[mythtv-users] Am I ready to go?

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 10:59:38AM -0800, Julian wrote:
> Hi,
> I am putting together a "test" MythTv box to try it
> out before I purchase the new HD-3000s.  I would
> appreciate if anyone could let me know of any caveats
> with my methodology.  Here is the setup I am going
> for:
> 
> -Fedora Core 3
Fine.
> -ATI Radeon 32MB Video Card (motherboard also has

I am still waiting for reports of people getting these to work for
HDTV even with their latest drivers.   The 9200SE cards will
not do 1080i with the open source drivers.   The proprietary drivers
will not do below an 8600 level card -- you don't say what card.  But
still no reports of the new proprietary drivers working.

> shared memory architecture...not sure if I can disable
> as of yet)
You almost surely can.
> - ATI TV Wonder (VE?) (NOT all in wonder)
> -80GB Maxtor HD

Kinda light on the disk space if you want to do HDTV some day.
It's 8gb/hour usually.   Of course you can add more but in a way
80gb drives are a waste of time.  The sweet spot for drives is about
160gb to 200gb.   

Other than that you are wasting space, heat and power since the big
drives take about the same power as the small ones.

Here in California each watt costs just over a buck to run 24/7/365.
Add 15 watts -- pay $17/year for electricity, so 2 80gb drives for 3
years costs $51 more than a 160gb even if the drives cost the same total.

(I am just guesstimating the power draw.  The vendors claim lower numbers
but that's DC watts, I presume you spend more in the power supply and
for cooling, which is the other issue.)

> 
> plan to follow Jarod Wilson's HOW-TO.  I chose Fedora
> since I am familiar with Red Hat 9 running Gnome, and

Mythtv recommends kde over gnome but I would have to believe you
can get gnome to work.