AOpen Mini PC M915-B with SageTV Client

[12three45]

I just got this from Ebay and loaded it with SageTV client. It is a Celeron M 1.4GHZ machine with the integrated Intel 915 GM Graphics Chip. My HD video decoding basically sets my CPU at 100% using NVidia Video Decoder. Does anyone one know what other options or other decoders that are avialable to make this work? I would have thought a client with this hardware would be sufficient.

Andy

[gplasky]

None. Your assumption was wrong that this sort of hardware would be sufficient for HD. Usually a P4 2.6 GHz or above is required along with a video card that would have some kind of hardware assist that video decoders and video drivers could take advantage of. The video chipset uses your system memory. Even the newer-than-yours 945 chipset barely does HD. Based on your CPU usage it is probably all or most being done in software and CPU.


Gerry

[12three45]

Thanks, any suggestions on MB replacement for this case? Are there any Mini-ITX MB taht can handle HD? Thanks

Andy

[gplasky]

You're almost going to wind up in the same mess with your standard mini-itx boards also. Like I said, if you can get the board from their next model up with I think it is the 945 chipset you should be able to run HD but there still may be some issues. I'm pretty sure you don't have a slot for a video card. But you could bump up the processor. But just the processor bump won't be enough.

Gerry

[mikejaner]

Honestly, I would turn that machine into a network server of some type. It's just too underpowered in both CPU and Video. By the time you spend enough money to playback HD, you could buy at least one with some money left over, and maybe two HD extenders. I personally vouch that the HD media extender works great with my two HD homeruns recording HD over cable (locals only), and SD with my Hauppauge Tuners.

[googalibear]

The latest AOpen MiniPC uses the 965 chipset and will be able to accept a Penryn processor when they become available later this month (hopefully). Assuming someone will be writing a decoder using the new SSE4 instruction set, you would think that HD decoding would no longer be a problem, but I could be a little optimistic...

[12three45]

I would get the HD extender, but we also surf the web on the TV and use Skype to talk to folks. I haven't tried Placeshifter with this PC, but would it use the same resources as a client software setup?

[CollinR]

What processes are in use on your system?

If you run the client windowed do you get the purevideo task icon?

What is your content? Has it been transcoded?

[12three45]

Just normal process I guess, I did not get the NVidia icon until I unregistered the SageTV Decoder and used default on the Sage Video settings. The PC plays SD sources fine but HD sources it has problems and the media has not been transcoded.

I should see if it plays DVDs fine. If it does, whats the difference between MPEG 2 and the DVD media?

I tried overlay, post processor and even the Cyberlink decoder and Nvideo seemed to work the best. It just jumpy at times and fast mocing objects are not crisp.

Andy

[CollinR]

Stick with the purevideo decoder.


Google "black viper, XP tweaks" and do the tweaks for a power user. It sounds like you are very close and possibly a couple of uneeded processes may get you good.

The stuff you'll turn off is stuff like the help engine in XP, have you ever gotten your answer from XP's help? Probably not. The indexing service is another that takes up cycles and IO and you probably will never notice the difference. Just go through them and stop the processes you don't really need running.

[12three45]

Thanks, will load a clean install and try it out. Also, I have XP Service Pack 1 OS. Should I update to SP 2? Does SP2 update provide anything other than increased resource use?

Andy