I purchased the Walmart PC to support the concept of Linux on retail PCs and to see if it would work with knoppmyth (R5F27)

It is so close to being a tier 1 frontend. I simply ran the script and booted the machine, Everything is working, sort of. Recordings and liveTV are stuttering, if you look at top the CPU is at 88% utilization.

I have tried going into Setup --> TV settings --> playback, and changing the MPEG2 Decoder, I have tried all of the options and the best one appears to be VIA XvMC and that reduces the CPU utilization only down to 85%. I have not really messed with any of the other setting because I am a bit of a newb and did not want to make matters worse.

the recordings are 720x480 analog cable and the file size is about 1.43GB/hr.

The network is 10/100 wired.

The specs on the Everex are:
1.5Ghz VIA C7
512 MB ram


In case it helps the backend is:
Asus A8N-VM CSM
512 MB RAM
Athlon64 3200+
Hauppauge PVR-150 and PVR-500

Like I said I am kinda a knoppmyth newb. THe stuttering is not real, bad noticeable, but in a real pinch would be tolerable. I really appreciate any suggestions.

have you tried using bob 2x deinterlace? The myth wikigives examples of it really helping in SD. I don't know if the hardware supports, but it's worth a shot...

may want to look @ what video drivers you are using.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Bob appears to have helped a little on the playback, but the CPU is still at 88%, and is still stuttery(if that's a word)

According to /etc/X11/xorg.conf the driver was "VESA". Which got me to thinking that it should be "VIA" made the edits and it is fixed!!! In top the CPU has dropped to 25.5%. It works great no noticeable defects in audio or video.

I did have to turn Bob2x off.(it was making the playback look like it was vibrating slightly)

I am just outputting to a 17in monitor and a set of computer speakers. I really appreciate the help. Good news in the Wal-mart PC makes a good SD frontend. The power supply is noisy, but that can be fixed.

Good News, that's real close if not Tier 1 then! I doubt it could handle HD playback, but any way you could download an HD clip and play just for giggles? just wondering...

I basically use mythtv as a timeshifting device, so I don't really follow any HD stuff, if you have any suggestions, I would be more then happy to try.

I would be glad to try and put this machine through its paces. -- It is the least I can do for all the help I have gotten from everyone on here.

I tried a couple of HD clips, with little success. I tried a 720p and it would pause about every 15sec top showed the CPU spiked at 89% the entire time, I also tried a 1080i clip and it would pause about every 5sec same on the cpu.

Was the clip located on the FE or BE? Unless it was on the FE, there could be other factors, such as the network.

I currently have the box setup as a diskless FE, so the clips were aon the backend. I have a gig switch and the BE links at a gig, and the wal-mart pc links at 100.

I am willing to try to put the clips locally on the FE, but I am not sure how because it is currently diskless. Parts available to me are: 80GB HD that came in the pc, 1GB usb flash drive, and I might have a DVD drive laying around that I could install(currently a CD-RW in the FE.) Suggestions?

A quick test would be to stick it on the HD, mount it into the FE, and see if it plays with MPlayer, from the command line.

Does the walmart PC allow for external video boards? What does it look like inside (APG, PCI, PCI-e)? $200 + $40 for a 6200 isn't so bad for a FE.

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

I mounted the drive and copied the clips to the local disk. I tried using mplayer, but maybe I am missing a command line switch or something. The video is perfect for both clips (720p & 1080i) but after about 30-40seconds the audio, starts to drift out of sync -- badly approx 3-4 seconds out of sync.

Any suggestions?



It has two available PCI slots, the CPU heatsink or PCI cards would be the limiting factor for height. Here is a pic: [/img]http://picasaweb.google.com/garetjax67/GPC/photo#5144600900758267410[/img]

edit: hmmmmm anyone know how to get the pictures to show up in-line?

try



Edit:
Guess that don't work either...image posting must be turned off.

Best left as an URL:
http://picasaweb.google.com/garetjax67/GPC/photo#5144600900758267410

Picture doesn't seem to match what you said. The Cpu heatsink doesn't seem to be anywhere near the PCI slots, and only one is open.

I believe garetjax67 is referring to the total height of the motherboard if you wanted to put it into some sort of slim line case. Then the pci cards would be the highest device, if no pci cards, then the CPU fan is the highest thing.