HTPC (XBMC/VDR) based on an APU!

[Kano]

How about getting the cheapest amd hd 4 card you find, install xbmc with vaapi and try your movies. Those cards are not expensive anymore, especially 2nd hand but you can try xvba + wrapper. If you buy it online in germany you could even send it back easyly within 2 weeks

[oliver]

How about getting the cheapest amd hd 4 card you find, install xbmc with vaapi and try you mkvs. Those cards are not expensive anymore, especially 2nd hand but you can try xvba + wrapper.

That's not a bad idea actually, and I should have some old board with PCI-e slot to fit it in. Gonna browse now.

[oliver]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103943&Tpk=A6-3650

The A6-3650 costs 120 USD in the USA, compared to the E350 at 144 that's not that much cheaper. I'm very intrested in your solution however, so i'll see if I can find an interesting APU. Atm, it looks like it'll have to wait 6 months or so

[d2kx]

I use my subnotebook with the E-350 to watch 1080p content with XBMC on the television. It works perfectly fine for 85-90% of my movies, but some have some bugs like corruptions. I'm happy though, and if your content is always encoded in the same way, it should run great.

[oliver]

I use my subnotebook with the E-350 to watch 1080p content with XBMC on the television. It works perfectly fine for 85-90% of my movies, but some have some bugs like corruptions. I'm happy though, and if your content is always encoded in the same way, it should run great.

Now htis is extremly interesting. Most of my movies are 720p and some are 1080p. What drivers are you using? How is your setup? Mplayer backend? gstreamer, vlc? xine?

If this is all true that you are saying, which I really really hope it is, I may juts get the board anyway. As said, worse comes to worst, I just buy a crystal HD pci 1x card until the oss drivers mature. Wish you had replied yesterday where I could get the asus board for 100 USD instead of the 145

[d2kx]

Now htis is extremly interesting. Most of my movies are 720p and some are 1080p. What drivers are you using? How is your setup? Mplayer backend? gstreamer, vlc? xine?

If this is all true that you are saying, which I really really hope it is, I may juts get the board anyway. As said, worse comes to worst, I just buy a crystal HD pci 1x card until the oss drivers mature. Wish you had replied yesterday where I could get the asus board for 100 USD instead of the 145

I am using Ubuntu 11.04 32-bit, recent AMD Catalyst drivers, libva from the Ubuntu repo (1.0.8, not completely uptodate but good enough) and xvba-video 0.8.0. I compiled XBMC 10.1 from source to enable VA-API support. I force vsync to avoid tearing (the tearing free desktop option had some problems with our television, but just forcing vsync works great). So nothing special here. And while it is very easy to set up if you aren't new to these topics, this guide might help you get started: http://pellepelster.de/installing-ub...on-zotac-ad02/

[oliver]

I am using Ubuntu 11.04 32-bit, recent AMD Catalyst drivers, libva from the Ubuntu repo (1.0.8, not completely uptodate but good enough) and xvba-video 0.8.0. I compiled XBMC 10.1 from source to enable VA-API support. I force vsync to avoid tearing (the tearing free desktop option had some problems with our television, but just forcing vsync works great). So nothing special here. And while it is very easy to set up if you aren't new to these topics, this guide might help you get started: http://pellepelster.de/installing-ub...on-zotac-ad02/

So nothing 'special' then, besides the binary-only catalyst driver. Sad for now, but possible in the future with OSS drivers.

[Kano]

Basically you could consider the cheapest am3 board, cheap athlon x2 + nv card too for vdpau. then you get even flash accelleration.

[oliver]

Basically you could consider the cheapest am3 board, cheap athlon x2 + nv card too for vdpau. then you get even flash accelleration.

yeah but media box only, so flash is of no interest. Also getting the OSS nv drivers to do hardware accelerated video might be much much further off.

[Kano]

It does not matter for me if the driver is oss or not, it has to work in first place.