[mythtv-users] newbie setup questions

[Ray Olszewski]

I don't know if I can really say anything useful here, but since I saw no 
other responses, I thought I would say what I could.

First, when asking for shopping info, it would help if you said something 
about where you are located. I infer from your having Comcast that you are 
in the USA ... but you aren't even explicit about that. Were you near me 
(Northern California), for example, I would suggest some offline shopping, 
like checking the Fry's specials this (every) Friday.

Second, I don't offhand know how big "5 disc cd changer" normally is, or 
how big your "entertainment slots" are, making it hard to take that part 
into account. I did measure here and found that a standard desktop PC case 
(roughly 17.5" wide, 9" tall, and 17" deep) fits into one of my 
entertainment centers, but fails with the other one on depth (only). So you 
might want to describe your size constraints a bit more explicitly. Be sure 
to allow enough space for the stuff that sticks out the back of a pC; its 
connectors tend to be bulkier than typical A-V devices.

Third, configuring a system is always, in the end, about tradeoffs between 
price and features/convenience. Do you want a Rolls-Royce or a KIA? It is 
hard to advise on choices without some sense of your willingness to spend.

Some specifics follow.

At 03:00 PM 5/28/2003 +0000, subscriptions wrote:
>Hello all
>
>I want to start building a mythtv box for my entertainment system, as this 
>system looks kick ass, and if anyone has suggestions as to the rest of the 
>hardware i need that would be great, as i want to run into minimal 
>problems with linux compatibility as I haven't used linux much, but hoping 
>to learn more thru this process!
>
>I want a case size that will fit into one of my entertainment slots, so no 
>bigger than a 5 disc cd changer... and I want it to replace my video 
>recorder, so it had to has a tv out. My TV is a 40"+ sony trinitron with 
>s-video in. My cable provider is comcast.
>
>So far I have...
>
>Western Digital SE 120MB 8MB HD

I trust you mean 120 GB, not MB.

>Hauppauge PVR250 Card

Should work fine with Linux. I've used the cheap Hauppauges (WinTV Go, from 
before they changed the chipset) for a long time and have been very happy 
with them.

>I need...
>
>graphics card

Many work with TV out; my sense, both from my own experiments and from 
reading the list is that newer nVidea cards, using nVidea's nvidea X driver 
(not XFree86's nv driver) give the most satisfactory performance. Check 
www.compugeeks.com for some decent deals at least as of a few days ago).

The Linux compatibility (actually, XFree86 compatibility) issue here is a 
big one. You need a card that has support for both TV-out and xVideo (the X 
counterpart to DirectX on Windows). This restricts your choices severely 
... nVidea cards are the only ones I am *sure* support both TV-out and 
xVideo ... though I believe *some* Savage cards and some older Matrox cards 
(the ones that use the priprietary Matrox X driver) also do.

Another option is to run the computer itself with standard VGA out and use 
an external VGA-to-NTSC converter. Check the list archives for some 
discussion fo this approach; I haven't tried it myself.

>  cpu
>case
>motherboard (integrated sound/nic)

I tend to buy my mobos and CPUs together. Usually, I find it cheaper to get 
a mobo either without sound and NIC, or with junky ones, and add in PCI 
cards for these functions. My current Myth boxes are Cel 1.7 GHz using a 
"Gigabyte P4 Titan" mobo ... nothing special about it, just what was cheap 
that week. This setup works OK (with an inexpensive AverTV vidcap card) but 
is starting to seem a little bit underpowered for "live" TV viewing (that 
is, for simultaneous recording and playback). But you are using a more 
powerful vidcap card than I use, so your CPU demands should be lighter than 
mine.

You don't ask about RAM. There is some variation in views, but the 
consensus seems to be that *minimum* RAM is 256 MB of PC133 SDRAM. The 
higher speed of DDR RAM is preferred by many. I've seen no consensus about 
whether additional amounts of RAM help or not (I think they do not, in a 
1-tuner integrated frontend/backend setup).

>  dvd rom

I don't have a DVD drive in my MythTV system so cannot fofer specific 
recommendations. The only Linux compatibility issue is to make sure you get 
a drive that supports DMA under Linux. I've myself never encountered one 
that did not, but from reading this and other lists, I know people run into 
problems here.

>  keyboard/mouse separate/combo? suggestions?

I find the lowest-end keyboards, the ones priced like Crackerjack prizes, 
perfectly satisfactory in most uses, especially light-duty ones like 
running a MythTV host (until I take the time to get a proper  remote setup 
working). I use an expensive, heavy-duty Kensington trackball on my MythTV 
system, but only because it was an old one from my spares box ... MythTV 
makes so little use of a mouse/trackball that I'd use the cheapest thing I 
could buy if I needed to shop for this piece.

I have wondered about controlling a MythTV box using an integrated 
keyboard/trackball over an IR interface (or maybe Bluetooth, if they are 
out yet and the Linux support is up to it), but I haven't looked into it 
... converting to LIRC for the finished installation looks more sensible.