[mythtv-users] Building a system from scratch

[Boyd II, Willy]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: D Banerjee [mailto:davatar at comcast.net] 
>Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 10:26 AM
>To: Discussion about mythtv
>Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Building a system from scratch
>
>
>> > Processor?
>>
>> 2.0 Ghz Celeron.  This is probably overkill if you use a hardware 
>> encoder, but they are so cheep....
>> > Tuner Card?
>>
>> PVR-250/350/Freestyle.  I also think that hardware encoding 
>is the way 
>> to go.
>
>> > What about harddrive space?
>>
>> I have a 200GB drive, and find myself running thin on space. 
> However, 
>> I just recently switched my encoding settings to decrease my file 
>> size.
>This
>> should increase my capacity from around 45 hours to about 80
>> > Remote?
>>
>
>That should be enough cpu for software encoding, if space is 
>an issue, I record on a athlon 1300 high-quality 640x480 mpeg4 
>at 1.3GB/hour, 480x480 at 1GB/hour, (even with 800MB/hour 
>480x480 it's hard to find blocking unless you're inches away 
>from the screen) compared to 4.5GB/hour for hardware encoder 
>as above. Also mpeg-4 is good for low-bit rates, so for the 
>simpsons low-quality 200MB/episode is just fine. So that's 500 
>hours of the simpsons in the same space :)
>
>With faster and faster cpu's hardware encoder starts looking 
>like a drawback, unless you want to put many tuners in one 
>system. Substantially more when you can just find throwaway 
>bttv cards, or really cheap,.

Not necessarily... like you said, with multiple tuners (or even one for that
matter), the hardcore encoder can let me capture at high-quality (and big
file size) at almost no cost to the cpu, while at the same time transcoding
in the background those same recordings down to a reasonable mpeg4 size.
Yes I know this is compressing twice (actually thrice since I'm on digital
satellite), but maybe it also stems from the fact I've always been
super-paranoid about audio/video sync :-)  I've been burned one that before,
so I love that the pvr recordings are perfectly synced... if yours are
sync'ed on an analog card, hey more power to you :-)

- Willy

>
>-Debabrata
>
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