[mythtv-users] Newbie questions

[Kenneth Aafløy]

Hi,

Paul Woodward wrote:
> Thomas Börkel wrote:
> > As hardware, I could think of:
> > - P3/866
> > - 1x PVR-250, 1x PVR-350
> > - Soundblaster card
> > - some cheap VGA card

Get this, for killer tv output quality!

You might be limited to outputing mpeg2 only for a little while,
untill the ivtv frambuffer thing gets sorted out.

> > Would both hardware constellation be OK for my requirements?
> Can't advise you on the hardware spec. I run a P2.4C, with 2x 
> DVB cards and can quite happily watch old recordings while it 
> records from 2 cards at once.

Yea, would be very much ok. The second setup might be better
if you play a lot of other formats than mpeg2, like divx,
but tv out is lacking on the geforce compared to pvr-350.

> > I have read, that the PVR-350's MPEG2 decoder output has some
> > "limitations". What are they?

I belive this limitation is reffering to the actual format of
the mpeg2 stream (profile).

> > What filesystem should I use? Is reiserFs OK?
> I use ext3, but I've heard good things about reiser - I'll 
> let someone more knowledgeable answer.

I use ext2 for speed, however recently there has been alot of
power-outs here (because of all the snow), so i've switched
to the ext3 model for the benefit of quick filesystem check
when the system goes down unintentionally. I'll switch back
when all the snow is gone :) Basically you get an overhead
with the journal (although I bet we could argue back and
forth about this for ages).

For more, search the gossamer archive for 'filesystem':
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/Dev_F10/

> > If recording from analog TV, what bitrate do I need to get 
> > an MPEG2 that is almost identical to the source?
> > Thinking of the noisyness of analog TV,
> > I could think about 6 MBit or something.

I belive this is also answered in the archive, but yea,
experimenting with values around that you are suggesting
is a good start.

Good luck,
Kenneth