[mythtv-users] (no subject)

[Mark Andrachek, Jr.]

Greetings.  For quite some time now I've been thinking about
building my own PVR, and my recent experiences with comcast,
and the need to save a little money have been pushing me
harder and harder in that direction. Cutting ~40/month for
digital cable + PVR, should pay for itself pretty quickly.

I'm not a newbie to pvr's, linux, or video, but I am a
a complete and total myth n00b. I've been very impressed
by the screenshots, as well as the level of community
support and involvement of this project.

I've had my wife using Linux for about the past 3 months,
and she's hooked. I can't get her off shishen-sho (kde
game). :)  I've been given permission to fully convert
our machine to Linux, and since she and our 3 month old
went to visit his grandparents for the week... I've got
room and time to make a mess and geek out - a 3 day
weekend no-less!

So, I picked up a pvr-250 and got the hardware installed
and functioning under 'doze last night, and I've got a few
questions before I go any further.

The machine is a 1.4 Ghz Athlon, 512 Mb RAM 2x120Gb seagate
7200 drives, on-motherboard audio, sb live! pci, geforce2
with composite out, and a dvd drive. And the PVR-250 of
course.

The computer is, and will continue to be on the second
floor of our townhouse, and will still need to be used
for light word processing, email. Oh, and Shishen-Sho,
:)

We have 2 tv's, primary downstairs, and secondary upstairs.
In getting the output to both tv's, I've come up with a couple
of options, but I'm leaning towards running about 50' of rca
cable to the downstairs receiver. Since I have two soundcards,
I should be able to dedicate one to myth, and one to pc audio.
I hope. Of course I'm worried about the quality of the video
after such a long run. Would I be better off with svideo
over such a distance, with an svideo->composite adapter at
the end?

For the tv in the upstairs bedroom, I've got an xbox that's
pretty much just collecting dust that I can network and
set up as the frontend. With this setup would the xbox
be able to watch live tv? Or would I need to run coax in
for that?

I had thought about getting a UHF transmitter like this:
http://www.accessorywarehouse.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=AWI&Product_Code=501015&Category_Code=
That would allow any tv within 300' to tune in, but I don't
think it's stereo, don't know how good the reception would
be, and I don't know if I want my neighbors to be able to
know my viewing habits. ;) Still, a neat bit of kit.

Lastly we come to the issue of control.  With the PC
upstairs, and the output down, I'm wondering if a
50' audio extension cable would work to extend the
length of the IR receiver that was bundled with the
pvr-250... has anyone ever tried it? I already have
2 learning universal remotes that can easily learn
the hauppage remote. Should I bite the bullet and
get a remote extender? Would it even work with
802.11g, 2 2.4Ghz cordless phones, and a 2.4 Ghz
baby monitor? Recommendations?

I'm trying to keep this as inexpensive as I can, while
maintaining the relative ease of use. The faster this
pays for itself, the sooner I can convince the powers
that be that adding a second tuner, more disk space,
or other upgrades would be worthwhile.


----------------------
Mark R. Andrachek, Jr.
hallow at webmages.com