<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 1:47 PM, Jeff Holicky <<a href="mailto:myth.myth_user@myth.sent.com">myth.myth_user@myth.sent.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br>Hi all, I am looking at implementing a Myth system at home - with up to<br>five frontends when all is said and done. We rent a dual tuner PVR and<br>
also have a cable box - limited to a small harddrive and no real<br>archival system nor easy way of playing back multiple formats has helped<br>with my decision to create a myth system. Definitely looking at at<br>least 3-4 SD (standard def) tuners initially [PVR 150x4] (later HD) and<br>
would like some feedback on my initial setup and to realistically set my<br>expectations.<br><br>Today I want to have the BE act as an occasional FE with plans down the<br>road to make it a BE only box (if possible). Running 100Mbit CAT5 cable<br>
with the goal to run 1000Mbit CAT6 and/or try wireless. Perhaps in a<br>year or two move to HD by swapping out 2SD tuners. Start off with two<br>dedicated FE's.<br><br>Don't want DVD players on each FE - want to stream archive content off a<br>
NAS device. (1 or 2TB drive; 100 or Gigabit)<br><br>Q1) I am not clear on the ability to do multiple streaming AND recording<br>simultaneously. Someone I spoke to felt my ability to do both may be a<br>problem due to bottleneck issues at the HDD. Assuming a model of 4<br>
tuners - 1 streaming; 3 recording OR 2 streaming 2 recording; OR 3<br>streaming 1 recording -- are all these possible?</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>For SD recording, I doubt you will run into any issues. I currently can perform 2 HD + 2 SD recordings + various commflagging activities + streaming HD to a remote frontend without any issues on PATA drives.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Q2) Then there is that "commercial skipping" process - not sure if that<br>
still needs to be processed off peak times or not.</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>You should not have any issue here.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Q3) Plus is there a difference between<br>a) Streaming program A; recording program B<br>
OR<br>b) Recording program A and streaming program A (few minutes offset)</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>None that I see will make any difference for your setup. You can make efforts to diminish any possible bottlenecks by doing things like:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>1. Storing your logs and database on a disk different than your OS and your recordings</div>
<div>2. Using multiple drives configured in a storage group in Myth which will then spread recordings over multiple drives</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Q4) I have noticed some that already have 2HD and 2SD tuners in one box<br>- but then if they are only recording (on one or more), then there may<br>
not be any problems.<br><br>Q5) My friend suggested the issue was less CPU and more HDD - and maybe<br>if I was running a 10K drive - MAYBE I would be okay -- and/or if I<br>mixed in a RAID system of sorts to balance the load.</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>Like I indicated, I have a system with 4 PATA drives on a combination of internal and PCI IDE controllers doing 2 HD + 2 SD recording + commflag + watching in progress and I don't see any bottlenecks. All this is being done on an Athlon 2000 backend on 100MB networking.</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Q6) The other thought is adding in a second backend eventually - not<br>sure if that is a no brainer or exponentially more complex and not<br>
desirable.<br><br>Q7) I assume playing an archived movie off the NAS is merely networking<br>between the NAS and FE - and cabling and less BE - please confirm.<br><br>*Config*<br>Part of my plan having 4 tuners hit a road block with most MOBOs today<br>
supporting only 3 PCI cards (Thanks to Brian for pointing that out). I<br>found one so far - but also I remembered I have a P4. I feel if the P4<br>works, based on set expectations, then I can buy a nice higher end<br>system as a desktop replacement. Worse case later turn the P4 into a<br>
FE.</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>You should consider the PVR-500 dual tuner to conserve PCI slots.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span id=""></span><br><br>Currently I have:<br>- ASUS P4P800 MOBO (enough PCI slots);<br>- Intel P4 2.8Ghz w/HT;<br>
- 2GB RAM;<br>- 450W P/S<br>- ATI All-in-Blunder 9600 of which I would only use for controlling the<br>video out (if possible)<br>- ATA 133 HDD - I have several 120GB 7200RPM drives at my disposal ..<br>see below<br><br>MOBO supports:<br>
<br>- 2xUDMA 100 (4drives)<br>- 2xSATA w/RAID 0<br><br>RAID CONTROLLER<br>- 2xUDMA 133 (4drives)<br>- RAID 0, 1, 0+1, RAID JBOD<br><br>Moving to SATA doesn't seem to be that much of an option with this MOBO<br>- I figure I am just as well with the RAID controller (I use ATA 133<br>
today with 4 drives).<br><br><br>If my ideas of streaming and recording are not far fetched - but my<br>config is a little dated, if possible, please point me in a direction -<br>need a MOBO that has X; or a minimum CPU Y etc.<br>
Just want some input - a "that dog will or won't hunt" big picture<br>response.<br><br>thanks all & cheers!<br>jeff<br>_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-users mailing list<br><a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users" target="_blank">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users</a><br></blockquote></div><br>