[mythtv-users] Few questions from new user (which motherboard )

[Ben Edwards]

Thanks everyone for their input.  I have worked out what I need now.  The
only thing I am not 100% on is which motherboard to use.  I am considering
the Gigabyte nForce 250 Socket 754 ATX Audio/LAN/RAID.  Its a good price and
I have always liked Gigabyte.  The only thing that concerns me is whether
the built in Realtek ALC850 is going to be easy to get working (I am
planning on using Ubuntu Breezy).  Initially I will just be using stereo but
as some time will upgrade my speaker system to surround.

Regards,
Ben

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Bird [mailto:neil at fnxweb.com]
> Sent: 26 September 2005 12:43
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Few questions from new user
> 
> 
> Around about 26/09/05 10:27, Ben Edwards typed ...
> > Firstly what processor should I get. I had a AMD Sempron 
> 3000+ to 3400+ 
> > in mind.  What I was hoping on being able to do is allow 
> the TV card to 
> > do the recording and have enough oomth in the CPU to be able to 
> > decode/play at the same time as recording or do I need two 
> TV cards to 
> > do this.  Being able to play and record at the same time is very 
> > important to me.  How do I wire things up to record/play at 
> the same 
> > time.  If I had two cards would I have one wired to record 
> an the other 
> > to play and do they have to be the same cards?
> 
>    I can't really comment on the Nova as I've not gone down 
> the DVB route on 
> my PVR yet, but it seems fairly common.  I don't believe the 
> Nova would have 
> TV-out (like the Hauppauge PVR-350 does), but I'm one of 
> those who don't go 
> for that sort of thing anyway, just a standard video-card 
> with s-video out 
> from eBuyer does it.  Got a decent high-res. one (1024x768 on 
> the s-video out) 
> for ~25-30. (recommend nvidia-based so you get their drivers 
> from atrpms)
> 
>    You'll only need >1 Nova if you plan to record more than 
> one channel at 
> once.  Get one working first, I reckon, then add another 
> later on if you get 
> everything going OK.
> 
>    I use an Athlon 2200;  anything that or better should be 
> OK, depending upon 
> your pocket :)  You only need your CPU for playback decode 
> (and advert 
> transcoding), as the DVB stream is already compressed & will 
> be dumped to the 
> HD as-is.
> 
>    I only have 512 Mb RAM;  this causes some swapping on the 
> frontend, I've 
> found, after it's been left a bit, so I'm going to up it to 
> 1Mb when I get the 
> money.  Your call there, it does work OK, but it's stress I 
> think the box can 
> do without (e.g,. swapping while recording/playing back).
> 
> -- 
> [neil at fnx ~]# rm -f .signature
> [neil at fnx ~]# ls -l .signature
> ls: .signature: No such file or directory
> [neil at fnx ~]# exit
> 
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