[mythtv-users] Building a system from scratch

[Jeff Clowser]

Brandon Beattie wrote:

>The NTSC tuner on the pchdtv card does work with Myth.  The known issue
>is that Myth does not support having different tuner types in a system.
>(ie, in myth setup you have to pick if your system will get NTSC, ATSC
>(HDTV), PAL, NTSC-JP, etc.  If he/you are planning on using NTSC for
>now, and then using ATSC/HDTV in the future, the pchdtv card and MythTV
>will work just fine -- But don't try to use ATSC and NTSC modes at the
>same time (It won't work anyway).  
>
So... if I understand this correctly, if I buy the pchdtv card and use 
it for HDTV, this box would have to be HDTV only.  Also, just to make 
sure I understand, I could buy the pchdtv cards, but use them in ntsc 
mode for now, using a software encoder, and switch to HDTV/ATSC later, 
when everything is HDTV?  Assuming just one pchdtv tuner for now, can it 
record one show in HDTV, then switch to record another show in NTSC (is 
there something more significant to do to switch), or is it just that I 
can't have 2 cards in, one recording ntsc, the other recording hdtv at 
the same time?

>I personally used an AMD 2600+ system with 2 hdtv cards.  I'm working on
>finishing a PIII 450 system to hold the 2 hdtv cards.
>
Do you get enough HDTV content/channels to record much content?  Around 
here (Wash DC area), I don't think there are that many stations with 
HDTV yet... (though I honestly haven't checked - just trying not to 
build something that will be obsolete too quickly :) )


If I stick with NTSC, and put one PVR-350 and multiple PVR-250's in a 
box, so all encoding/decoding is hardware assisted, can I record 2 or 3 
things at a time while watching something else on something slower like 
a PII450 or 550 mhz machine (as a single box solution - basically like a 
TiVo that can record multiple channels at once, view live tv, etc)?   
Would a 1.8 ghz handle this effectively, or does it need something hefty 
like a 2.6ghz even with all the hardware encode/decode going on?

Thanks,
 - Jeff