[mythtv-users] Myth / Pluto / LinuxMCE choice - advice needed

[Nick F]

On 5/6/07, Paul Simpson <paul at maggiandpaul.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> I have literally hundreds of questions and would ideally like to actually
> see one (or all three!) options working, so if you live in the Midlands of
> the UK and wouldn't mind giving me a demo (I live on the Leicestershire /
> Northamptonshire border) thet would be great ;-)
>
> ...
> Ok, my server machine / core will obviously be on all the time, however
> I'm a bit of a scrooge and want to get as much "bang for my buck" (as they
> say in the US) as I can. Am I better getting a meaty machine, or having a
> moderate spec and the having some extra machines with WOL to use to do the
> actual capturing? What about the whole hardware / software encoding issue?
> I hope to use the multiplex streaming when it becomes available to allow
> me to get as many channels as possible with as few LNBs and capture cards
> as I can get away with. What about disks? I'd rather not have a whole bank
> of disks powered up all the time if there is a system which allows them to
> be powered down when not in use. I understand that there is a Myth add-in
> which allows you to set up a "wish list" of films and programmes. Will
> this work with the EPGs available in the UK? How much detail does the EPG
> in the UK have? 5 of my "customers" are children, so they will want to
> build up libraries of everything from "Bob the Builder" and "Pingu" (2
> year old) to "Spongebob Squarepants" (9 year old) whilst I want to end up
> with every eposode of "The New Yankee Workshop". WAF is very important to
> me, not least because I have to get the cost of all this through the
> financial committee (AKA my wife!).
>
> The final question is, I guess, the biggy. Which should I go for?
> Ultimately, I want the integration of Pluto / LinuxMCE, but from what I'm
> seeing that is a road frought with hazzards. Would I be better sticking
> with Myth only for now? Or is even Myth still a little shakey? I really
> can't afford to throw money at hardware unless I know I've got a
> reasonable chance of ending up with a working system which is useable by
> all the family.


Hi Paul,
If you are ever in London - you are welcome to have a look at my
installation.

On the Myth/Pluto/LinuxMCE - I was also tempted by Pluto when I started out
- it sounded like a really good idea.  I went so far as to install it on an
old laptop to try to get it working - it didn't.  I did the same with
Knoppmyth - and it worked a charm.  I then realised that there was enough
getting just Myth working properly without trying to get home automation
working at the same time - so went Myth only (and zoneminder for CCTV).

I've now got a server (Core 2 Duo with 4x750GB SATAII drives in RAID 5 and
200GB system drive) and three backends - a mac mini for the living room
driving a plasma (the mini is an almost perfect frontend) and 2 older
laptops - one driving a LCD TV in the bedroom, and the other a LCD monitor
in the kitchen.  They all run Fedora Core 6 (with the help of Jarod's guide)
and latest SVN trunk.  At the moment the backend only has one DVB-S card
(with a CAM so it can tune to all the Sky channels without the digibox) -
but I intend to add additional LNBs (for other sats) and combine with
DVB-T.  I probably didn't need a C2D - but I wanted a relatively modern
motherboard with at least 6xSATA II connections - and the lower power
consumption and 'future-proofness' of the chip convinced me.  Having a
powerful CPU is also great when ironing out issues - and recompile time is
low.  For the sake of maybe £200 difference - while struggle with a slow
(and more energy hoggin) CPU?


The RT xmltv guide data is excellent, and you can quickly build up a library
of desired shows.  Being able to store DVDs on the server - so they are
accessable from any frontend using the same UI is also great.

Good luck.  I started toying with the idea of Myth last May, built my server
in November, and now have a pretty stable, family-friendly system (with only
the occasional crash - usually because I've been playing)
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