[mythtv-users] please sanity check my new hardware

Disconnect mythtv at gotontheinter.net
Thu Apr 6 15:52:43 UTC 2006


On Thu, 06 Apr 2006, Steven Adeff did have cause to say:

> On 4/6/06, Jo Shields <directhex at apebox.org> wrote:
> > Wise man say "don't buy a sodding radeon express board, they're
> > fundementally broken under Linux". Or windows either, if one believes
> > http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzgx
> 
> I completely agree on this, I've got an ATI in my laptop (X200 Mobile)
> that I'm just happy
> A) doesn't crash like my friends ATI equiped laptop does in windows. constantly.
> B) works in 2D, I gave up on 3d.

FWIW I had the opposite experience, but that may be outdated - my last 
nvidia card was a -very- long time ago. Clearly nvidia seems to be the 
answer for myth.

> I also found that the X200 has the "pink bar" issue with Xv, which
> makes me think it won't work on the motherboard you found for properly
> displaying 720p or greater content.

Thats even worse news. So now all I have to do is hope the SN95G5-V3 comes 
back in stock later this month.

> On 4/6/06, Disconnect <mythtv at gotontheinter.net> wrote:
> > So my old hardware (which is really over capacity as it is) can't record or
> > play back hidef. Which means its time for new hardware, yay!
> 
> Are you sure? HD recording doesn't take a whole lot. Why don't you
> post what your current system is so we can better determine this.

Athlon XP 2500+ (1.8G) on an nforce2 board, raid5 (3 drives - 1 ata-100 on 
the onboard controller, 2 ata-100-in-sata-adapters on a SiL 3512 board) with 
a gig of ram.  Which might be fine for a dedicated box, but it was sluggish 
even before mythtv was put on it. (Its the general-purpose services and 
fileserver box.)

The biggest problem is playback. (And not filling my array with data that 
doesn't need to be there.) But even recording seems to have problems. I was 
thoroughly disappointed with the quality of the OTA show I had it tape last 
night (undersea adventures, off PBS) as it was full of glitches and 
artifacts. (It might be reception, I haven't gotten a chance to check yet.) 
Lower-bandwidth HD is passable, higher-bandwidth generally drags the system 
down so bad I have to log in and kill mythfrontend entirely. (For example, 
while I was testing WUSA was showing a basketball game in some insanely 
hidef format. Just tuning it in caused the play/hang/play/hang cycle to get 
so bad that remote inputs were processed 90-120 seconds late. Although live 
without myth worked better, it was still pretty unhappy.)

I can play live hd with mplayer and such no problem (with the exceptions 
above), but as soon as myth gets involved it goes to hell. (Even the tivo 
svideo input gets stuttery and - until I get digital audio passthrough going 
- it desyncs due to the live-buffer "feature". So for now, tivo is handled 
by me ssh'ing in and starting tvtime and hd is live or - usually - just 
straight from the dtv receiver. And yes, editing the menus to add tvtime is 
on my list of to-dos.)

Fortunately, my wife is being very forgiving. "This hd card is all I'll 
need, except for the remote chance I'll need a new video card. And once its 
working, eventually we should do more storage." .. followed a few weeks 
later by "So you don't like that fan noise, right? How about a new 
computer?" :)

> I'll go ahead and comment, though I still think going with a dedicated
> backend and building a seperate frontend capable of HD playback will
> be the way for you to go....

That would involve 2 new computers. I agree it might be the right answer, 
but its not an answer I can do today..

> > -  Shuttle ST20G5
> >  (http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/ST20G5.asp)
> If you must, go with the SN95G. I'll say though, Silverstone makes
> some darn nice small form factor HTPC cases...  Then get a fanless
> FX5200 with DVI output.

Hmm. Hadn't looked at them. I'll check it out now - thanks!

[remainder snipped, cuz I agree completely :) ..]

Oh, and I missed video - radeon 9200 se - and the remote is a Streamzap. 
(Yes, its cheap and has few useful buttons. But it works for now.)


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