MythTV Developers Plan Xv, XvMC, OpenGL Changes

[deanjo]

Off topic here but since we have MythTV devs in the forums I would just have to say one thing about the project. One thing that is keeping ALOT of people from using MythTV is the absurdly difficult initial setup. Is there any work on improving it and making more user friendly for initial setup?

[gbee]

One thing that is keeping ALOT of people from using MythTV is the absurdly difficult initial setup. Is there any work on improving it and making more user friendly for initial setup?

The focus for 0.25 is a complete re-write of the setup process. It might take longer than we expect so please don't hold me to it appearing in 0.25, but that is the current goal.

[droidhacker]

I'm really worried about this eventual dropping of Xv... Opengl is cute, but JUST DOESN'T WORK right. Even with an R700 and crystalhd decoder, XBMC grants an amazingly useless 1 FPS as a result of using opengl instead of Xv. Xine and MythTV work great, because they do NOT need opengl.

[drag]

Anybody notice that all the acceleration technologies they are abandoning are X Windows-specific. OpenGL ES, VA-API, VDPAU, etc. These are all things that can be used on any platform as they are standardized APIs. (Wayland, Windows, OS X, etc)


Well Good Luck for Mythtv. I've used you in the past quite happily. but I've given up all my TV watching.

It may be interesting if Mythtv may be courting the idea of becoming a more generalized media server. With web-based interface, uPNP support, XBMC support, etc etc. It would be cool if it would just turn into a generalized media server that can stream out to people's Xbox 360's, playstations, internet streaming television shows to people's smartphones, etc etc.

That would be something very interesting.

[drag]

I'm really worried about this eventual dropping of Xv... Opengl is cute, but JUST DOESN'T WORK right. Even with an R700 and crystalhd decoder, XBMC grants an amazingly useless 1 FPS as a result of using opengl instead of Xv. Xine and MythTV work great, because they do NOT need opengl.

Try playing around with Mplayer.

See:
mplayer -vo help

To get a good idea of what it supports. Try the non-xv outputs and see how that works.

Keep in mind that OpenGL != OpenGL ES... AND keep in mind that OpenGL is a huge API and that different programs can use it differently with vastly different results.

[popper]

The 'outdated' bit has more to do with the themes than limitations of MythUI. MythUI does support some animation, it's just not all enabled or used in themes to any significant degree currently. The library was designed from the ground up with animation in mind though. As the developer who put the most work into MythUI over 18 months of development I can be a bit sensitive about criticism. What we really need is more themers to give MythUI a good workout, it's an order of magnitude more capable than the previous UI. Try to remember what it looked like back in 0.20.



The switch to OpenGL for video rendering is about far more than the OSD. It's not least about code simplification, allowing us to focus on a single powerful cross-platform solution. It will also allow us to integrate the UI and video so that they are no longer two completely separate modes but a seamless experience. With OpenGL we can easily allow users to see video previews integrated into the list of recordings and video, browsing of rss feeds whilst video plays in the background and video continue to play smoothly as it's resized from a small preview window to fullscreen. These examples are limited by my imagination and my ability to communicate the benefits. If you can't understand what I'm trying to convey then you will just have to trust me when I say that is well worth sacrificing support for the oldest generations of hardware.

These screenshots might help to illustrate just one of the reasons we don't like X-Video:

First the OSD on a standard definition recording with VDPAU - http://miffteevee.co.uk/imagebin/osd_font_vdpau.png

Now that same OSD with the same recording using XVideo - http://miffteevee.co.uk/imagebin/osd_font_xv2.png

The above is a generous example, full resolution PAL, the lower the original video resolution the poorer the quality of the OSD so it's worse with NTSC/SD-ATSC and completely useless with videos/recordings below those resolutions. Also worth noting is that the OSD will match the video dimensions with Xv, so a 4:3 SD recording on a 16:9 screen the OSD will be squashed horizontally, vertically for a 2.35:1 film on the same screen and you can imagine how 2.35:1 on a 4:3 screen might be unusable.

We know not everyone cares about a better looking and more capable user interface. It's been made quite clear to us that it's what most users want. To be brutally honest it's also what interests the developers, which is usually a significant factor in a volunteer run project.

I'll finish by repeating that this is a long way off in the future. There is every reason to believe that drivers for existing ATi and Intel hardware will have much improved 2D OpenGL support by that time. Hardware has been capable of it for years, were we not playing 3D computer games using OpenGL ten years ago?

interesting, will you also be using OpenVG 1.1 and combined VG/GL overlays etc too ?
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archive...er/004255.html

where does the VA API stand with you and the other dev's now that the new sandy bridge has a confirmed HD AVC Encode/Decode Engine included, and a x264 patch being worked on internally inside Intel by Francois Piednoel , Senior Performance analyst at Intel Corp Santa Clara ... BTW?

[deanjo]

The focus for 0.25 is a complete re-write of the setup process. It might take longer than we expect so please don't hold me to it appearing in 0.25, but that is the current goal.

Good to know that it is being worked on. Currently MythTV's setup can be a daunting task for even non "noobs".

[XabiX]

Is there any news about VAAPI support within MythTV?
It's already required for intel users (Clarkdale, Irondale) and it will be even more with the SandyBridge