[mythtv-users] New setup

[Pierre-Olivier Bouchard]

Ray Olszewski wrote:
> At 07:00 PM 5/19/2003 -0400, Lev Pertsov wrote:
> 
>> I would like to put a PVR solution together with my old AMD K6 700Mhz 
>> machine.
>> Can anyone recomend a decent hardware to make it possible?
> 
> 
> Probably not. Over the weekend, I tested the performance of a Celeron 
> 533 for video capture (using vcr/avifile set for 320x240, a setup 
> somewhat less demanding on the CPU than Myth). Recording, it dropped 
> almost 20% of frames,  almost all in the encoder (only a tiny number in 
> capture).
> 
> A AMD K6 700Mhz is a bit better, but probably not enough to make a 
> decent record-only spstem (in the Myth world, a backend) and certainly 
> not enough for a one-host combined backend and frontend.

A K_6_ 700Mhz? Most likely this is rather a K_7_, an Athlon.

According to AMD's own processor documentation 
(http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252_739_1102,00.html) 
the K6 never went above 475Mhz, thus your processor can only be an 
Athlon - much more powerful.

I think your machine should be able to work fine with a Hauppauge WinTV 
PVR-250 as an encoding machine only; It might be able to do LiveTV - or 
record a show and play a previous recording at the same time too, but 
I'm not 100% sure on that. If you have a fast enough hard disk you 
should be fine.

The PVR-250 is more expensive than a "standard" capture card, because it 
does the compression itself - letting you get by with slower systems 
overall.

> This would make a nice frontend, though, if it has, or you can add, a 
> suitable video card (assuming you want TV out, that is).

It's more than enough. My lowly Celeron 500, when using the integrated 
i810 video, can play 352x480 recordings over the network without any 
frame drops.


Pete