabyte Lan;
AMD 64 3200, 1MB L2 Cache
1GB Ram PC3200 DDR
125 GB WD 8M, Pata100: (high pitch bearing noise)
FXF GeForce FX5200 128MB, VGA/TV/DVI
BenQ DW1620, DVD-DL;
2 pcHD3000
MCE Remote / USB Receiver / Keyboard

_________________
TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

What codec and settings do you use for Medium and Low?

all default that is the only thing I change. Your codec: would be RTjpeg if you have been experimenting.

TVBox

_________________
TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

When you are all done, is the original full size show still in tact or automatically deleted after transcoding? Do you watch the reduced shows from the original "watch recordings" menu or have they moved somewhere else, like "watch videos" for instance?
Thanks, TVBox! I'll give it a try.

automatically deleted
original "watch recordings"

_________________
TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

I've got a test transcode running right now. How do you tell what your fps is?

To find information on your jobs that have run in the last day

Information Center>>System Status>>Job Queue
Arrow right into Job Queue Display
Arrow up or down to pick job

Commercial Detect and Transcoding jobs will be listed here. The information listed will be different depending on whether the job is still running or finished. If you are looking for frames per second (fps) you will have to check when that job is running.

You have to arrow back to >>Job Queue>> in order to get the screen to update.

Another tip to find current file size is to go to
Manage Recordings>> Delete Recordings>>
and scroll up and down your recordings. The file size is listed after the program.

Remember fps / time vary according to load on your machine, also a 1080i has twice as many pixels as a 720p and increasing your compression ratio increases the time more.

TVBox

_________________
TVBox
LinHES R8.6.1

These are all great tips! I didn't know you could right arrow into the job queue! Thanks, again

I was running an Athlon XP 3200+ (Socket A) in an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe and 512mb ram with 2 Air2PC 0.2, PVR-500 and PVR-250 and was able to watch analog and record 2 hd without issue. The transcoding took a little time, but it was fast enough. Too many people think you need the fastest computer out there to work, that's the beauty of Myth, you can use your old computer and it's fine. I used the same settings above to get it to play smooth (XvMC was required to watch HD).