[mythtv-users] Soliciting Hardware Suggestions

[Dewey Smolka]

>
> My main question is for video.  Being designed for server operations, board
> has no AGP slots and the built in video is pretty weak ( ATI Rage / 4MB ).
> It has two PCI-66 slots and I believe Nvidia offers some video cards that
> would take advantage of that, but I have not done any significant research
> in those yet.

You can get an Nvidia fx5200 or g4 in a PCI for $60 max  -- look
around and you'll get it for half that or less. No hassle with Myth or
with OpenGL.

> I will probably use the onboard  IDE drive controller for now ( also has
> onboard Ultra SE SCSI and Ultra 160 LVD SCSI ) but may put a RAID SATA
> controller in the second PCI-66.  There are also four PCI-33 slots which I
> am considering for at least one PVR-500, a good sound board, and a GB
> network card.

No need to bother with a RAID until you need it. Use a small drive for
OS and a big one for recordings. Until you figure out where you what
to go and how much space you need, there's no need to complicate
things with LVM or RAID. There's also no real need for 1GB networking
-- use the cheap and standard 100/10 base instead. Get the pile up and
running first, then worry about space.

As far as sound goes, I've had dodgy experiences with SoundBlaster,
and would recommend a Turtle Beach card instead -- the Riviera runs
around $30 retail and is leagues ahead of the onboard sound and works
out of the box.