Mailing List Archive

Hi Stephen!


> And what about 4K? I would hope to keep any new laptop I buy going
> for at least the 8 years I got out of the GT70, so does that mean I
> should be getting one with a 4K screen? Or at least one that can do
> 4K on its HDMI port? Currently, I do not have any 4K screens, and TV
> here in New Zealand is only 1080i. And I do not do Netflix or other
> subscription TV that has a 4K option. So deinterlacing is very
> important, but 4K not so much yet.

I tend to look ahead when making purchases; maybe you don’t have 4K now,
New Zealand broadcast services don’t offer 4K, but probably eventually
will. I’d lean towards getting the 4K option, unless priced out of
range. Can’t swap graphic cards in laptops nearly as easily like one can
in desktops.



> I am thinking that 17" is overkill and 15" is probably fine, but 17"
> has worked well for when we are away on holiday and two people are
> watching at the same time.

If you want a happy vacation (and life) stick with the 17” screen!  :)
Plus you’re getting older and will appreciate the slightly larger
display (easier to see without reaching for the reading glasses).


One thing that soured me on AMD in my last desktop build was skimping on
the heatsink. The “AMD approved” heatsink/fan combo that came with the
CPU was barely adequate for cooling under near-idle conditions. Doing
normal backups caused overheating to the point of shutdown. Due to this
issue I found AMD expects people to chuck their supplied unit in favour
of a bigger/proper coolers when building a system. AMD also is geared
towards gamers while Intel (forgot the term but what I’d considered
‘work’). So makes me wonder if they “cheat” on desktop units if the same
issue with laptops? Not intended a slam on AMD, but more ‘use the proper
tool’, plus a couple of factoids I was not aware of at the time I made
my purchase.


Barry

On 6/14/21 4:10 AM, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> My 8 year old GT70 laptop is dying - one hinge is gone and the other
> is loose. So I need to choose what to replace it with. The GT70 has
> a 17" screen and an Intel i7-3610QM processor with whatever Intel HD
> graphics was around back then, and also an Nvidia GTX 670M GPU. The
> 1920x1080 screen is 60 Hz - I do not think it has any other options.
>
> So what sort of graphics that is available in a laptop now is
> recommended for MythTV? Obviously Nvidia will still work, but you
> only seem to find them in gaming class laptops, and the version of
> Nvidia chip is overkill for MythTV. Is the Intel HD graphics in their
> laptop processors now good enough to do full deinterlacing properly?
> In my GT70, the Intel GPU was not quite there - it is not bad, but the
> Nvidia GPU is perfect, so I always use that. And what about the AMD
> GPUs? I have never used one with MythTV - are the ones available in
> laptops good now? Do the Linux drivers work properly?
>
> And what about 4K? I would hope to keep any new laptop I buy going
> for at least the 8 years I got out of the GT70, so does that mean I
> should be getting one with a 4K screen? Or at least one that can do
> 4K on its HDMI port? Currently, I do not have any 4K screens, and TV
> here in New Zealand is only 1080i. And I do not do Netflix or other
> subscription TV that has a 4K option. So deinterlacing is very
> important, but 4K not so much yet.
>
> The other thing about laptop screens now is that there seems to be
> some that do higher frame rates, such as 120 or 144 Hz. I do not need
> that for TV, but if it means that the screen can adjust to different
> frame rates and do 50 Hz for NZ TV instead of being stuck on 60 Hz,
> that seems like an very good thing to have.
>
> I am thinking that 17" is overkill and 15" is probably fine, but 17"
> has worked well for when we are away on holiday and two people are
> watching at the same time.
>
> So is anyone using a modern laptop for MythTV and can tell me how well
> it works?
> _______________________________________________

I got a new laptop last August. Acer Nitro 5. I found if I want anything
that is beyond the basic and is not a business machine, it has to be a
gaming laptop.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C1VTNPR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use it mainly for development.

I do not watch MythTV with it, preferring a TV with fire stick. It has
NVidia graphics. It runs MythTV and supports VDPAU and NVDEC with
MythTV. The built in screen is 1080 15.6 inch and the ubuntu display
allows refresh rates of 60 and 120. I don't know if something can be
done to support 50. Externally you can attach a 4K screen and I use that
regularly for development.

There is one Linux glitch, and I have a workaround. When suspending
several times a day, about once a week it locks up solid with a crash in
the NVidia drivers. It is reported on Ubuntu, but my workaround has
completely prevented it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-435/+bug/1850776

Peter

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

> Hi Stephen!
>> And what about 4K? I would hope to keep any new laptop I buy going
>> for at least the 8 years I got out of the GT70, so does that mean I
>> should be getting one with a 4K screen? Or at least one that can do
>> 4K on its HDMI port? Currently, I do not have any 4K screens, and TV
>> here in New Zealand is only 1080i. And I do not do Netflix or other
>> subscription TV that has a 4K option. So deinterlacing is very
>> important, but 4K not so much yet.
> I tend to look ahead when making purchases; maybe you don’t have 4K now, New Zealand broadcast services don’t offer 4K, but probably eventually will. I’d lean towards getting the 4K option, unless priced out of range. Can’t swap graphic cards in laptops nearly as easily like one can in desktops.
>> I am thinking that 17" is overkill and 15" is probably fine, but 17"
>> has worked well for when we are away on holiday and two people are
>> watching at the same time.
>
> If you want a happy vacation (and life) stick with the 17” screen! :) Plus you’re getting older and will appreciate the slightly larger display (easier to see without reaching for the reading glasses).
> One thing that soured me on AMD in my last desktop build was skimping on the heatsink. The “AMD approved” heatsink/fan combo that came with the CPU was barely adequate for cooling under near-idle conditions. Doing normal backups caused overheating to the point of shutdown. Due to this issue I found AMD expects people to chuck their supplied unit in favour of a bigger/proper coolers when building a system. AMD also is geared towards gamers while Intel (forgot the term but what I’d considered ‘work’). So makes me wonder if they “cheat” on desktop units if the same issue with laptops? Not intended a slam on AMD, but more ‘use the proper tool’, plus a couple of factoids I was not aware of at the time I made my purchase.

In order to seamlessly drain all your money apple make very nice hardware.
I've got a macbook pro and thanks to John Hoyt's hard work myth runs quite nicely. I do not know about their arm architecture (which all new macs are), perhaps he would give an answer.
Apart from myth I mostly use multiple VMs (running linux) using Parallels. Parallels has disk io of near native 2500 MB/s whereas VirtualBox does 700MB/s. Their touch pad is the first and only one that I prefer to a mouse.

To compare say rendering the same video on an (intel nuc, 2 core) i3 and the mac (6 core i7) using shotcut i3:24min mac:4min

I'm sold, but apple are a real pain (think Bill Gates was a borg, ha) so if you can avoid the money traps, and live with their anal hastles eg System Integrity Protection, that is a very nice laptop, with a really nice trackpad (try doing right-press and drag. mac:2 finger press and drag)

You did ask for opinions <grin>
James

On Mon, 14 Jun 2021 09:44:46 -0400, you wrote:

>I got a new laptop last August. Acer Nitro 5. I found if I want anything
>that is beyond the basic and is not a business machine, it has to be a
>gaming laptop.
>
>https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C1VTNPR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
>
>I use it mainly for development.
>
>I do not watch MythTV with it, preferring a TV with fire stick. It has
>NVidia graphics. It runs MythTV and supports VDPAU and NVDEC with
>MythTV. The built in screen is 1080 15.6 inch and the ubuntu display
>allows refresh rates of 60 and 120. I don't know if something can be
>done to support 50. Externally you can attach a 4K screen and I use that
>regularly for development.
>
>There is one Linux glitch, and I have a workaround. When suspending
>several times a day, about once a week it locks up solid with a crash in
>the NVidia drivers. It is reported on Ubuntu, but my workaround has
>completely prevented it.
>
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-435/+bug/1850776

Thanks, we do get Acer laptops here in New Zealand, and the Acer Nitro
5 is listed, but not in stock. We are having all sorts of problems
getting stock of computer equipment in NZ at the moment, due to the
world wide shipping snarl ups. But it looks like there are lots of
variants of the same sort of thing from multiple vendors, based around
having an Nvidia GTX 1650 of some sort, and they are generally not
horrible prices. Anything with a 2000 or 3000 series Nvidia is just
(lots of) wasted money as I do not do gaming, and a 1650 type GPU is
excellent for MythTV. So something like that with a 15.6" screen
seems to be the cheap and available option to do what I need. The
only downside I can see for the 1650 GPUs is that they seem to only do
up to 4K30, not 4K60. But I have yet to confirm that.
_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

On Mon, 14 Jun 2021 08:43:00 -0500, you wrote:

>
>
>Hi Stephen!
>
>> And what about 4K? I would hope to keep any new laptop I buy going
>> for at least the 8 years I got out of the GT70, so does that mean I
>> should be getting one with a 4K screen? Or at least one that can do
>> 4K on its HDMI port? Currently, I do not have any 4K screens, and TV
>> here in New Zealand is only 1080i. And I do not do Netflix or other
>> subscription TV that has a 4K option. So deinterlacing is very
>> important, but 4K not so much yet.
>
>I tend to look ahead when making purchases; maybe you don?t have 4K now,
>New Zealand broadcast services don?t offer 4K, but probably eventually
>will. I?d lean towards getting the 4K option, unless priced out of
>range. Can?t swap graphic cards in laptops nearly as easily like one can
>in desktops.
>
>
>
>> I am thinking that 17" is overkill and 15" is probably fine, but 17"
>> has worked well for when we are away on holiday and two people are
>> watching at the same time.
>
>If you want a happy vacation (and life) stick with the 17? screen!? :)
>Plus you?re getting older and will appreciate the slightly larger
>display (easier to see without reaching for the reading glasses).

I would love to get a 17" 4K laptop, but so far the prices I have seen
are in the eye watering category - 3 times the price of a reasonable
15.6" 1080p laptop. They all seem to be extreme gaming laptops. But
I have not checked out the business/workstation type laptops yet - and
maybe the HP or Dell web sites will have something. There are
certainly a huge number of laptops available! I have only had time to
visit one shop so far to see them in real life.

>One thing that soured me on AMD in my last desktop build was skimping on
>the heatsink. The ?AMD approved? heatsink/fan combo that came with the
>CPU was barely adequate for cooling under near-idle conditions. Doing
>normal backups caused overheating to the point of shutdown. Due to this
>issue I found AMD expects people to chuck their supplied unit in favour
>of a bigger/proper coolers when building a system. AMD also is geared
>towards gamers while Intel (forgot the term but what I?d considered
>?work?). So makes me wonder if they ?cheat? on desktop units if the same
>issue with laptops? Not intended a slam on AMD, but more ?use the proper
>tool?, plus a couple of factoids I was not aware of at the time I made
>my purchase.

Your experience with a new AMD CPU is completely different from mine.
A couple of months ago, I updated my old "no. 3" Ubuntu 20.04 PC from
a 2008 motherboard to an Asus Rog Strix X570-E Gaming motherboard with
an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8 core, 16 threads). I chose that processor as
it was the fastest one in the new AMD releases that came with a
cooler, an AMD Wraith Prism, which seems to be their best cooler. All
the faster AMD CPUs come with no supplied cooler and you have to add
one yourself. The stock cooler provided seems to work just fine with
the 3700X, but I am sure there is a reason they are not provided with
the bigger CPUs. I was not wanting to pay the rather extreme extra
cost for the bigger CPUs anyway, and the 3700X has worked out to be
excellent. The upgraded PC is staggeringly fast - it actually does
the "blink and you miss it" trick, which is a bit disconcerting when
your eyes are used to seeing the screen changes happen. I did also
invest in 32 Gibytes of good RAM and the fastest M.2 PCIe 4 SSD
available here to go with the motherboard, and that will all be
playing a significant part in just how fast everything runs. It is
overkill for Ubuntu, but I am saving up to do the same for my main
Windows box too. But that will have to wait for a while now with the
laptop having died.

So I am wondering if you were actually supplied the right cooler with
your CPU. AMD's current policy seems to be not to supply a cooler at
all if they do not have one of their own that will do the job
properly.

>Barry
_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

Hi Stephen!


> If you want a happy vacation (and life) stick with the 17” screen!
> I would love to get a 17" 4K laptop, but so far the prices I have seen
> are in the eye watering category - 3 times the price of a reasonable
> 15.6" 1080p laptop. They all seem to be extreme gaming laptops. But
> I have not checked out the business/workstation type laptops yet - and
> maybe the HP or Dell web sites will have something. There are
> certainly a huge number of laptops available! I have only had time to
> visit one shop so far to see them in real life.

I tend to like Lenovo and HP, though maybe not for quite the right
reasons. Lenovo has an IBM-background: tend to be solid and easy to
repair, physically and ‘mentally’ with easy-to-obtain documentation. HP
? Compaq ? DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), which for a while was a
presense in the city I grew up in plus made the computer for the college
I worked in at the time, plus my first real computer (DEC Rainbow 100) –
ah, nostalgia! (Though a thousand dollars for a megabyte hard drive –
eek!) Dell gets points taken away only because when I try to look up
specs on refurbished equipment is extremely difficult. Creating a brand
new unit is completely different.



> Your experience with a new AMD CPU is completely different from mine.
> A couple of months ago, I updated my old "no. 3" Ubuntu 20.04 PC from
> a 2008 motherboard to an Asus Rog Strix X570-E Gaming motherboard with
> an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8 core, 16 threads). I chose that processor as
> it was the fastest one in the new AMD releases that came with a
> cooler, an AMD Wraith Prism, which seems to be their best cooler. All
> the faster AMD CPUs come with no supplied cooler and you have to add
> one yourself.


My experience was with the AMD FX-8320; have forgotten the purchase
details but pretty sure the CPU box came with a heatsink and fan. Some
time later when having the overheating problems purchased a replacement
based on the CPU and “AMD approved” sounds reassuring – same as my
original! <Grrr!> Ended up putting a Cooler Master unit on it - now runs
nice and cool!


A BBS buddy in Montana who has a computer support business also ran into
similar issues with AMD CPUs and heatsinks.


Anyway, get a decent laptop and supply us with some of the details so
this group knows!


Barry

On 6/15/21 5:52 AM, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> The
> only downside I can see for the 1650 GPUs is that they seem to only do
> up to 4K30, not 4K60. But I have yet to confirm that.

I just checked on my 4K display, this laptop (Acer Nitro) runs 4K at 60
Hz refresh rate.

Peter

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

On Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:01:17 -0400, you wrote:

>
>On 6/15/21 5:52 AM, Stephen Worthington wrote:
>> The
>> only downside I can see for the 1650 GPUs is that they seem to only do
>> up to 4K30, not 4K60. But I have yet to confirm that.
>
>I just checked on my 4K display, this laptop (Acer Nitro) runs 4K at 60
>Hz refresh rate.

Thanks for checking on that - 4K60 from the 1650 mobile GPUs makes all
the machines in that class a good option. Now if I can just find one
with a 4K screen, or even a 17" 4K screen.
_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

So I have ordered one of these:

https://www.dell.com/en-nz/work/shop/business-laptop-notebook-computers/dell-g7-17-gaming-laptop/spd/g-series-17-7700-laptop/gn77d606nz?configurationid=07e9a5c8-bb17-4ce6-9fa0-34ff501c2ce7

I was looking at 15" screens since that was all that I could see that
was in the price range I wanted to pay, but when I got to the Dell
site, they had a whole lot of laptops on special, including this 17"
one (at 30% off) that seems to do what I need. That 30% brings it
within budget and its other specs are decent, including enough USB
ports - most laptops seem to have only three, and this has four,
including a USB 3.2 Gen 2 one (combined with Thunderbolt 3).

Since I was not willing to pay over NZ$8000 for a laptop, there are
some compromises. Here are the ones I know about:

- According to the reviewers, it is not very good for gaming due to
having not entirely adequate cooling - it tends to get to the point of
thermal overload and slow down when used for gaming. Since I am not
going to be using it for gaming, that is not a problem.

- The 2060 GPU will not do the new AV1 codec (you need a 30 series for
that), but that should not be a problem for a few years yet, and it is
likely powerful enough in the CPU to do AV1 anyway.

- For some strange reason the numeric keypad does not have the
navigation key markings on the keycaps, but as it does have a NumLock
key the navigation keys are likely to work when NumLock is off.

- The Ins and Del keys usually found at the bottom of the numeric
keypad on desktop keyboards are missing, but it has four programmable
keys (A, B, C D) above the keypad I can probably use for that. This
seems to be a common problem with laptop numeric keypads these days,
and most do not have programmable keys to help fix that.

- The CPU is last year's model, but there are not a huge number of
differences between the 2020 and 2021 Intel CPUs, so that should not
be a problem. It is going to be *much* faster than my old laptop,
which was not at all slow anyway.

- It is not shipped with the mounting hardware for using the second
M.2 slot, so if I want to install a second M.2 SSD I will have to
order that hardware. Dell assures me that it is available to order.

Dell have shipped it and I am currently waiting on a tracking number
to know when it will probably arrive. Dell is estimating 12-Jul-2021,
but they have done every other step of the order significantly faster
than their initial estimates, so I can hope for sooner.

When I get it set up for MythTV, I will report on how well it works. I
am interested to see how a 144 Hz screen works and what modes it can
do. I have not been able to find much information online about that.
It would be nice if it was able to do 50 Hz and 24 Hz as well as 60 Hz
and 24 Hz, but
_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org