[mythtv-users] How MythTV works and other questions

Donald Webster fryfrog at gmail.com
Mon Sep 13 15:43:49 EDT 2004


For the past few days I have been doing a bit of research and testing
of MythTV.  I built a frontend/backend based on a p3 500 w/ 128mb ram
and 2 bt878 tv cards (one 3dfx, one hauppage).  I've got it "working"
to the point that I would like to continue and invest in something
"better".  My questions pertain to how Myth works and what would work
best.

For my "backend" / main system, I plan on using a Matrox G450 dual
display adapter (no tv out).  I also plan on having 2-3 Hauppage 250's
for TV.  The motherboard is an Asus PC-DL Deluxe, a dual xeon mb with
built in 5.1 sound and about 1gb of ram.  The main reason being I
already have this (asside from the 250s and a big hd).

At a later date I would like to add another plain jane front end,
either based on a small PC or as I have been reading... an Xbox
running some flavour of linux.

Here are some of my questions that I have, most of which are formed by
reading and some I think I already have partially answered.

If I mix 2x 250's hooked up to cable and 2x pcHDTV 3000's to OTA
antenna, will things work okay?

The goal would be to record any HDTV shows in a good format, but still
have many channels available.  In my area, I am sure that there are
only a few HDTV channels available like NBC, ABC, CBS, etc... so the
plain old cable would be for all the other channels like TNT.  I think
I would accomplish this by giving the two HDTV tuners a higher
weight... then if the show is available on one of them, it would use
it.

Would the "guide" be a mix of the two?  I've read that you need to set
HDTV channels in a slightly different way, because they have periods
in them.  I believe someone suggested ones you won't use like "925"
for 25.2 or "903" for 3.1 (all examples are totally fake!), so would
they just show up in the guide like that as one merged source?

Even further... HDTV has my panties in a knot... and I don't even wear
panties.  I've read about it some before, due to being interested in
an HDTV widescreen.  Of course, having no money puts a big hold on
that.  I believe I would want one with DVI, svideo, component and a/v
in with DVI and component being the best options for very high res /
widescreen.

And this is where the Xbox comes in.  From what I have been reading,
it actually makes a decent HDTV output device.

Any comments are welcome.  Any suggestions for words to search the
email archive are too, I've simply run out of words I can think of to
help me.  I don't mind reading either, so web pages are great!

Could a MythTV box agregate multiple sources, in that could you have
digital cable hooked to 1 tuner, digital satalite to another, OTA hdtv
to another and kind of "merge" all of them for a "super" ("super
expensive" too) tv input? :)


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