[mythtv-users] Myth/HDTV dream system?

[Jesse Guardiani]

On Sunday 20 November 2005 4:39 pm, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> Bertrand wrote:
> 
> > Yeah, I'd love a big secret beast
> 
> Good name for it.  :D


I used to have a dual machine setup, but I ditched it in favor of
a really fast single machine. Actually, it's not all that fast.
Just a Celeron D 2.93ghz, but it works pretty well. My case is cheap,
but it's quite attractive. It's a jet black tower made of aluminum
($50), and in the front it has a black HP DVD+RW burner ($30!) and
room for at least 4 disk drives. Currently I've got two 250G Seagate
SATA disks w/8M caches in there in a RAID-1 mirror ($200). I've got
a PVR350, but I'm not using the TV-OUT ($170). Instead, I'm using
an Nvidia GeForce 5200 FX that I bought used for $40 last year
(Fanless - a MUST).

My dream power supply is a Seasonic S12 600W.
My dream mobo is an Abit LC7-G.
My dream processor would be a 3.0ghz P4 with HT and a 1mb cache.
And I'd add a second 1GB DDR PC3200 stick to utilize the P4's
800mhz quad pumped FSB.

In addition, I'd buy two extra 250G SATA disks and convert my 250G
RAID-1 array into a 750GB RAID 5 array.

If I knew I'd be using the 5200 for TV-OUT, I wouldn't have bought
the PVR 350. Instead, I would have saved my money and bought a $70
PVR 150 or 250 with the IR remote and the radio.

At some point I'll probably add an OTA HDTV card of some sort. But
they're expensive, limited (OTA only, no video capture), and I
currently live 30 miles from the HDTV transmitters in the area and
on the wrong side of my apartment building, so I'd certainly have
to buy a more expensive antenna and mount it on the roof, which I
doubt the land lord would allow.

Finally, I might add a PVR 150 MCE for dual recording and PiP
capability.

I currently use X-Box wireless controllers for gaming, and I have
a wireless BTC 9019URF keyboard for those infrequent times when
I need to press the ESC key to exit an SNES or MAME game, or bring
up Konsole in the MythGame menu and work some CLI magic.

Heat is a major issue. I have my case in a wood computer armoire.
Unfortunately, even though I cut holes in the rear of the cabinet
I still have to leave the doors open or the temp gets too hot. I
think that Seasonic S12 supply might solve the problem though. It
has dual fans, so it would probably vent a lot more of the case
heat out the back.

Noise is an issue, but not really from the MythTV box. Really, the
loudest thing in the living room is the old Pentium 1 133mhz beater
box I'm running M0n0wall on. If I converted it to a Soekris or WRAP
fanless box, then solved the heat problems so I could close the doors
on the computer armoire, it'd be nice and quiet. My wife hasn't
complained about the noise in 4 months, so it can't be that bad.

This server is not just a Myth box BTW. It's Gentoo and runs Apache,
QMail, and Asterisk. It's really quite a robust server, and it's more
than adequate for my family's personal needs.


-- 
Jesse Guardiani
Programmer/Sys Admin
jesse at wingnet.net