[mythtv-users] please sanity check my new hardware

[Steven Adeff]

On 4/6/06, Disconnect <mythtv at gotontheinter.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Apr 2006, Steven Adeff did have cause to say:
>
> > On 4/6/06, Jo Shields <directhex at apebox.org> wrote:
> > > Wise man say "don't buy a sodding radeon express board, they're
> > > fundementally broken under Linux". Or windows either, if one believes
> > > http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzgx
> >
> > I completely agree on this, I've got an ATI in my laptop (X200 Mobile)
> > that I'm just happy
> > A) doesn't crash like my friends ATI equiped laptop does in windows. constantly.
> > B) works in 2D, I gave up on 3d.
>
> FWIW I had the opposite experience, but that may be outdated - my last
> nvidia card was a -very- long time ago. Clearly nvidia seems to be the
> answer for myth.

I'll agree, 7 years ago when I started using linux I had a horrible
time with my Nvidia card...


> > I also found that the X200 has the "pink bar" issue with Xv, which
> > makes me think it won't work on the motherboard you found for properly
> > displaying 720p or greater content.
>
> Thats even worse news. So now all I have to do is hope the SN95G5-V3 comes
> back in stock later this month.

yea, I was so hoping my laptop could double as a frontend... I don't
know if its an issue with all X200 chips, but just a warning before
dropping the money on the other system.


> > On 4/6/06, Disconnect <mythtv at gotontheinter.net> wrote:
> > > So my old hardware (which is really over capacity as it is) can't record or
> > > play back hidef. Which means its time for new hardware, yay!
> >
> > Are you sure? HD recording doesn't take a whole lot. Why don't you
> > post what your current system is so we can better determine this.
>
> Athlon XP 2500+ (1.8G) on an nforce2 board, raid5 (3 drives - 1 ata-100 on
> the onboard controller, 2 ata-100-in-sata-adapters on a SiL 3512 board) with
> a gig of ram.  Which might be fine for a dedicated box, but it was sluggish
> even before mythtv was put on it. (Its the general-purpose services and
> fileserver box.)

That should be more than enough for a good mythbackend. Assuming its a
5PCI board it would also give you room to expand to more tuners (say a
PVR500 and another HD tuner...). You don't mention the size of your
RAID5 array, but one would be perfect for a mutliple tuner HD setup.
You could archive to the 400GB drives (or get a 3rd and run those in a
RAID5 as well...). I assume "general-purpose services" mean something
along the lines of Apache, Samba, possibly FTP and email? Those
shouldn't add enough load overall to make much difference.


> The biggest problem is playback. (And not filling my array with data that
> doesn't need to be there.) But even recording seems to have problems. I was
> thoroughly disappointed with the quality of the OTA show I had it tape last
> night (undersea adventures, off PBS) as it was full of glitches and
> artifacts. (It might be reception, I haven't gotten a chance to check yet.)
> Lower-bandwidth HD is passable, higher-bandwidth generally drags the system
> down so bad I have to log in and kill mythfrontend entirely. (For example,
> while I was testing WUSA was showing a basketball game in some insanely
> hidef format. Just tuning it in caused the play/hang/play/hang cycle to get
> so bad that remote inputs were processed 90-120 seconds late. Although live
> without myth worked better, it was still pretty unhappy.)

Thats because the XP just isn't fast enough to keep up with decoding
the stream for writing to the harddrive and playback to your TV. My
Athlon64 3200+ can't playback 1080i and record off three HD tuners at
the same time either, its just not fast enough for that.

> I can play live hd with mplayer and such no problem (with the exceptions
> above), but as soon as myth gets involved it goes to hell. (Even the tivo
> svideo input gets stuttery and - until I get digital audio passthrough going
> - it desyncs due to the live-buffer "feature". So for now, tivo is handled
> by me ssh'ing in and starting tvtime and hd is live or - usually - just
> straight from the dtv receiver. And yes, editing the menus to add tvtime is
> on my list of to-dos.)

Myth does a lot of things when it records that mplayer doesn't, which
adds to the required load handling.


> Fortunately, my wife is being very forgiving. "This hd card is all I'll
> need, except for the remote chance I'll need a new video card. And once its
> working, eventually we should do more storage." .. followed a few weeks
> later by "So you don't like that fan noise, right? How about a new
> computer?" :)
>
> > I'll go ahead and comment, though I still think going with a dedicated
> > backend and building a seperate frontend capable of HD playback will
> > be the way for you to go....
>
> That would involve 2 new computers. I agree it might be the right answer,
> but its not an answer I can do today..

just one new computer and a little shuffling...


> > > -  Shuttle ST20G5
> > >  (http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/ST20G5.asp)
> > If you must, go with the SN95G. I'll say though, Silverstone makes
> > some darn nice small form factor HTPC cases...  Then get a fanless
> > FX5200 with DVI output.
>
> Hmm. Hadn't looked at them. I'll check it out now - thanks!

I figure one of their small form factors and a small form factor
motherboard will be about the same price. You can even look at one of
the other microatx boards with XvMC capable onboard video. Since it
will only be a front end all it would need is video and audio out,
ethernet, and perhaps a DVD drive. Most of the Silverstone's come with
remote and LCD.

> [remainder snipped, cuz I agree completely :) ..]
>
> Oh, and I missed video - radeon 9200 se - and the remote is a Streamzap.
> (Yes, its cheap and has few useful buttons. But it works for now.)

--
Steve