[mythtv-users] Thoughts on HDTV-capable frontend

[Steve Adeff]

On Sunday 13 November 2005 13:26, Joseph Wilkicki wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> I've finally got the budget to move on to the next phase of my MythTV plan.
> At this point, I have an Opteron 146 with 1GB of RAM and a 1 TB RAID array
> for my backend. My next steps are: putting in Tuner cards and creating a
> frontend. At this point, I have non-digital cable, since that seems to be
> the easiest to record without a fancy setup (IR blaster, firewire, etc).
> Eventually, I think I would like to move to digital cable with HD. So my
> first question is: should I be looking at a PVR-250 to start with or bump
> up to a pchdtv3000? Any thoughts on the Air2PC HD card? I know I don't need
> the PVR-350, since the backend will be headless.

You'll probably want one HDTV tuner for the OTA HD channels (Even if you 
actually pick them up via the cable line). I got a HD-3000 card and find it 
is better at receiving the HD channels than my cablebox over firewire, i 
think cause the cablebox has an inferior tuner... its just too finicky 
compared to the 3000...

Most people here seem to think the PVR-150 has better quality than the 250. 
Tther than that I don't really know the difference. I got the 150, it was 
cheap, and has a FM tuner. 

As for the digital cable box, depending on what you get, you might be able to 
use firewire, you might be able to receive a bunch of stations over firewire, 
none, or a limited number (due to the 5C "encryption").

 I have a DCT-6200 but since I get very few channels via firewire I'm 
connecting it to my PVR150(no perceptable video quality loss for non-HD 
channels as well!) and *trying* to use firewire to change the channels (works 
from my laptop, not from my new myth computer...).

Steve









>
> For the frontend, I'm a little more confused. My plan is to rip a large
> portion of my DVD library to the RAID array. I want MPEG4 with AC3 audio as
> the encoding format. I want to display it with component video cables on my
> widescreen. I also want to be able to display HD eventually. I see two
> basic routes. The first is to go with the new EPIA with the on-board MPEG2
> decoder and MPEG4 accelerator, but I'm not sure if it does component out.
> It would be quiet and small though.
>
> The other option is: use a NVidia card with native component out support,
> and a Micro-ATX footprint. If I go that route, what do people recommend for
> processor and memory requirements for possible HD decoding, given that the
> NVidia card will probably accelerate this? Is it worth it to put another
> tuner card in the frontend for channel surfing? What about system and fan
> noise? Can anyone recommend parts that are quiet? I'm especially concerned
> about a decent case. I'm also going to be using 802.11G between the backend
> and frontend, due to physical restrictions. Any thoughts on video over
> wireless, especially MPEG2 and MPEG4? There is no wife factor, but a
> borged-looking entertainment center will probably drive any potential
> wife-factors away. :-)
>
> I know it is a lot of questions; any thoughts on any part of the above
> would be useful. I've been researching this off and on for about three
> years, and my head is full of trade-offs at this point. Maybe someone can
> talk about how they got started and what the upgrade path looked like.