[mythtv-users] Advice on Building a Quiet MythTV Box?

[Blammo]

Great advice,  just wanted to add a little of my own.

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 2:06 PM, VCRAddict
<MythTV_01 at appropriate-tech.net> wrote:
<snip>
> Beyond that, if you want a MythTV system to be really quiet in day-to-day
> use, then you want to implement it as a "split" system, with the
> "front-end" and "back-end" chores handled by physically different systems.
> The "front-end" is basically responsible for driving the display, rendering
> the sound & images during playback, and providing/managing the GUI.  The
> backend is primarily responsible for the recording process -- i.e., the
> tuner cards and file storage.

Absolutely 100% agree. It's where I, and most of my MythTV friends
have ended up. You WILL end up there sooner or later, well worth
doing. (It's a real shame Windows Media Center can't do the same
thing. They have extenders, but then you get into all the codec
playback issues).


> For example, in the new
> back-end I'm about to build, I'm planning on being able to record a minimum
> of four HDTV channels *simultaneously*, with storage for somewhere north of
> 200 hours of High-Def material -- and that's hardly the most ambitious
> MythTV system ever built.  This "monster box" (really, a medium-large
> "mid-tower" case will suffice) can then be stashed away in some
> non-obtrusive location, like a closet, basement, garage, etc. -- so you
> will never hear it from the "media room".

My backend is in a big rack-mount case, in a rack, in the garage.
Properly vented, on rails, easy to work on.

Pick up a cheap rack with some shelves, an APC rack mounted UPS (lots
of companies going out of business lately, easy to find), now you're
in good shape. Rack mounted switches are cheap ($<100) and most are
remotely manageable as well. Get a couple of HDHomeruns, and now you
don't have to run Coax to your frontend either.


> Wireless and High-Def tend to not play nicely together.  It *can* be done,
> when everything falls together "just so"; but all in all, you'll be a lot
> better off running some CAT-5e or CAT-6 cables where you need then, and
> being done with it.  Ad far as the NICs, switches, routers, etc., go...
> Run-of-the-mill 100Base-TX will be adequate for at least a couple of
> simultaneous High-Def data streams; but given how inexpensive Gigabit
> Ethernet hardware is these days, it's cheap future-proofing.

You can make Wifi work, under some conditions. With the wide-spread of
2.4ghz (802.11b/g) there's loads of potential interference there.
802.11N makes multipath less of an issue, and I've seen 802.11A/N
setups work decently, as long as nobody else (desktop PC's, laptops,
etc) is sharing the bandwidth.

I've said this before, but the real wireless killer is HD Fast Forward
and Rewind. You can sustain HD playback, which takes about 25 megabit,
but as soon as you FF/REW, you'll see your network traffic jump up to
200-400Mbit, which no wireless I've ever seen can support, regardless
of claims. Besides, if you run front/back split, then all you need for
your frontend, is a single ethernet cable. :)