[mythtv-users] mythtv hardware plans

Richard Stanaford rstanaford at gmail.com
Tue Feb 6 05:31:26 UTC 2007


On 2/5/07, jason maxwell <decepticon at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I guess after I actually get a box up and running, then I can see what
> my TV habits become and go from there. So I'll pose a new question, or
> at least reword my old question.
>
> If you had up to ~$800 for hardware to build the best dual tuner HD/SD
> capable box that you could afford, what would your shopping list
> include? For the time being I will use my wireless keyboard for
> navigation, but will probably get a nice logitech/harmony remote or
> something eventually. I have optical drives, and plenty of IDE drives
> for the OS, but will need mobo, cpu, ram, power, storage, case,
> tuners, and video.
>
> WWYD?
> Thank you all for the guidance so far.
> -J



Hi Jason,

I'll give you my thoughts because I'm in the same boat as you.  I have a
little money set aside and now I am looking for how to best allocate it.

The real question is if you are planning on going with a separate
backend-frontend setup.  If you are, then you won't need high powered
graphics because you won't be displaying anything from the back-end.
Everything will be getting streamed to the front-end.  And the same is true
for audio.

So I would look for a motherboard that has decent options for multiple drive
configurations, such as a dual-SATA/SATA2 combination with IDE interfaces,
especially if you are going to run with just one back-end (you can have
multiple back-ends too, according to the docs).  In addition, I'm looking
for something with on board graphics and sound.  Since I plan on running
with multiple tuners (at least two, but likely four), I'll want as many PCI
slots as I can find.

For my planned setup, a dual core (Anthlon X2) processor and 1 Gig of RAM
might be a little overkill, initially, with hardware encoding, but I do plan
on adding additional back-ends, so the extra processing capability of the
dual core technology should easily facilitate the additional tasking
operations required of a master back-end that a lone back-end doesn't have
to worry about.

I am also aiming high on disk space, planning to run with two 250GB SATA
drives for a total capacity to store around 450 one hour programs of non-HD
content.

Also, if you are planning on running multiple drives, make sure you have
enough power.  A 400 watt supply should be considered a minimum.

Best of luck to you,
-Rich
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