[mythtv-users] Hardware for Over the Air Digital

[LuKreme]

First post, be kind.

I have a new install of mythbuntu that I am playing with, and if I can  
do it on the cheap, I would like to get a capture card to capture over- 
the-air broadcast HD, preferably a card that can capture two feeds  
simultaneously.

I read the "Will this setup record HD from over the air?" and the "USA  
recommendations for Digital Over the Air Capture Card" threads from  
the gossamer-threads archive but I still have questions.

My machine is pretty hearty for this, a core 2 duo with a couple of  
gigs of RAM and 1.25TB of space. I also have a MacPro server with 7TB  
that is networked, though I don't think I'd want to write streams to  
the network.

Anyway, the mother board is a P5L-MX with only three PCI slots, but  
all are open (for certain values of 'open').

I do not have satellite, cable, or an antenna right now. All my video  
comes straight off my broadband cable.

All that I want to 'record' is the over-the-air HDTV broadcasts (ATSC?  
what's that stand for?). While I currently only care about a maximum  
of two feeds, it might be nice during something like the Olympics to  
have more recording capability, so something I could expand to four  
feeds might be worth looking into.

I'm hesitant about the HDHomeRun simply because I don't want another  
box, but if that's clearly the best choice I am willing to reconsider.  
On the other hand, I guess with the HDHomeRun I could simply dump the  
streams to the server in the first place, so that is an option.

Oh, and I also am going to want to reencode the MPEG-2 streams to h. 
264 (720p), though I expect to do that on the MacPro since it's a much  
faster machine. However, if anyone has any suggestions along those  
lines, I'm all ears.

(My projector cannot do 1080p, so I see no point in keeping around  
large MPEG2 1080 files just to take up space).

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