[mythtv-users] Really small backend server (Pentium 200)

[Torsten Schenkel]

On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 17:09, Brian Foddy wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, John Marrett wrote:
> 
> > I've been looking at implementing MythTV on my home network.
> > 
> > I am planning to buy a EPIA ME6000 for my frontend machine. I plan to run
> > minimyth on it.

The ME6000 is a bit weak for playback without h/w decoding. The cle266
isn't that good at the moment. I had stutters with low fidelity streams.

> > I was wondering how small I can make the backend machine. I have a pentium
> > 200 'server' at home.
> > If I install a PVR-250 card to provide Hardware MPEG and install a ATA-133
> > card in the machine to drive a 160GB disk at ATA100+ speed would the
> > machine be able to keep up? It seems to me that it has more than enough
> > internal bandwidth to shuffle the 36 Mbits (1 x 12Mb write, 1 x 12Mb read,
> > 1 x 12Mb to the network) around.

Probably would be sufficient if you have full DMA and busmastering
support.

> > Would it be able to handle Live TV?

Decoding on the 200? Probably not.
 
> > Would I be able to run two PVR-250 cards? With one of them doing Live TV?

Two cards recording? Might be the limit. Playback on the 200? No.

> > How many weeks would it take to re-encode an hour long recording ;)

You don't want to transcode with that hardware. You want to keep the
mpeg2 files. Believe me you want!

> > Has anyone else attempted this?

Not the P200, don't have one, I might dive into the box and fish for the
Cel300 :-)

> But I have to ask the obvious???  If you are going to need a faster
> frontend machine the play the pvr stream, why seperate the backend
> over a network?  The PVR250 takes almost nothing to record so its
> likely if you have a machine that can play the stream, it could
> probably record as well at the same time.  Most of the time people
> use the distributed front/backend features if they need multiple
> cards or need more horsepower, but your P200 isn't going to really
> do either....

Hmm, install a pvr350 in the epia, boot it from network or usb-stick and
save and receive the stream to/from a nfs-drive. You'll get fine
decoding and picture quality, and can put a pvr250 into the
nfs-server/backend as second capturing card.

This might work :-)

Torsten
-- 
Config files for pvr350 tv-out and framebuffer:
http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/ivtv-pvr-350-conf.tgz