[mythtv-users] Big Myth system (2-3 satellite receivers + capture devices, 5 tvs, Samsung DLNA) ?

Kevin Kuphal kkuphal at gmail.com
Thu Jul 28 13:47:56 UTC 2011


On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 9:51 PM, Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123 at gmail.com> wrote:

> We just moved into a new house we are renting.
>
> We receive our TV signal via satellite.  We need at least 2 and possibly
> 3 receivers to cover our viewing needs.
>
> Most of the TV locations have a Cat 5 outlet near them.
>
> I'd like to build a Myth system that captures the signals from 2 or 3
> satellite receivers and feed them appropriately to up to 5 TVs.  Only 2
> or 3 will be in use at any time.
>
> Some of the viewing will be live.
>
> I'd like to use Hauppauge HD PVR cards to do the capturing.
>
> 2 of the TVs are Samsungs with DLNA capability.
>
> What sort of server will I need to handle this system ?
>
> Will the Samsungs display the H.264 signal or will it need to be
> transcoded ?
>
> Any hints to putting this system together ?
>

The server requirements are meager as I understand it because the HD-PVR is
doing the heavy lifting of encoding the data.  The system with your HD-PVRs
attached is your backend server.  It will run mythbackend, mythcommflag, and
the SQL server and hold all your media content.  I recommend a physical OS
drive, a DB drive (for MySQL), and then whatever storage you want for your
recordings.

Attached to each TV you would connect another PC with mythfrontend running
on it.  I expect your DLNA experience will be subpar and while you may be
able to use it for occasional viewing, most people find the best experience
using a PC running mythfrontend.  You want this machine to either have
onboard nvidia or an nvidia graphics card capable of VDPAU.  Look at this
page and choose a card or motherboard with Feature Set C for the best
results: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/VDPAU (if I'm reading it right).

Essentially then, your Samsungs will be monitors for the output of the video
card (VGA, DVI, or HDMI depending on your capabilities) in those PCs and as
such require no transcoding.  The nvidia card will handle the
hardware acceleration of the playback so again, the CPU requirements on the
frontend PCs are meager and can even be done integrated motherboards with
the right chipsets (ION2, etc).  Combine that with an SSD and you can get a
near silent machine to attach to your TV giving a very good living room
experience.

All that being said, expect to pay for this functionality.  MythTV isn't a
low budget alternative to a DVR but what you pay for the equipment comes
back to you in the flexibility and functionality you get.  A
backend/multi-frontend setup will let you watch any content on any TV and
Live viewing up to the number of tuners (HD-PVR) you have in the system that
are idle (not recording another show).  The scheduling is top notch and it
is a full fledged media server on top of it for all your content.

Hope that helps.

Kevin
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