[mythtv-users] Questions about tuners, networking, and audio

Dewey Smolka dsmolka at gmail.com
Mon Dec 11 03:24:42 UTC 2006


On 12/10/06, David A. Caruso <dcaruso at cox.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I recently installed Myth 0.20 on a box with the goal of seeing what
> Myth was all about before taking the plunge and setting up a dedicated
> system.  Kudos to the devs...you all have created an impressive piece of
> software.
>
> At this point, I pretty much have everything I'm interesting in working
> but I do have a couple questions and was hoping I could get some input:
>
> 1) Does the dedicated decoder on the Hauppauge PVR-350 introduce any
> issues, configuration/hard-to-find-drivers/otherwise?  Does it need that
> same patch ( http://www.blushingpenguin.com/mark/blog/?p=24 ) that the
> PVR-150 does for its IR receiver?

Yes, as the 350's decoder is no longer officially supported. You can
still get it to work, but it's generally considered not advisable.
You're better off saving money and getting a PVR 150, 250, or 500
(2x150 on one card), and doing the video out from an nvidia card. The
fx5200 is the gold standard, though other fx and gf cards work as
well.

I'm not entirely sure about the IR question. I use a PVR 250, which I
believe uses the same IR circuit as the 350 and works with lirc_i2c.
I've never had to do any particular patching to get it to work (though
I did have to add an init script to get the IR working after reboot).

>
> 2) How does Myth share movies/videos/recordings between frontends?  Is
> it just an NFS share or is there some type of streaming involved?

For recordings, the storage volume can be mounted with NFS on your
remote frontend(s) but if it isn't mounted, then Myth will stream the
video using an internal protocol. The remote FE will also be able to
edit and delete recordings without having the volume mounted with NFS.

For Mythvideo and Mythmusic, the storage volume needs to be mounted
locally on each frontend with NFS (or Samba). Streaming is only done
with recordings.

> 3) 802.11g...enough bandwidth?  Specifically, enough bandwidth for
> multiple frontends?

Enough bandwidth for one FE, but you may run into problems with
multiple FEs streaming simultaneously. Probably not adequate for HD,
but I don't have any direct experience as far as that goes.

>
> 4) (This one might be a little OT) I haven't actually hooked the Myth
> box up to a TV yet and I'm not much of an AV guy so I'm wondering how
> that goes.  All my TVs are of the "old fashioned" variety, i.e. the only
> inputs they have are coax and component (?) in (the red, yellow, and
> white connectors).  Is it as simple as running the "yellow" wire from
> the video card to the TV and then the "white" and "red" wires from the
> sound card to the TV?

That's pretty much it. You'll need to put the right settings into
xorg.conf for TV-out, but that is covered in the documentation and on
the wiki. If S-video is an option you'll get a bit higher quality than
composite (the yellow wire). Most nvidia cards have S-video out, but
if that isn't an option, an S-video-to-composite adapter is only a
couple bucks at Radio Shack.

Good luck


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