[mythtv-users] recommendations?: energy efficient FE/BE system

[James Miller]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2015, Dave MythTV wrote:

> prime-time snag, and your wife asks:
>            "Why is it waiting until next Thursday to record my show that
> was a new episode tonight?
>                        My friends are going to be talking about it at work
> tomorrow!"

Wow, that would never have entered my mind as a consideration. Just shows 
how out of touch with popular culture we are. My 3 tuners are even more a 
case of overkill than yours, but it has happened on rare occasions that 
we've missed a recording we'd wanted to see because of a scheduling 
conflict. I decided to go with a dual tuner card when I needed to replace 
one of my single-tuner cards that had gotten damaged, in order to address 
that potentiality.

> There are pros and cons to each, and there are good arguments (depending on
> your use case) for the networked HDHomeRun as well.   But USB was a clear
> standout for me.   My "tuner of choice" at the moment is the "AVerMedia
> AVerTVHD Volar (A868R)".   Not because I compared all the options and this
> was the best, but because I got a good deal on them at the time, and they
> were listed in the LinuxTV database of supported tuners.   If I were doing
> it again, I would probably look for a different tuner with an integrated
> 'F'-connector to tidy things up, not the add-on MMCX-to-F adapter cable
> that these require.    But aside from that, I've been very happy with
> them.    These are also a 2006/2007 design, so a more modern tuner might
> also have better tuning sensitivity and/or lower power consumption.

Just a clarification on this: that tuner handles ATSC but cannot do clear 
QAM, correct? I would not have guessed that 3 USB tuners--especially ones 
connected via a USB hub--could work out. Since they're all the same model 
I guess that helps: I had to make udev rules for my PCI cards since the 
tuners would not come up consistently as the same devices on reboots. That 
issue would be obviated in the case of 3 identical capture cards, it 
seems. I did end up going with the HDHR (HDHR4-2US), but it will connect 
to the Mythbox on its own private LAN (using Myth box's NIC) since I don't 
have a free RJ45 port on my router and since the box will have wifi by 
which to connect to the LAN. I never watch any programming on other 
machines that connect to my LAN so I don't expect (fingers crossed) this 
topography to cause any problems.

In case I might want to investigate the USB option, what USB tuners out 
there that are Myth-compatible can handle clear QAM?