[mythtv-users] Hardware list for new mythtv box

[LAUKENS Niels]

Hi,

I'm planning on building a MythTV box and picked a set of hardware
components to do so. From what I've learned from reading numerous posts,
it should perform well, but I'd like to get some feedback. Also, I have
some open questions. I'm not sure if it's wise to throw this all in a
single mail, but I hope threading works well enough in my mail-viewer to
handle this.


First, my requirements:

* Since I'm starting out, I'm planning a combined frontend/backend which
will be "off" most of the time, only being on when recording and/or
watching. I put "off" in quotes, because it will probably be some form of
standby/sleep with wake-on-whatever enabled.

* Since it will be a frontend as well, noise should be kept to an absolute
minimum. An thus, TDP's should be kept as low as possible without
sacrificing performance too much.

* The video will come from DVB-sources: free-to-air DVB-T/T2 and FTA &
payTV DVB-S/S2.

* Next on the wishlist is low power consumption, especially in the "off"
state.

* and obviously I want it as cheap as possible, but I'm afraid that option
has come and gone with the above req's.


With the above in mind, I reasoned that I needed:

* an Intel i3 CPU of the 35W TDP-class

* an nVidia GPU that supports VDPAU to do decode in hardware and hence
with less heat/power/cooling requirement (is this correct?)


So here is my hardware list:
* CPU: Intel® Core i3-3220T
* MoBo: ASRock H77 Pro4-M
* RAM: 2x Corsair 2 GB DDR3-1333
* GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N610SL-1GI
* Case: SilverStone GD02-B
* PSU: be quiet! Straight PowerE9 400W
* HDD: Western Digital Green WD20EZRX 2 TB
* TBS6280 PCI-E DVB-T2/T Dual Tuner Card
* TBS6991 DVB-S2 Dual Tuner Dual CI PCIe Card
or TBS6985 PCIe DVB-S2 Quad Tuner Satellite TV



My open questions:
* Any feedback/suggestions on the above hardware?

* Any experiences with the GT610 GPU and VDPAU? I've read numerous posts
claiming both that this card does & does not support Advanced 2x
de-interlacing (both for 50Hz & 60Hz).

* If I opt for the DVB-S2 dual tuner with dual CI. Will this work with
*one* CAM+smartcard for both tuners? Or does each tuner need his own
CAM+smartcard? I know for sure that the smartcard supports 2 simultaneous
decodes (ECM-processing) because it works in another setup using
no-to-be-discussed-on-this-list technology instead of hardware CAM(s).

* Can I configure Myth with the above 2-pay-channels-max logic, so that it
knows not to try and decode a 3rd pay-channel, even if a tuner is
available? It used to be simple because I have only 2 tuners, but since
MultiRec (i.e. multiple programs from the same multiplex on a single
tuner) was introduces, that might complicate things...


Thanks in advance,
Niels



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