[mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes

[Ben Bucksch]

Ray Olszewski wrote:

> We seem to get a thread like this about once a month. Three comments:
>
> 1. There is already a database of hardware/software configurations 
> available. 

I found that database to be so terrible to be usable. Not enough 
information, too unstructured. It's not accessible for me atm ("no route 
to host"), but IIRC

    * it had only very vague information about how well it worked,
      something like "works well", "works relatively well" about the
      whole system, no information about which resolution was used, how
      many tuners at the same time, if there are framedrops or other
      visual/audio problems, which country etc.
    * how hard it was to set up and the exact steps to set up the whole
      system, esp. device drivers

> I'd love to see Victor describe here the 4 Myth boxes he built, 
> especially his "best (bang for your buck) system [for] around $350 
> retail".

yes, but it's only useful with the software config and necessary steps 
to build the whole system from scratch.

> Price/quality tradeoffs are central to real decisions

That can be made explicit.

> as are configuration details that vary with country, signal source 
> (standard, tunable frequency sets versus external boxes that need 
> IR-Blaster or serial-port control)

that too

> intended use (mainly timeshifting versus mainly long-term storage), 
> and physical integration with the rest of the user's home-media setup.

I don't see how that massively influences the choices, apart from the 
case (->mobo) maybe, which could be made explicit as well.

What would have helped me terribly already would have been an advice for 
a good and well-supported tuner card. I see other people are having 
massive problems with tvout as well, so add gfx card in the 
recommondations. The prices don't vary much there, neither does the 
intended use have much influence, only the country, so that could be of 
good use.


I'll go forward by suggesting the Terratec Cinergy 400 with the saa7134 
chip as a tuner for Germany/Europe. It has TV-sound in stereo (many 
cards don't!), audio can be grabbed without sound card (after some 
install hassle) and it's faily cheap due to the fact that the stereo 
audio chip is integrated, not external like bt878 (the reason why so 
many bttv cards are mono and don't even say so in the advertizements).

Also, Geforce2 MX works very well as PAL tvout, if you ignore the 
sometimes very broken binary driver.

A few links to the

    * Pundit mobo
    * MiniCube barebone
      <http://www.mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=15&currency=1> (eh,
      wait, that just got 40 Eur more expensive in the last month??)
    * Dign/Accent case <http://www.quietpc.com/uk/cases.php#htpc>
      <http://www.moddin.net/review.asp?ReviewID=45>

might point some people to what they're looking for.

> keeping any distro up to date

Can't that be solved by basing on an existing distro and using its 
update mechanism, getting the packages from the real distro? The real 
work specific to MythTV is just the config, and there are rarely 
security bugs in there.

> updates to support new hardware (think v4l and X here, in the MythTV 
> context)

yup, and access to that hardware. That would have to be a collaborative 
effort.

> So I think the people who periodically suggest doing this (or, as I'd 
> put it, who ask someone else to do it) and the people who know how to 
> do it (and are reluctant to take on the workload) are distinct groups 
> of people.

Well possible. It nevertheless feels terribly useless to everyone to 
spend a week to get their system running, and plus the others even 
having to help. Such a distro could actually reduce the user questions 
on this list, at least per user ;-).

Well, if it helps anyone, I guess I could post my Debian config as well 
as the list of installed packages. That's a backend only, though, with a 
single saa7134 (PAL) card.

Ben