[mythtv-users] Need Help in setting up MythTV system

Wed Oct 13 19:15:25 UTC 2004

clemens at dwf.com wrote:

>  I hope this isnt a duplicate,- I had some mail problems here
>  yesterday and everything that I sent seems to have been lost. So
>  here we go again.
>
>  ---
>
>  Ive been reading the MythTV lists now for a couple of months, and
>  Ive read whatever else I can find that is pointed to by the MythTV
>  / pcHDTV sites, but if anything, I'm confused.
>
>  And the more I read, the more confused I get.
>
>  I suspect that SOME of the confusion will go away when I have a
>  machine to run MythTV on, but first things first. Although Ive
>  bought a pcHDTV card, my current machine (a 733MHz Pentium III) is
>  'full up' with cards, so I'm going to have to buy a new machine to
>  experiment with MythTV.
>
>  Whatever the machine, it will be running Linux, at the moment my
>  preference would be for Fedora2 with a 2.6.x kernel, since thats
>  whats on my other machines. INITIALLY I will be viewing the result
>  on my Computer monitor, later to a standard TV, and still later to
>  a HDTV.
>
<flame bait> Personally I prefer gentoo Linux seems to be easier to
maintain.  Great distro if you have made it from beginner to beginner+
with linux. </flame bait>

> > From what Ive read, its not clear if I'm going to keep all of
> > MythTV on one
>  machine, or split it between two, so for now Ill go for all the
>  horsepower I can afford and we'll see about a 2nd machine later.
>
>  OK, so I see LOTS of recommendations, but lets lay it out and work
>  thru the list. I will need
>
>  (1) PCBox, Powersupply, Fans (2) MotherBoard (w/ Disk controllers &
>  ethernet) (3) CPU, Fan. (4) Disk(s) (5) TV Card(s) (6) Video Card
>  (7) Sound Card (8) DVD recorder (9) IR Remote
>
>  So, here's where you can start making recommendations.
>
>  (1-3) BOX, MOTHERBOARD, CPU. My first thought would be to get a
>  local shop that I have dealt with before to put together the bare
>  bones machine, viz (1)-(3). I would expect a Pentium 4,
>  2.8-3.2GHz.
>
I have an AMD 2500+ (Barton) and it runs with some room to spare as a
dedicated DVR

>  For other experiments, I would like a CPU with __Hyper__Threading,
>  but remember seeing a chart (which I cant find at the moment) that
>  showed the heat output from the various processors. The 'slower'
>  machines output 85w, the 'faster' 115w. The cost difference between
>  seems to be about $60 for 2.8->3.0 and 3.0->3.2 so cost would not
>  be a factor here. I would rather stay with the lower heat
>  processors, but am not sure if that conflicts with the desire for
>  MultiTasking. anyone?
>
>  Ive never put a machine together from scratch before, but if it was
>  obvious I was going to actually save some money that way, I would
>  consider it.
>
>  Ive seen plenty of comments about 'quiet boxes' and I can remember
>  having a aquarium air pump in the living room that just drove me up
>  the wall. As noted, I'm willing to ignore that problem up front
>  while I'm experimenting with MythTV in my office. So a 'quiet' PC
>  Box is not a necessity. Basically I will either get a 2nd machine
>  later with only the playback (Video/Sound)Card in it so its heat
>  dissipation will be less and the powersupply noise should go down
>  too, or Ill do what I did with the air pump,- put it in my walkin
>  closet which is directly behind the TV, and run the cables thru the
>  wall...
>
>  As for MotherBoards I would probably stay with the INTEL D875PBZ,
>  as thats what I have on two other machines at the office.
>  Comments?

Purchased a Shuttle SN45G XPC (really nice small box)

>
>  ---
>
>  (4) DISKS This could be the simplest, most generic choice. Any
>  reason to worry about rotational speed? Any reason to worry about
>  transfer rate (ATA/100, SATA/100, SATA/150)? I'm guessing one disk
>  for the OS, I usually set aside space for 3 or 4 5GB partitions for
>  different OS revisions, and space for several versions of MythTV.
>  Thats still a 'small' disk these days, 60-80GB.
>
>  In addition 150-300GB for TV storage with room for more disks.
>
>  I see numbers like 200GB / $139 ATA/100 7200RPM 250GB / $159
>  SATA/150 7200RPM

Transfer rate yes video is fairly demanding  though ATA-100 is
sufficient, no extra cooling required

>
>  Considering the most recent disk I bought, I would assume that this
>  3-1/2" drive would be mounted in a 5-1/2 slot in the box, mounting
>  it in a tray with extra cooling fans. Unless there are some strong
>  objections, this will depend on whats on sale when.
>
>  ---
>
>  (5) TVCard As noted above, the only part of this project that I
>  have in hand is a pcHDTV (2000) card. I may at some point add a
>  second card (a 3000?). I currently record TV with 2 VCR's,- If
>  there is ANYTHING decent on, its always across from something else
>  I want to see...). thoughts?
>
>  It seems to me that the PVR250/350 series of cards are going to be
>  obsolete within a year so I have not considered them.
>
>  ---
>
HDTV will be able to be downmixed so no death to the 2(3)50 but HD is
certainly coming good move getting one before the broadcast flag went
into effect

>  (6) Video Card I know *nothing* about video cards so I can really
>  use some help here. Cards these days seem to have ENORMOUS amounts
>  of video memory. I can understand some extra, but wow.
>
>  In any case I have seen references to TVout in addition to monitor
>  out (ok) Ive seen references to MPEG2 support. Ive seen references
>  to Direct 8 support.
>
>  What are people using, and why? I can understand the first
>  requirement above. The 2nd is a bit more iffy, if in fact you
>  re-encode things on disk to MPEG4 for better compression.
>
>  The third, well, Ive never heard of X11 having a requirement for
>  (or ability to use) Direct 8, so perhaps this was with respect to
>  some PC software.
>
>  So any and all suggestions will be appreciated here, and if you can
>  say WHY you prefer a given card, all the better.
>
I use a Chaintech NVidia FX5200 w/S-Video out its great, bought it
because the TV-OUT gets enabled at boot if no monitor is detected so I
don't need to hook up a monitor to change BIOS settings, and X just
runs on it.  Very easy and fairly inexpensive

>  Of course, I understand that this is a fast changing field (video
>  cards) what with the gamer community, so this weeks best card may
>  not be next weeks best card...
>
>  Ive also seen references to 'external adapters' to convert VGA ->
>  NTSC but I don't think I've ever seen one of these advertised. Any
>  pointers here?
>
>  Please, I need HELP on deciding on a Video Card, as I am
>  clueless... . Suggestions please
>
>  ---
>
>  (7) Sound Card It looks like something like the Sound Blaster Live!
>  5.1 would be appropriate. I currently have a Sound Blaster Live!
>  (not 5.1) on my current system and it works fine for what I need.
>
>  The Audigy 2 cards look interesting, but they are a considerably
>  more expensive, and Ive just been thru an experience of trying to
>  get one (the PCI version not the USB version) working with Linux,
>  and it was a lost cause. Maybe in another 6mo or a year...
>
Built in 6-channel in the box mentioned above

>  ---
>
>  (8) DVD Recorder All the (+/-) formats are confusing. Is this just
>  going to be a continuing problem like VHS/Beta forever, or is one
>  set of specs starting to take over?
>
>  And Recording speed. I just read an article that said, independent
>  of how fast the recorder CAN record, don't record faster than 4x,
>  or you'll probably end up with a disk that is unreadable. Well not
>  totally unreadable, but with unreadable sections.
>
>  And double layer (is that the term?) Seems that twice the capacity
>  WOULD be nice, but the media is still quite expensive. thoughts
>
NEC's +/- drives seem to produce the most universally compatable
recordings.  Single layer discs are 4.7GB and dual layer ones are
8.5GB not sure about compatability of dual layer media with DVD
players.  Also the DVD+R format is best for video

>  ---
>
>  (9) IR Remote. It appears that some of the TV Cards (the Hauppauge
>  cards), and some MotherBoards, come with an IR Remote, but the
>  pcHDTV doesn't, so Ill need a free-standing IR here. There must be
>  free-standing units. Recommendations? Or perhaps a different
>  MotherBoard?
>
>  ---
>
I use the ATI remote that came with my TV-Wonder VE.  Its an RF remote
and it can be purchased separately also.  The Linux kernel supports it
as a keyboard in X so there's a lot less work to make it work.

>  Reg.Clemens reg at dwf.com
>
>
>
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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Feel free to e-mail if you have more questions.
Bryan
bhalter at armyofpenguins.com