vegeta

Will a via C3 Nehemiah 1GhZ cpu able to record TV-shows in real time?
I don't think it's powerfull enough. But I don't have an epia board so I can't really judge the power of the Nehmiah

If I can record shows real time, in what kind of format can I encode? Mpeg2,divx,xvid,wma,...?

I hope you guys can help me

Thanks in Advance

FreeStyler

There are TV-cards that can encode in realtime to Mpeg2.
Compro has a fairy nicely piced linup capable of this.
The CPU itself won't be able to do that however.

vegeta

It's kinda expesive, epia board+mpeg2 card

I think a microATX AMD board +CPU+AIW card wil be a better option for almost the same price

RichBa5tard

You'll need about ~ 1Ghz AMD Athlon / P3 power to record in real time high quality divx + high quality sound.

Recording in mpeg2 and 2channel mp3 should be duable with a via C3 Nehemiah 1Ghz. I'll try it out for you.

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HTPC (mac osx): Mac Mini | Core Duo 1.6Ghz | 2GB DDR2 | 26\" TFT
Development (mac osx): Macbook | Core 2 2.0Ghz | 4GB DDR2 | 250GB HD
Games (win xp): E2160 @ 2.4Ghz | HD3850 OC | Asrock 4coredual-vsta | 2GB DDR2

RichBa5tard

I just tested a whole bunch of codecs, and two seem to work great for the nehemiah:

Xvid, 400:300 resolution max, 96kbps lame mp3 (about 100kb/sec)

Uncompressed YV12, any resolution, 96kbps lame mp3 (about 4mb/sec)

A pitty i didn't find a good codec in between these two extremes (mpeg2 codec was too choppy).

__________________
HTPC (mac osx): Mac Mini | Core Duo 1.6Ghz | 2GB DDR2 | 26\" TFT
Development (mac osx): Macbook | Core 2 2.0Ghz | 4GB DDR2 | 250GB HD
Games (win xp): E2160 @ 2.4Ghz | HD3850 OC | Asrock 4coredual-vsta | 2GB DDR2

vegeta

The xvid, 400:30 res,96 lame mp3
Is that good quality?
Can you mention the during of the recording and the size of the file you encoded?
What do I need beside a epia board? Just any Tv-card? What kinda card do you have?

And thanks for the help so far

RichBa5tard

If you're using linux i'd recommend a brooktree bt484 chipset based card, because they are widely used and therefore well supported. If you're using windows, i wouldn't know which one to recommend, but i know i had difficulties finding a good, free videorecorder app for windows.

1 minute in xvid is ~ 6.5mb. CPU load is +- 90% so you got little headroom left for tweaking.

Quality is mediocre
+ no interlacing
+ no 'smearing' / bugs
+ very fluent

- not sharp enough (*)
- 400:300 is good for personal use (*), eg recording the news or your favourite sitcom, but i wouldn't watch a movie in this quality.

I'll try to tune it a bit further and show you a screenie.


(*) 640:400 eliminates this, making the quality of the video excellent, but it's too choppy most of the times (maybe 15-20fps instead of 25), If i could just tweak some options to get it fluently, this epia rig would be an excellent tv recorder.

__________________
HTPC (mac osx): Mac Mini | Core Duo 1.6Ghz | 2GB DDR2 | 26\" TFT
Development (mac osx): Macbook | Core 2 2.0Ghz | 4GB DDR2 | 250GB HD
Games (win xp): E2160 @ 2.4Ghz | HD3850 OC | Asrock 4coredual-vsta | 2GB DDR2

vegeta

And the epia isn' able to do 640:400?
What do you mean with choppy? Shocking, not really fluent?
If it is. I thought, the fps the more fluent the crossovers will be

RichBa5tard

The epia isn't able to do out-of-the-box 640:480 xvid encoding on the fly.

The xvid encoder has many options though, and I've gotten a great improvement tweaking so far. I'll report back if i can find a way to record 640:480 flawlessly.

__________________
HTPC (mac osx): Mac Mini | Core Duo 1.6Ghz | 2GB DDR2 | 26\" TFT
Development (mac osx): Macbook | Core 2 2.0Ghz | 4GB DDR2 | 250GB HD
Games (win xp): E2160 @ 2.4Ghz | HD3850 OC | Asrock 4coredual-vsta | 2GB DDR2

jmke

build a silently cooled AXP rig, Mobile XP @ 1200Mhz or so (with a vcore of 1.45 or lower), very big heatsink (MCX462-V) and a temp controlled, silent 90mm.. my 2 cents.. then you can record at 640x480 without probs.

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