[mythtv] Help please!
John
mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Sun Jan 12 04:41:57 EST 2003
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Hi Derrick,
Fellow "newbie" here. I've asked similar questions and here's what I've garnered...
1) Seems like the most preferred / common systems out here are the AMD systems such as the Athlon 2000+. Powerful & inexpensive. If you've got an older PC that needs more horsepower, you can get an Athlon 2000+ w/heatsink & fan, Motherboard, and 256mb RAM from googlegear.com (or tigerdirect.com) from around $175. With it, I believe you'll be able to install two tuners and have picture in picture and record one show while watching another. Wouldn't start out with that though - get one working first. ;-)
2) All kinds of video tuner cards work. I just bought a Matrox G200 TV because it has hardware MJPEG encoding which should allow my PIII-800 to do the job. If not, I'll upgrade to an AMD setup above. There's a list at: http://www.goldfish.org/~mcooper/pvrhw/stats.html which lists all the various configs that people have used with MythTV. It will give you an idea of what some of your choices are.
3) As you probably know, Linux comes in many "flavors" or "distributions" (distos). Mandrake is recommended as a great distro of Linux for beginners. I've d/l their ISO's (CD images) and read the docs and it's VERY well written. Answers all the basic questions and much more. People have advised me to download and play with Mandrake and get familiar with it before jumping into the MythTV application. Makes sense.
4) The current "official" version of MythTV is .7. There's a CVS (read this as compile all the development code yourself) version that is the true "latest" but not for beginners, and a .8 version is on the horizon - due this month if all goes well I guess. The biggest difference with .8 will be splitting the encoding and decoding pieces into a "front end" and "back end". Both of these processes can be done on the same box, or on different boxes. This will allow slower (I guess read "sub-1ghz") boxes to handle each chore.
5) The remote control portion works like this: The remote itself can be almost any infrared or universal remote with 4 arrow keys and keys to use as Enter and Esc, etc. The infrared "receiver" can either be purchased for around 35 bucks(?) or you can build it yourself with about $13 worth of parts from Radio Shack. It seems quite simple to solder up and I'm going to put one together shortly and actually buy a Tivo remote control from their online web site ($29) because I've had one before and like its ergonomics. If your existing entertainment system has a remote it may work fine. Go to http://www.lirc.org/ for more info.
6) There's a member on this list who's working on putting together a "MythTV on a CD" distribution. It will work like this: You'll download the image, burn a CD and then boot that up on your PC. It will load a version of Linux with all the MythTV s/w all configured and ready-to-run! Advantage is obviously you can be running in minutes without knowing much about what's going on. Disadvantage is that it "may" be difficult to customize for your own hardware - especially if it strays from whatever is on the CD. I used a SuSE CD like this when first checking out Linux a while back and it worked great. We'll see when he has it ready, but there's a lot of interest in this option.
Guess that's about it. Like I say, I'm new to it too, but hey, we all start somewhere right?
Good luck, and thanks again to all the guys who put in so much hard work to make MythTV available!
John
----- Original Message -----
From: Derrick Rademaker
To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 10:20 PM
Subject: [mythtv] Help please!
I have never used linux before in my life, I would like to create a new pc exlusively for myth tv and pvr for my television system
What would you recommend for the best idea system to have it used only for this and using a remote control with the entertainment system
I am on a budget so I need to keep cost low
Thank you for all your help
Derrick
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi Derrick,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fellow "newbie" here. I've asked similar
questions and here's what I've garnered...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1) Seems like the most preferred /
common systems out here are the AMD systems such as the Athlon
2000+. Powerful & inexpensive. If you've got an older PC that
needs more horsepower, you can get an Athlon 2000+ w/heatsink & fan,
Motherboard, and 256mb RAM from googlegear.com (or tigerdirect.com) from around
$175. With it, I believe you'll be able to install two tuners and have
picture in picture and record one show while watching another. Wouldn't
start out with that though - get one working first. ;-)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>2) All kinds of video tuner cards work. I
just bought a Matrox G200 TV because it has hardware MJPEG encoding which should
allow my PIII-800 to do the job. If not, I'll upgrade to an AMD setup
above. There's a list at: <A
href="http://www.goldfish.org/~mcooper/pvrhw/stats.html">http://www.goldfish.org/~mcooper/pvrhw/stats.html</A> which
lists all the various configs that people have used with MythTV. It will
give you an idea of what some of your choices are.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>3) As you probably know, Linux comes in many
"flavors" or "distributions" (distos). Mandrake is recommended as a
great distro of Linux for beginners. I've d/l their ISO's (CD
images) and read the docs and it's VERY well written. Answers all the
basic questions and much more. People have advised me to download and play
with Mandrake and get familiar with it before jumping into the MythTV
application. Makes sense.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>4) The current "official" version of MythTV is
.7. There's a CVS (read this as compile all the development code
yourself) version that is the true "latest" but not for beginners, and a .8
version is on the horizon - due this month if all goes well I guess. The
biggest difference with .8 will be splitting the encoding and decoding pieces
into a "front end" and "back end". Both of these processes can be done on
the same box, or on different boxes. This will allow slower (I guess read
"sub-1ghz") boxes to handle each chore. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>5) The remote control portion works like
this: The remote itself can be almost any infrared or
universal remote with 4 arrow keys and keys to use as Enter and Esc,
etc. The infrared "receiver" can either be purchased for around 35
bucks(?) or you can build it yourself with about $13 worth of parts from Radio
Shack. It seems quite simple to solder up and I'm going to put one
together shortly and actually buy a Tivo remote control from their online web
site ($29) because I've had one before and like its ergonomics. If your
existing entertainment system has a remote it may work fine. Go to <A
href="http://www.lirc.org/">http://www.lirc.org/</A> for more
info.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>6) There's a member on this list who's working on
putting together a "MythTV on a CD" distribution. It will work like
this: You'll download the image, burn a CD and then boot that up on your
PC. It will load a version of Linux with all the MythTV s/w all configured
and ready-to-run! Advantage is obviously you can be running in minutes
without knowing much about what's going on. Disadvantage is that it "may"
be difficult to customize for your own hardware - especially if it strays
from whatever is on the CD. I used a SuSE CD like this when first checking
out Linux a while back and it worked great. We'll see when he has it
ready, but there's a lot of interest in this option.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Guess that's about it. Like I say, I'm new to
it too, but hey, we all start somewhere right? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Good luck, and thanks again to all the guys who put
in so much hard work to make MythTV available!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>John</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=technix@writeme.com href="mailto:technix@writeme.com">Derrick
Rademaker</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=mythtv-dev@snowman.net
href="mailto:mythtv-dev@snowman.net">mythtv-dev@snowman.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, December 11, 2002 10:20
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [mythtv] Help please!</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have never used linux before in my life,
I would like to create a new pc exlusively for myth tv and pvr for my
television system</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What would you recommend for the best idea system
to have it used only for this and using a remote control with the
entertainment system</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I am on a budget so I need to keep cost low
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thank you for all your help</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Derrick</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
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