On Thursday 01 Jun 2006 00:59, Malcolm Caldwell wrote: > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 09:47 +0300, Marko M?kel? wrote: > > On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 03:31:31AM +0300, Niko Mikkila wrote: > > > If you want good interlaced TV-out with much less problems and > > > tinkering, I'd recommend getting a full-featured DVB card or > > > a Dxr3/Hollywood+ card (that'll cost less than EUR 15 on eBay). > > > > I'd say that -P"softdevice -vo:mgatv" (on a G450) is less hassle than > > -Pdxr3. Because my dxr3 broke only after a couple of months of usage > > and I've been using softdevice for almost 1.5 years now, I may be > > biased. Softdevice has gotten a lot more stable during that time. > > I also switched from dxr3 to softdevice with a matrox G450 about 10 > months ago. My old system used to be a 1 GHz Athlon with a dxr3 in it and it was rock solid most of the time. The system did sometimes fail to boot but I eventually tracked that down to a dodgy PSU. I changed this for my current Via Epia system because the Athlon made lots of noise! > For me the G450 has been a lot more stable. With the dxr3 I had > crashes, OSD failures etc etc. I was upgrading my vdr dxr3plugin > version every week or so hoping things would improve. > > Reading the lists it would seem that the dxr3 solution has improved: > perhaps I jumped ship just a bit early... Even if this is so I am > still glad I converted. > > Regardless, IMHO softplay makes softdevice a superior solution. Softdevice also gives a much better OSD than the dxr3. I replaced the dxr3 with a G450 and moved that system upstairs to use with streamdev and an nfs-mounted /video directory. After a little bit of fiddling with kernel patches and making an RGB component cable, the picture was perfect. However, since I upgraded softdevice a few weeks back, interlaced streams tend to judder a bit on the G450, and the video gets jerky when the OSD is displayed. :( Bizarrely, if I move the 'cursor' down a menu by holding down a key, I get a weird ghosting trail of the cursor, i.e. it fades out behind it as it moves. I presume it isn't meant to do this (doesn't on my Epia system) but it looks quite cool! I'm sure softdevice was perfect with interlaced streams before the upgrade (it has been kept quite up to date with softdevice CVS so it must be something recent). I haven't looked into this yet but suspect something has changed with the mgatv option (triple buffering enabled or disabled or something?). As you say, softplay is a great, simple solution without needing mplayer running too! Shame I don't get sound from RealMedia files! Cheers, Laz
