<div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 14, 2008 1:07 PM, MythTV <<a href="mailto:mythtv@hermon.net">mythtv@hermon.net</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Hi everyone!<br><br>I am writing from the Hermon School Dept. and we are very interested in<br>the possibility of using MythTV in our district.
<br><br>I've been through the documentation, but I have a few questions.<br><br>In our case, we are not only looking for a simple DVR, but a network<br>distribution utility.<br><br>Our goal is to have a way for teachers to access recordings in their
<br>classroom through a "frontend" device, that would in turn connect to a<br>central server with the video storage. It sounds like MythTV would support<br>this. Also, teachers would need to be able to access cable and Satellite
<br>through the frontend.<br><br>I do realize that a cheap server wouldn't work for this environment, and<br>would be willing to purchase a high-end server to handle the capacity of<br>the High School. (There would be a server in each building).
<br><br>My question is, how many frontend devices can a MythTV server support<br>concurrently? At the high school, there would be about 45 classrooms with<br>front end units. (Realistically, they all wouldn't be using them at the
<br>same time.)</blockquote>
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<div>You are limited only by your network bandwidth and I/O requirements for the number of simultanoues clients you wish to have. Myth itself places no limits on this.</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>What would you say the specs of a server would need to be to support at<br>least 10 frontends at the same time? The front end devices and the server
<br>would be on their own segment of a 1-Gig backbone network so bandwidth<br>shouldn't be an issue.<br><br>We do understand that only one teacher would be able to change the channel<br>for live TV at a time (or satellite). What would happen if a second user
<br>tried to change the channel when another person is already controlling the<br>source? Can multiple people at least see, but not control, cable through<br>the Front End utility?</blockquote>
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<div>I *believe* that only one user can enter "LiveTV" with only one tuner. Other users attempting will be given the option to view the in-progress recording of the program but if the user that initiated the LiveTV session first changes programs/channels then their program will end prematurely when that occured.
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Last, but not least, I see that MythTv supports adding multiple recording<br>servers. Can we add a second recording server (or server with different
<br>sources) and integrate it with the overall program guide that the frontend<br>use, or would the frontend machines have to be changed to point to a<br>second server to see the programming available on it?</blockquote>
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<div>Yes. The frontends would connect to the master backed and receive programming and DVR functionality from all the backends.</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>I ask because we also have DVD players we want to add as a source (a<br>single channel in the program guide) and to be available to staff. (We
<br>realize that remote control of the DVD players isn't possible this way.)</blockquote>
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<div>As a suggestion, you would be better off providing ISO copies or DVD-rips of the materials stored on the server and using MythVideo to present them in a gallery format rather than attempting to manipulate a DVD player on an s-video input.
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Thank for you any assistance you can provide! We are planning on getting a<br>Monolith box for the Video Server.
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<div>Kevin</div></div>