[mythtv-users] Setting up, checking system, and hopefully help others.

[Donavan Stanley]

On 7/16/05, George Shammas <georgyo at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Operation system I have choose for all these boxes will be
> KnoppMyth except for maybe the backend which might Fedora Core 4.

Stick with FC all the way around.   No sense in having two distros
around, and a system built with Jarods guide is going to be a superior
system to KM anyway.


> For my Master Backend, I am converting an old (not that old)
> workstation to do almost all the work. Its an AMD XP 2400 (2 GHz)
> Underclocked to an AMD XP 2000 (1.8 GHz). It has one gig of ram, and
> since I took some parts out. An ATI Radeon with 32 megs of ram. Has a
> nice DVD+/-RW drive. Built in it has 2 10/100 NICs, and bunches of USB
> ports. Also has 5.1 integrated surround sound.

You MBE doesn't need sound.  It *can* use those extra 200mhz though.



> For the TV tuner cards, I really want MPEG4 encoding (DIVX codex if
> possible) only because I find it so much better in both quality and
> file size. So in that respect I am looking at a Japanese company named
> NEXX NTVC-760 MPEG4 TV Tuner (See Link Below). I am seriously in love
> with this card. It has really great coding resolutions in DIVX, and
> does both audio and video. Plus if I need to, it can be down graded to
> MPEG1/2 so, no matter what this card can do what I want. I really want
> the Back end to do my all my capture, so I would be getting 3 of
> these.

Forget the card if there's no drivers you're only setting yourself up
for a long road of frustration.

> Also I am looking at the Linux pcHDTV HD-3000, but
> again that is MPEG2 but its still a nice card. In any case I am open
> to suggestions.

The HD3k card is an HDTV capture card of course it's MPEG2,  all HD is MPEG2. 

As for suggestions, pick up one of the PVRx50s for standard def.

 
> I going to need a IR Blaster to communicate with the set top boxes,
> and seeing how I need more then one, I figured USB was the way to go.

Or one with mutliple transmit channels.


> WILL THE REMOTE THAT COMES WITH IT BE ABLE TO CONTROL MYTHTV?

The remote isn't the issue it's the receiver.  Have your spent time on google?


> This is all I need to have it running. But now for TV out. I really
> don't know, so that's a question I must ask. WHAT WILL BE THE BEST TV
> OUT CARD? 

nVidia cards, the 6600 cards are nice in that they allow for component
out to HD sets.  You can find fanless 6200s for cheap.

> Now I might go with a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 if the card
> that I want the backend to use, doesn't come out in time. This raises
> another question. CAN I HAVE FRONTENDS HAVE ALL RECORDED DATA SENT TO
> A BACKEND? 

Frontends don't capture data, backends do.  You can run bothe the FE
and BE software on the same machine however.  Just NFS share your
recording directory and let the other machines write to it.


> OK, how does this setup look, Please brutalize it as much as you
> possible can. And if possible give me better cost/quality ratio
> products.

The wifi in the megas is going to be pretty useless for watchign TV /
recordings, it'll have a lot of dropouts.