[mythtv-users] New to HDTV; looking for advice

[Steven Adeff]

On Nov 30, 2007 10:22 PM, Jacob Steenhagen <jacob at steenhagen.us> wrote:
> I've been running MythTV for quite a while now using Fedora Core 4 and a
> PVR-350 card. I recently bought a new TV (an LG HDTV). The new TV has VGA in
> and I intend to use that for connecting a new MythTV box. I have an older
> Dell machine (a 2GHz P-4 w/512 MB of RAM) that I'd like to use. It has an
> onboard Intel video card. Will this card be sufficient, or should I go with
> something else. I do have a PCI GeForce FX 5500 I could use without any
> additional hassel (well, other than putting it in and installing the
> drivers). I'm not sure what capture card I'm gonna go with yet. A friend of
> mine thinks he has a card I can use, but he's from out of state and not home
> right now so I won't know exactly what the card is until he gets back.
>
> Does that machine sound acceptably powerful? If not, I have a more powerful
> machine that I could use. The only issue with that is it's currently running
> as a Windows XP box and would be quite a bit of work to install XP on the
> Dell and move everything over to it. The other machine is an AMD 64 3500+
> w/1 GB of RAM and a GeForce 6800 GS.

a P4 2GHz will be too slow on its own so you'll need the help of XvMC.
The PCI card should work if you enable XvMC though. XvMC isn't a
perfect solution though as many people have difficulty getting it to
work well, and the overlays won't be in color on that card IIRC.

If you do decide to use your 3500+ machine, XP should run fine on the
slower box though I would suggest adding at least another 512MB or
RAM. The 3500+ is fast enough to be used as a combined FE/BE as well
without the need for XvMC (I had such a setup a while back on a 3200+
and it ran fine with an pcHDTV3000 and a PVR-150).

As for HD tuners, I've got a pcHDTV 3000 and two Aver180's. But like
what was suggested by matt I'd go with an HDHomerun now that it is
available. Slightly more expensive but I'm pretty sure the consensus
is if you can afford the difference and want two tuners (and really,
who wouldn't) that its more than worth the money.

I'd also suggest a PVR-150 to connect to a cable box,etc. for
capturing regular TV. Or if your cablebox has firewire and your
channels are not blocked via 5C you can go that route too.

-- 
Steve
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