[NCLUG] MythTV Presentation on Feb. 12

[Brian Wood]

DJ Eshelman wrote:
> Yeah, unfortunately I didn't know TerraSoft sold them either, until 
> after I had shelled out the cash.  Though I'm told that the unit I got 
> was one of the last with the better processors, apparently Sony has been 
> cutting back a part of the processing core to get better pricepoints.  

I heard that they are now allowing one of the 7 subsidiary cores to be 
bad to increase the chip yields. I checked mine when I got it and all 
the cores seem to work.

> I'm not sure- but given that so far I've been using the unit for BluRay 
> only (I have yet to buy a game for it in 4 months of ownership with the 
> exception of an online purchase of Mortal Kombat II- (oh, yeah).
> So, I burned myself an iso of YDL but my fear is that in partitioning 
> the drive you apparently loose all the data that was previously on the 
> unit.  Not a big deal for games, media and such, but I'm wondering what 
> the impact is for online purchases.

I'd guess you have to at least copy off anything DLed online, and Sony 
might have some way to frustrate even that.

I DDed the entire Sony partition off my drive and put it away for 
safekeeping, since Sony didn't seem to have any backup system to protect 
the software against HDD failure.

> 
> So, I've been holding off for now, but I'd LOVE to see YDL in action on 
> a PS3.  So far, with the last Sony OS update, playing mp4 (divx) movies 
> has been vastly improved over my Samsung DVD player.  The upconversion 
> just works really well over the HDMI.  So, naturally I'm curious how 
> well YDL will work as a media player/living room internet device.

I haven't played with mine much since I got it, which was the same week 
they became available (I had ordered it in advance). I have never even 
put a game disk into the machine (why on earth would I want to?)

I had planned to use it for transcoding video since it is so fast.

One problem is that the box is a real power hog. It idles at over 200 
watts, and goes up from there if you ask it to do anything.

The other main problem is the lack of access to the accelerated video 
functions from YDL, the video hardware behaves as a simple frame buffer 
under Linux.

It was able to play HD using mplayer (I used the HD version of 
"Elephant's Dream", which loaded both primary cores to about 60%.

I personally suspect that, while it can be made to work as a media box, 
cheaper and less power-hungry units are easily available,

I'd certainly be happy to bring it to one of the NCLUG meetings, now 
that I am free on Tuesday nights.

beww