[mythtv-users] Replacing my VCR with MythTV and a Celeron 550

[Lane Schwartz]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 11:57:48 -0400, Eric Medlin <emedlin at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> I have a Celeron 366 overclocked to 550 on an old Abit BM6 motherboard with 196megs of ram.  I also have an ATI 8500 for TV out, Diamond mx300(aureal 2) sound card, and two 40gig harddrives for storage.  I plan to compile gentoo from scratch to get all the speed I can.  My main rig a P4 2.4 will help in compiling so I can finish before next year.  My main question is can I use a bttv card to record video at or higher than VHS quality with this computer.  I don't need live TV.  I just want to record something and then later play it back.  I know a PVR-250 or something would be better, but I am trying to save money.  If it workes and I really like it I may get a PVR-150 later when it works with linux and mythtv.

Hmmm.... You'd be cutting it close.

For reference, I have an Athlon 1 GHz with a PVR-250. It works pretty
well, but playback sometimes stutters, especially if I am recording
something while watching something else. When that happens I have to
pause what I'm watching, mark the spot, exit from watching it (I don't
exit Myth frontend entirely), then start watching again.

My guess (and this is just a guess) is that you'd probably be OK if
you only do one thing at a time - ie. watching a recording OR
recording a program. Then again, that might be more of a hard drive
issue.

If you already have the TV tuner card, I'd say give it a shot. Also,
might be worth keeping in mind that if you already have the hard drive
and the TV tuner, you can build a new Myth box from scratch for less
than $250:

Asus Pundit: $135 + $8 shipping (newegg.com)
Pentium Celeron 1.8 Ghz: $53 + $0.99 shipping (newegg.com)
256 MB RAM: $38 (dealram.com)
-----------
$234.99 total

Good luck.
Lane

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