[mythtv] Help please!

[Henk Poley]

> Van: Johann Klemmack <klemmack@earthlink.net>
> 
> 	Overall, onboard audio (CMI8738) chips and the Sound Blaster Live! cards
> have had good quality.  AMD processors in the >= 1700+ range give you
great
> performance for the best price.  Since you're using it as your exclusive
TV
> setup, then  you'll want a beefier proc than most b/c you'll want to
> encode-decode at a higher resolution.

You are giving some strange tips here...

Onboard sound it good nowadays, but that's mostly with playback line-in
gives noisyness (don't know about the chipset you mentioned). The SB Live!
cards can give you a great deal op problems (look a bit around on the web
and you'll see). I'd still go for a TV tuner card with digital audio (ex:
SAA-7134 based). Seems to be a bit of a trouble to get btaudio (the digital
audio driver) to work.

If you have a standalone system you WON'T need a super duper proc, since it
won't occure that you're running other programs AND recording at the same
time. btw, the AMD 1700 is indeed a good system to start with, I guess.
Having some spare CPU cycles so you could use a 'heftier' video codec later
might be nice.

> 	Note that all the above is just my opinion - and I'd stick it in a
Shuttle
> Online microPC, probably the SK41G
> (http://www.shuttleonline.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=155) (btw, anyone done
this
> on a Redhat/Debian system?  How'd it work?) and you can have the whole
> system in a small, fairly quiet box for $700.

Shuttles are nice, though the early ones were noisier than the later (AGP)
incarnations, due to CPU-cooler + fan instead of heatpipe. They are a bit
expensive though, in my opinion. But that's something you'll have to weigh
for yourself. If you use a Shuttle, also use a recent Linux distribution,
else it might not support the motherboard. Also heard that the onboard
sound (esp. line-in) isn't really that great. But a tv-card with digital
sound will "fix" that.

> 	Of course, you could start small like I did - I got a new HD and TV card
> first, tried it out on my desktop box, then bought the rest when I knew I
> could get the system to wrok and could afford it.

Going that path too.