[mythtv-users] Latest Build/Platform Advice

Bryce Ostenson bostenson at gmail.com
Sun Jan 11 13:32:58 UTC 2009


I've been working with MythTv for the past year and a half or so.  What
started out as a basic, inexpensive PVR for SD has turned into multi-tuner
HD and a few other things...  In my latest build, I ran into a fair number
of issues.  I'm about to take another run at it and wanted to see if I could
pick up any pointers from people that have a similar system, so as to avoid
compatibility problems.  Of course, thanks in advance...

I have read a lot on the list about the various components/questions below
but it seems my problems tend to be in the overall build.  As I've went from
a very basic build to a more complex one, I seem to have more issues between
individual components.  Moving to the development trunk, I'm more cautious.

For the OS, I'd like to use Ubuntu 8.x and believe I'll need to with a
mythtv from the development trunk.  My capture devices include: HD-Homerun,
HD-PVR, and PVR-150.  I use a MCE-USB IR receiver that seems to work well.
The video card is a passively-cooled nVidia 8500GT with HDMI.  Sound is off
the motherboard on S/PDIF.  Problems I had in my latest build (8.10 and
mythtv .21) were:
* Menus were slow and programs in HD off the HD-Homerun had a little bit of
a flicker.  I suspected video driver.  Perhaps I should try vpdau?  Though
my cpu (E7200 c2d @ stock 2.53Ghz though I plan to OC to ~3Ghz) should be
able to handle the decoding (and did when I was on 7.04).
* I haven't built with the HD-PVR before but am looking forward to it.
* Sound and IR receiver are always a bit of a pain but I think I've got that
process down now.
* mythbackend would periodically crash.
* My HD-Homerun would periodically crash.
* My only independant known problem is that my internet connection has been
crashing periodically though this is upstream from the switch all the LAN
devices are plugged in to.  Perhaps this was interfering with the stability
of mythbackend and HD-Homerun though I don't see the relationship.  That
should now be fixed.

Should I go with 8.10 or fall back to 8.04?  I didn't have the struggles to
get my video card going on 8.04 that I did on 8.04.  Of course, on 8.04 I
had a problem getting my xbox 360 controller going for the game emulation.
Any other special considerations relative to the OS if I'm building from the
development trunk for HD-PVR support?

I had struggled in the past to get my xBox 360 USB controller working for
use with mythGame.  This seems to be resolved per:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/237170

Since my system isn't working as well as I'd like and I've messed with it
quite a bit, I'm inclined to start from a fresh Ubuntu install.  But I'm not
totally clear on how to coordinate the port of the database.  Should I try
to build a fresh system (Ubuntu 8.x + .21) and load the database and then
upgrade?  Or should I just install the OS, mythtv from trunk with a fresh
database, then load my backed up database and perform a schema upgrade?

I'm also toying with the idea of installing xbmc and/or eebox and
customizing the mythTV interface to allow launching of those.  I believe I
just saw some posts about that for eeBox.

Other items I'd like to layer on this system if I can get it stable:
* OpenVPN.
* VMWare Server 2.
* Perhaps automatic sleep/standby (but this doesn't make a lot of sense if I
decide i want mythWeb and/or VPN available to it).

Thanks much,
Bryce
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