[mythtv-users] New MythTV setup

Dewey Smolka dsmolka at gmail.com
Tue Oct 25 15:31:10 EDT 2005


On 10/25/05, David Wallace <dwallace at landsouth.net> wrote:
> Hello List,
>
> I am getting ready to build a mythTV machine from a lot of extra parts I
> have around and would like some input on hardware and interfacing into
> my current AV system.
>
> I have an Athalon 1700 on an Abit KD7 raid motherboard with 256 mb ram.

This should do nicely for recording and playback of SD signals, as
well as the plugins (MythMusic, MythVideo, etc). It can probably
handle recording HD signals, but probably not HD playback. Still, HD
shouldn't really be a priority for you right now -- get an SD rig
working the way you want it, then plan on upgrading to HD if that's
what you want. I'd recommend boosting the RAM to 512.

> 1) should I consider getting 4 drives the same size and use the hardware
> raid in stripping mode?

It's probably not necessary right now. I'd recommend starting with a
single large HDD or two. 250 GB drives these days are going for
$100-120. If you use an LVM (which seems to be the default install
behavior of FC4) you can add storage later. RAID is only really
necessary if you're scared of losing data from an HDD failure,.

> 2) I have a WinTV PVR 250 working for capture using ivtv 0.4.0. The
> hardware browser says it is a "Intermext Compression Inc iTVC16
> (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder", is this good enough for MythTV?

This is the best supported card under Myth. It is a hardware MPEG-2
capture card, meaning that the card converts the signal to MPEG-2 and
dumps it to the HDD saving CPU cycles for other things. The PVR-250
works more or less out of the box with ivtv and Myth. If you have the
remote for the card, it will work in lirc.

> 3) The video card is a Matrox Millennium G400 AGP, the one that can use
> dual head, had it doing TV out under RedHat 9. Will it work well with
> MythTV?

I can't say for sure, but I use a Matrox Millenium G450 (dual VGAs) on
a different machine, and have never had a problem with it. I know that
mine is recognized and easy to configure under Linux, and supports
OpenGL. I'm not sure about other things specific to TV-out.

I expect this card should work. If not, look for an nvidia gf4 or
fx5200 card -- you can pick one up with S-Video out for around $40-$60
new, or a lot less used, refurb, or on ebay.

> 4) Sound. My current AV system has a Sony 5.1 amp with a MD (digital
> tape) input and output, like old cassette tape monitior recievers. The
> motherboard has  a VIA AC97 audio controller with a 5.1 fiber output
> which I think can be inputted to the Sony MD input. Is there another
> audio card I could add to capture 5.1 into MythTV. My AV source is
> DirecTV which provides 5.1 (if available) to the amp.

I'm not sure I can help you here. How does the 5.1 signal go out
otherwise? If it's in the coax signal that the PVR-250 captures, then
Myth can deal with it, I think. There are cheap cards with SPDIF ins
on them -- the Turtle Beach Catalina runs about $50. I use a TB
Riviera, which puts out 5.1 through three analog ports and SPDIF.


> I have been reading Jarod Wilson's Fedora 4 FAQ for mythTV which I find
> very helpful on the subject, but obviously can't address every hardware
> configuration possible, hence this posting. Thanks in advance to any
> that can help and make recommendations.

Good luck.


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