[mythtv-users] Newbie Alert

Graham J grahamj at lixar.com
Fri Apr 16 11:15:29 EDT 2004


Hey all,

Graham Nicholls here from Ottawa, Canada. I'm new to to the list and thought
I'd say hello and mention why I'm here.

Up until now I've had my laptop connected to the TV running XP. I use it to
play back MPEG2 TV shows which I record using my other PC which has a
Hauppage PVR-250 and my own custom PHP/XMLTV/MYSQL setup. It works pretty
well but I've been itching to come up with a more integrated solution.

I've now put together an Athlon 1.1 box with 768MB, 120GB, Asus Radeon 9200,
a cheap Pine TV card (bt878 tuner), the PVR-250, an SB Live 5.1 and a
DVD-ROM. My goal is to set up MythTV on the box so I can browse listings,
watch live TV with the cheap card and have the PVR-250 dedicated to
recording only. I have no interest in pausing live TV or using the cheap TV
card for any recording whatsoever.

I haven't used Linux in quite some time so even just that part will be a
challenge for me, but I've been writing software since I was 7 so I know I
can overcome any challenges given enough time, and hopefully the odd tip
from you guys :)

A couple of quickies to start off, if you don't mind:

- I was planning to use Mandrake since its GUI seems pretty easy to use. Is
this a good bet or would another distro be better for Myth?

- Should the bt878 be ok with V4L? I've searched for answers to this
question but haven't come up with anything so far.

- Ditto for my SBLive - I'd like to have 6-channel digital out to my stereo
but realize that might be asking a bit much for Linux :) I don't really care
about playing DVDs with this box so if not I can live with that.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to chatting more with the Myth
community :)

Graham J
http://xvi.com



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