[mythtv-users] my experience with Asus Pundit / PVR 250

Tue Aug 5 02:12:16 EDT 2003

Thanks for the write-up.  I just ordered a pundit and the LeadTek
tv2000xp deluxe.  I tought about the pvr, but $150 was too much for me
to spend, and I never get rebates back in the mail.  I'm trying to guage
how much processing power I will need -- esp as I hope to get another
capture card in there.  I'm thinking of a 2.8G p4.  I'm also hoping that
some some case modding will solve the size issue (tight fit for PCI
cards).

I was also thinking of getting a DVD burner for archiving purposes.
Does anyone have any suggestions?  I really havn't bothered doing any
research in this front...

-r

On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 11:48:03PM -0700, Eric Gardner sent me this...
> I just built a MythTV box using an Asus Pundit and a PVR 250.  First, I
> want to echo the sentiments of other recent users. This is a tremendous
> application.  Thanks to an active developer and user community the
> installation was virtually painless.  I followed the mythtv-users mailing
> list for a couple of weeks before deciding on the Pundit with a PVR 250, a
> 2.4 GHz P4, a 120GB Barracuda, and 512MB PC2100 RAM.  For the time being
> the box is serving as both a backend and a frontend but even so it's
> probably a bit overbuilt.  I thought that I'd summarize my experience with
> the build process and the system performance on the off chance that it
> will help someone else wishing to build a similar box.
>  
>  
> General Pundit/PVR Comments
> ---------------------------
>  
> First off, I was pleasantly surprised that except for the front cover the
> case is entirely metal.   I would have liked for the front to be metal too
> but given that nowhere on the Asus sight could I find mention of the case
> material and also given the low price for the included features, I'm
> fairly happy with the build quality and appearance.
>  
> I wasn't quite as disappointed by the PVR remote as I expected to be given
> what others were saying about it.  It's not great but I've used worse.
>  
> The Pundit is a bit noisier than I would have gathered from the comments
> of others.  I enabled the quiet CPU fan mode in the BIOS but even at low
> speeds the fan is noiser than I would prefer and that's even when the hard
> disk is not spinning.  Because of the noise I was asked to move it out of
> the bedroom down to the home theater in the basement.
>  
> The PVR card was extremely hard to get into the Pundit case.  I had to
> temporarily bend part of the metal case to get the card in there. If I had
> a good pair of tin snips I probably would have permanently modified the
> case.  It's not just getting the card into the box that is an issue. 
> After installing the card I tried bending the case back to its original
> state but the card causes the side of the case to bulge slightly.  Asus
> should definitely consider increasing the width of the box by 1/4"-1/2" to
> accomodate typical PCI cards.  With this one change I'd be much more
> likely to recommend this configuration to others.  As it stands, this
> card/case combination is neither for the faint of heart nor the
> mechanically challenged.
>  
> I originally went with a P4 2.4 because I wanted enough headroom to later
> add another capture card.  However, given the difficulties of getting one
> PVR into the case and the low CPU load (see below) if I had to do this
> over again I'd spec a cheaper CPU.  At some point I'll probably put a
> lesser CPU into it and turn it into a dedicated FE and I'll move the
> current CPU into a larger case with a second PVR for a dedicated backend.
>  
>  
> Build Process
> -------------
>  
> I decided to stay simple at first and just go with the Myth 0.10 rpms.  At
> some point I'll try compiling CVS but for now I'm simply enjoying a mostly
> working PVR.
>  
> Jarod's instructions for building a MythTV box with RedHat 9.0 and a PVR
> 250 helped a great deal.  I did encounter a couple of small problems:
>  
> 1) I had difficulty getting the custom ATrpms kernel because the version
> had changed from that mentioned in the instructions.   I managed to dig
> around and find what I needed.  The next day I was getting ready to send
> Jarod email when I noticed that the instructions had been updated to fix
> this.
>  
> 2 l had to reinstall the broadcom driver for the NIC after installing the
> new kernel.  I still haven't figured out whether this was really necessary
> or whether I was doing something wrong.
>  
> 3) I also had difficulties getting lirc to build because the instructions
> for copying the appropriate kernel config to the right location were
> missing.  This too was fixed in the instructions the next day.
>  
> 4) Two of the settings in the suggested .lircrc seem backwards to me.  I
> switched the settings for the "Skip" and "Replay" keys so that my .lircrc
> now has the following:
>  
>  
> ----------
> # Fast forward (default in Myth is 10 minute segment)
> begin
> prog = irxevent
> button = SKIP
> config = Key Page_Down CurrentWindow
> end
> 
> # Rewind (default in Myth is 10 minute segment)
> begin
> prog = irxevent
> button = REPLAY
> config = Key Page_Up CurrentWindow
> end
> ----------
>  
>  
> System Performance
> ------------------
>  
> I've set Myth up to record at 720x480 using the hardware MJPEG at the
> highest quality setting.  Running 'top' I've managed to get the CPU load
> to go as high as 45% but that's only when jumping around ridiculously
> during playback of a recording.  More typically during playback the CPU
> load hovers between 1-5%.  During recording the CPU load is typically
> 8-11%.
>  
> Currently I've got pretty bad broadcast TV (the cable guy is coming
> Thursday morning) so it's a little hard for me to evaluate the picture
> quality.  I have experienced some intermittent lockups but nothing very
> critical or hard to rectify.  I also notice occasional hiccups (1/2 sec to
> 1 sec picture and sound stutters).
> 
> 
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