HTPC/server

[johnc]

I can play xbmc on natty w/ vdpau ok using the maverick ppa... but it does sound like an xbmc bug. Maybe check out their forums for any similar issues or ask around.

[blender]

I tried mplayer2 and both multithreaded playback and vdpau result in smooth playback of full hd video. Nice.
I also tried to update the nv driver via ppa but this did not improve xbmc playback. Actually, it seems that not only
full hd video but also low definition videos suffer a great deal of jitter when played back in xbmc. I did install this
from maverick repository, since official ppa does not yet exist for nutty narwhal, so maybe this is a bug in xbmc.

[johnc]

What is the best way to install the latest nv driver nowdays?

There's a PPA here:

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates

Enable xbmc debugging then check the log file for errors.

Do you have any problems playing in mplayer2, etc.?

[tuke81]

Well according to anandtech gt430 is better for htpc:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/discrete-htpc-gpus-shootout/16

[blender]

Your driver does not exist. Did you check with "o" if vdpau was really used? Btw. nv is 280.13 officially now...

I meant to say 270.41.06.

By pressing 'o' the info says "dc:ff-h264_vdpau-vdpau" and cpu percentages are below 5. Quick google on 280.13
gave that some people get system hangs. What is the best way to install the latest nv driver nowdays?

BTW I'm running Ubuntu 11.04.

[Kano]

Your driver does not exist. Did you check with "o" if vdpau was really used? Btw. nv is 280.13 officially now...

[blender]

I finally got the HTPC built of the following components

Intel DH67CLB3 board
Intel core i3 2100
nVidia GT520
4 Gb DDR3 1333

I ran some videos on xbmc with vdpau enabled. The 720p ones ran ok but 1080p was practically unwatchable.
I used the restricted nvidia driver 170.41.06.

When I run the same video on my desktop with GTX260 and driver 280.13 the playback is smooth. Of cource
this is a lot more powerful card, but I thought the vdpau on GT520 should be capable of pushing 1080p.

[movieman]

There is also the 2100T version, which seems to be clocked at 2.5GHz and has amazingly low TDP of 35W. At a local reseller 2100T is around 14 euros more expensive than the 2100. Is there a good reason to prefer 2100T over 2100?

I went through this whole process with my new MythTV backend and my final conclusion was that it would spend most of the time idle where the power consumption was very low anyway, so I went with the i5-2400 instead of the 2300S low-power version that was 20% slower and $20 more.

That said, the i5 is probably overkill because I rarely see more than two cores maxed out when recording (transcoding broadcast HD to H264).

[blender]

I almost forgot, that I should check whether the integrated sound chips of common 1155 mobos
work under Ubuntu. Asus P8H61 B3 has ALC 887. Any problems here?

I was also considering, if I should buy only slightly more expensive DH67CLB3 with sata III support. However, this MB uses ALC 892 sound chip, and google results on this imply problems.

[johnc]

I need to look into doing some kind of ZFS-style NAS myself.