> > I am wondering how well the alternative solutions which > > do not require a FF card work. > > I'd like to see a HW decoder (Mpeg 1/2/4), S-Video and > DVI out for 720p and 1080i on a graphic card with an > open source driver supporting this decoder. > > The question is: will this ever happen? > > > Is a FF card still the most stable solution (except for > > bad weather or HDTV of course)? > > How reliable is the latest xine plugin? > > How reliable is the latest framebuffer plugin? > > Are there more solutions that work with a budget card alone? > > The main problem is: you need CPU power and therefore > you'll get a system which can not passive cooled and > even a low noise cooling is a big problem. Exactly, that and the cost of electricity - it is already much more than a decent DVD-player and with such requirements one needs the fastest CPU out there, especially when the system is doing more things at once like mine (it is my vdr+workstation in parallel with anything i need a computer for). If you compare fast (software decoding) systems with "suitable fast"(TM) systems you will certainly see a factor 2, 3 or more in power dissipation. And many vdr's run all day... Also: despite all the fine multitasking - so long we have no KURT-like realtime capabilities in linux kernel you will always see drop outs and lack of response when something else is running in the background causing momentarily heavy load, very annoying. (That is, what was keeping me away from using the xine-plugin so far). So a hardware decoder at least would be really great. Somewhere i read XOSD library, would it be possible to use that to draw in front of the hardware decoded video-overlay?
