[mythtv-users] mythtv hardware plans
Ian Forde
ian at duckland.org
Sun Feb 4 06:40:45 UTC 2007
Couple of points inline below...
On Sat, 2007-02-03 at 21:57 -0500, Brian Schott wrote:
> On Feb 3, 2007, at 11:32 AM, jason maxwell wrote:
>
> > I will have a Comcast coax directly to the mythtv box, no set top box
> > at all. I would like to have the option of watching and time shifting
> > live or recorded HD content, while also recording other possibly HD
> > content simultaneously.
>
> I seriously recommend that you consider getting an IR blaster to
> change channels on the cable box even if that means you only use one
> tuner. Comcast disables the serial port on the set-top boxes, so IR
> blasting is the best way to go.
As a general statement to the behavior of Comcast nationally, I can't
find any justification for your statement. (As conjecture, it may hold
up, but as a statement of fact? Ummm... I'm not seeing it.) I've been
using a serial cable to change channels on my myth box for over 3 years.
IR blasting should be considered the fallback position, while serial
cable is the preferred method. You get more reliable channel-changing,
plus it eliminates the chance of leakage to other cable boxes if you
have more than one. (For example, I have 3 cable boxes. One DCT-2000
connected to my S1 Tivo via serial cable for channel-changing, one
DCT-2000 connected to Myth via serial cable, and one DCT-6200 connected
via firewire.)
If I used an IR blaster, I'd probably never get anything recorded.
> This might draw some flames, but instead of hardware RAID,I'd
> recommend you use LVM to create a concatenated partition across
> multiple drives (I believe the $/GB sweet spot is at 320GB right
> now). You can add drives later and grow the filesystem (JFS and XFS
> support this, not sure if EXT3 does). I've got 1.6TB (I just tell my
> girlfriend that hard drives are like shoes :-)!
So you're recommending forgoing data protection and going with the
method that allows the failure of any drive in the chain to toast the
whole filesystem, right? If that's the case, then the OP should know
(or be informed of) the risks...
-Ian
--
_______________________________________
Ian Forde
RHCE (7,EL4), CCSE, SCNA, SCDME
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