[mythtv-users] How's this configuration look?

[Andrew Chen]

At 01:42 AM 12/7/2003, you wrote:
> > I'm looking to use the backend for recording-only, all in MPEG2, with all
> > playback being done by one or more frontends.  I'm going to use two
> > PVR-250s so two programs can be recorded at the same time.  Is this a
> > realistic setup?  Thanks.
> >
> > Backend:
> > P4 2.4C 800MHz FSB
> > 1GB Dual Channel DDR
> > 80GB or so of IDE storage
> > 2xPVR-250 encoder boards
>
>If all it's doing is MythTV, and you don't plan on transcoding the
>recorded MPEG-2 files, then it's overkill.  The PVR-250s require very
>little system resources for recording.  My backend is a PIII-600 with
>384MB of RAM, and it rarely ever jumps into double digits of CPU usage.
>Usually, recording from one PVR-250 takes about 5% of my CPU.

Really?  Cool.  If I decide to go with a less powerful CPU, is it possible 
to tell MythTV to "renice" the transcoding jobs so they don't interfere 
with other stuff (even if it takes six trillion years to transcode)?  That 
being said, does anyone know if the PVR-250 is a universal PCI card?  That 
is, will it work with a 3.3V PCI slot?


>If you are going to do any transcoding, then the more CPU the better.
>
> > Frontend:
> > Celeron 700
> > 128MB RAM
> > Radeon 7500 Video Card
>
>This should work okay.  I can't speak to the video card, but I've used
>Celeron 566s for frontends with the MPEG-2 recordings from the PVR cards
>and had good success.

If I wanted to also play DivX on here, would I still be ok?  Thanks.