[mythtv-users] Seeking Advice

[Joshua Gottlieb]

Well, yes, I do want to utilize the full functionality of mythtv... I want
to be able to burn dvd's straight from the box... transcode down to divx or
whatever... play divx encoded stuff, edit stuff I've recorded... etc, etc...

On 7/25/07, Steve Peters - Priority Electronics <
steve at priorityelectronics.com> wrote:
>
>  If you're gonna use the latest Ubuntu edition (as i did), and you're
> gonna be running Gnome, i'd recommend a minimum 1gb ram. I was running it on
> a P4 2.8ghz with 512mb ram, and it did fine, but there was a huge
> improvement when i moved to 1gb ram. Also, you can do just fine on as little
> as a 1ghz computer (or even slower) but the slower you go, the slower the
> response time of myth will be. If your computer has an AGP port, get an
> Nvidia FX5200 (i have an extra if you want one), it works great, and if you
> want to upgrade to HD in the future, it will work great for that too. Also,
> you prob want to get a tv tuner with hardware encoding, like one of the
> Hauppague ones (PVR-250, PVR-150, PVR-500). I have a PVR-500 and when
> recordings are in process, the cpu is pretty much idle. I tried a tuner
> without hardware encoding, and the CPU was around 25% when encoding, and
> that's with a P4 2.8ghz. On something slower, the CPU would have been much
> higher if not maxed out.
>
> I recommend you don't get a Celeron cpu if you're gonna be doing
> transcoding.
>
> Also, when you say a myth setup, that can mean a lot. For example, that
> might mean that you watch just a few hours of TV each week, and just delete
> the shows after you record them, or it could mean that you are recording
> shows all the time and are trying to save as much as possible via
> transcoding or nuvexport.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
>
> -Steve
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> *From:* mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:
> mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] *On Behalf Of *Joshua Gottlieb
> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 25, 2007 9:23 AM
> *To:* Discussion about mythtv
> *Subject:* [mythtv-users] Seeking Advice
>
>
> Ok, so I'm a noob at all this.  Now I have tried to do a good deal of
> reading on the forums and what not trying to get a feel for the recommended
> hardware etc.
>
> I'm trying to build a box from scratch, specifically for mythtv.
> Originally I had planned on getting a Hauppauge PVR-350 so I could have the
> MPEG2 decryption on the card.  This seemed like the ideal solution and I
> could get very low end hardware as all the work would be done by the card.
> However, then I saw various comments about how the card is being phased out,
> soon to be not supported etc, etc...
>
> So I started doing more research and noticed that there are a few small
> form factor motherboards that have TV-outs and built-in MPEG2 decryption, so
> I thought maybe that would be a good path, but there didn't seem to be very
> many folks having used the newer hardware.
>
> Anyway, what I'm trying to do is get advice from the experienced folks on
> here to setup a good solid mythtv system.
>
> I don't really need dual tuner right now, but might in the future.  I
> don't need HD support and most likely won't in the foreseeable future.
>
> So if someone were just going to build a mythtv system and didn't need HD,
> what would the general best hardware be?
>
> I'm looking for something that is not going to be crazy difficult to setup
> as well.  So hardware that works well and is well supported would be
> preferred.  That said, I am a pretty solid Linux user and would probably be
> building this under the latest Ubuntu distro.
>
> Any advice would be MUCH appreciated.
>
> And yes, I apologize for asking what is surely a much too frequently asked
> question, but I just haven't been able to come to a good conclusion based on
> what I've read so far in the forums...
>
> Joshua
>
>
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>
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