[NCLUG] MythTV Presentation on Feb. 12

[DJ Eshelman]

Yeah, the video transcoding was a big part of what I was after too- I'll 
be using a central storage server (which, by the way the new Sony 
firmware has much better media server support).

But a big thing for me has been when you're sitting in the living room 
with friends talking about how funny some YouTube video is- it'd be nice 
to have a quick way to just go there and show it instead of just talking 
about it...  But you bring up an excellent point-

I put a Kill-A-Watt on my PS3 and found at idle it was taking up about 
215, and folding was over 350.  Playing a BluRay is about 300, and 
playing the GranTurismo HD demo pushed it to nearly 400 watts.

Fortunately, the system powers up very quickly, but unfortunately takes 
up 14 watts just sitting there plugged in.

Now that BluRay PC drives have fallen in price, I often wonder if it 
would have been better to just go that route, but at the time most 
non-Sony BluRay drives were data-only.
I've often wondered how a nice little Via C7 chip would do with BluRay 
at 1080p...  Because at 35 or so watts, that beats the PS3 sucking down 
300 watts for two hours...  You could pretty much leave it on all day- 
the chips are supposed to idle at something like 14 watts.

But in any case, I'd still love to see YDL on the PS3 in action- anyone 
else up for it?

-DJ

Brian Wood wrote:
> 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
>
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