[mythtv-users] Newbie questions

[Paul Woodward]

> 1. record 2 shows at the same time
Yes if you have 2 tuners.

> 2. if possible, watch one of those or an older recording at the same time
Absolutely, so long as your processor can take the strain.

> 
> 2. is not a must, but would be nice to have.
> 
> As hardware, I could think of:
> - P3/866
> - 1x PVR-250, 1x PVR-350
> - Soundblaster card
> - some cheap VGA card
> 
> or
> 
> - Celeron 2.4 GHz
> - 2x PVR-250
> - onboard Audio
> - NVideo GeForce with TV-out
> 
> Would both hardware constellation be OK for my requirements?
Can't advise you on the hardware spec. I run a P2.4C, with 2x DVB cards and can quite happily watch old recordings while it records from 2 cards at once.

> 
> 
> I have read, that the PVR-350's MPEG2 decoder output has some
> "limitations". What are they?
> 
> Is it OK to only have one hard disk (100 GB UDMA/100 Western Digital)?
Yes, but it may fill up fast - I thought 160Gb would last forever - now I have 440Gb.
> 
> Should the hard disk have 7200 rpm?
That depends how much you want to do at once. Remember that when watching live TV it is buffered to the HD so that's a read and a write stream, so any additional recordings you make concurrently must also access the HD. I would suggest it, although watch out because they generate a lot of heat and generally you want to keep fans to a minmum in a HTPC. I have 3x 7200's and I'm going to have to shift them to a new box because of the heat.
> 
> What filesystem should I use? Is reiserFs OK?
I use ext3, but I've heard good things about reiser - I'll let someone more knowledgeable answer.

> If recording from analog TV, what bitrate do I need to get an MPEG2 that
> is almost identical to the source? Thinking of the noisyness of analog
> TV, I could think about 6 MBit or something.
As above.

HTH, Paul