[mythtv-users] Low end experiment with latest Knoppmyth

[ffrr]

I wanted to see whether a very low end machine I had kicking around, 
would work with a DVB card and using knoppmyth.

Machine is...

533MHz Celeron
nVidia TNT2 16MB video card (external VGA to composite video converter 
box) running at 640x480
512MB RAM
slow IDE drives (a 4 GB and a 15 GB - not intending to do much recording 
:-))
Twinhan DVB-T 3020C Mini Ter TV card
Knoppmyth R5A22



Firstly, ALL hardware works out of the box !   Only thing I 'cheated' on 
was to import a channels.conf file that I generated on my other machine, 
rather than scanning for channels during setup.


Performance... well it was ALMOST fast enough.  So close.  Just a slight 
periodic pause while watching live TV.  Turning off deinterlacing made 
it ALMOST perfect.   Recording seemed to work fine, with no pauses in 
the video like live TV.  Maybe the 15GB disk I was recording to was 
faster than the 4GB disk that the live ringbuffer was on.  Should have 
tried pushing the ringbuffer onto the other disk maybe.

Picture on the screen was just a bit under par.  A bit blurry around the 
edges.  Not surprising using composite out on an external video 
converter box.  I am sure a nice newer cheap video card with svideo out 
would give a great picture.


This experiment has been very helpful in my understanding just what type 
of hardware I need for a standalone myth box.  Just thought I'd relate 
my experiences here in case it was of interest to anyone else, 
especially after all the great help I have received of late.  Note:  no 
glitches were apparent during the short test.  I am convinced now at 
least that this cheap DVB card is a great choice for use with MythTV.  
When I get a better box, I might put a couple of them in it.