[mythtv-users] Group advice sought on setup please.

[Cory Papenfuss]

> Hardware questions:
> 1) TV card.  I have seen allot on the PVR-350.  They are $250 here.  Is this a
> good, fully supported, feature rich card?  Or should I be using a cheaper card?
 	My spin on that is that you're basically weighting high-quality 
MPEG2 TVout for *LOTS* of headaches, heartburn, driver problems, buggy 
non-MPEG2 playback, etc.  I do not have one, but that's been my 
impression.

 	I highly recommend the PVR-250 and a good TVout solution.  (I 
can't believe I just used the managementspeak 'solution' word!). 
Unfortuantely, I don't know which vid cards are simulaneously cheap, easy 
to set up, and have good quality.  I think that many (most?) people 
running mythtv don't have nearly as good of quality from their tvout card 
as they could/should.  All I've tried have sucked horribly compared to my 
homebrew VGA->NTSC converter.

> 2) How many TV cards?  Record and watch a different channel would be great.  So
> two?  Two 350's?
 	Get one and try it first?  Trust me when I say that after you get 
it set up and working, you'll hardly ever watch LiveTV.  I was skeptical 
when people told me that 6 months ago, but it's true... you just watch 
what's recorded!

> 4) What processor speed do I need?  I want great performance.
 	You don't need that much unless you plan on HDTV, or use a 
software (BTTV... non PVR-[23]50) card.  I was quite satisfied on a 
PIII-733 with a PVR-250 and an ATI Rage128 card.... about 40% CPU for 
playback.

> Software/OS:
> 1) I am a RedHat fan.  However, I will use what ever works best.  KnoppMyth?
> Again, looking for ease of install/use, but still want full featured.  What
> RedHat version is most supported?  FC2?  I have also read some howto's on SuSE
> 9.1.  That would be an easy install if MythTV was happy there too.

 	Axel's RPMS and Jarods guide make a vanilla mythtv box on normal 
(PVR-250 and nvidia, say) hardware pretty straight-forward.
>
> Once I am done, I am going to write up a how to and make sure that it is
> idiot-proof and includes an easy working method including hardware etc......
> This product is looking great so I would like to promote it's use with a how-to.
>
 	More info is great... I would suggest working with one of the 
other howtos out there to prevent too much splintering of information.

-Cory