[mythtv-users] System Capacity: 3 PVR-250/M179 capture cards in one box?

Chris Thompson ct-myth at cthompson.com
Tue Mar 2 23:05:37 EST 2004


I am a new Myth user, just now taking the plunge after having read the
lists for a long while, and having a friend of mine rave about his myth
setup for months. It's been a bit rocky, as hardware I thought I had turned
up bad.

Current Setup:

Backend
-------
Generic KT266A based board. (PCChips brand. CHEAP on newegg)
Athlon 1600XP
512megs PC2100
30gig main, 160gig drive for video storage
On board net.
Currently a GeForce FX5200 video, because it's all I had.
PVR-250

Today it's being fed by a SciAtl Explorer 2100, but DirecTV is being
installed on Saturday, three tuners. I have no IR Blaster for the cable
box, and will be using serial for the DTV boxes.


Frontend #1 (Which I'll duplicate to the other TVs once I prove it works)
-----------
Chaintech 7NIF2 nForce2 based motherboard
Antec Minuet Case (Highly recommended, this case is SWEET)
Athlon 1600XP
256meg PC2100
On board everything

Thursday I'll take delivery of my Media Center remote system which dconti
just got working solid in lirc, and a Sony DVD-ROM drive.

Currently I'm booting a FC1 dist set up with Jarod's howto off a 10gig
drive, but I hope to work out netboot here very shortly. The Antec Minuet
case only has a 220w power supply, and while may people have success with
Athlons in this case, I'm looking to go as low power as possible, so
netboot it is.

So I have a question of capacity. Since I'll have three DirecTV boxes here
soon, which will all end up in the basement stacked next to the backend,
I've ordered two Aver M179s. Can the Backend box above handle three
PVR/M179 cards simultaneous, as well as keep up with mythbackend, mysql,
mythweb, nfsd, etc? I can always cobble together another box if need be,
but I'd have to buy some RAM to do it and I'd rather not.

Are there any negative ramifications to doing this? I'd think this setup,
since it's not even running X11, should be able to handle three mpeg2
streams, and NFS, though I'm worried about it thrashing the drive.

Advice?

_______________
Chris Thompson


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