[mythtv-users] Time to take the next step...

[VCRAddict]

At 04:39 PM 11/16/08 -0500, Kevin Robbins wrote: 
 >
 > > I'll just comment on a few things I remember.
 > >
 > > I don't know of any "piggyback" sata cables. But don't limit yourself to
 > > just sata drives in your main backend. There's always a stand-alone
 > > network drives, a couple 1 TB's in each front end etc.
 > >
 > 
 > The existing FE/BE won't support an external HDD (no SCSI, FireWire, no
 > eSATA, and the USB ports are only v1.0 which is much too slow).  Besides, I
 > really don't want to screw around with the existing FE/BE system _at_least_
 > until I get the new back-end up and running.  And even then, I'd be more
 > likely to just build a whole new replacement FE/BE system for the Living
 > Room (thus freeing up the existing one to move to the MBR) than attempt to
 > "fix what ain't broke" in-place.

I left the above intact solely to point out that your method of message
quoting is horridly broken, and makes it look like *you* wrote material
that *I* had actually written earlier, and makes no distinction between the
two.  You also left in a LOT of extraneous material that had nothing to do
with your subsequent comments (which I eventually found, but ONLY because I
already knew what I'd written and what I hadn't).  Please review the
settings in (and your use of) your mail client to retain proper quoting and
attributions.

 > Like you said it all boils down to how many pci tuners you have. If
 > you get a good board with 5 pci slots and 4 sata's you should be fine

Well, the (mother)board is already decided on: The Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe I
mentioned in my first message to this list;
    nVidia nForce2 chipset; 1 AGP + 5 PCI slots, 
    on-board Gigabit Ethernet, 6-channel audio & SPDIF headers, etc.
    AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (2.167 GHz actual clock rate)
    1GB DDR RAM (expandable to at least 3GB, if need be)

 > with...say 3 PVR 500's (6 analog tuners) a 4 port sata raid controller
 > and some other PVR card in the remaining slot. Then throw a HDHomerun
 > in the mix, that will essentially give you 9 tuners and 8 HD's.

Well, as I also mentioned previously, I have no need for NTSC tuners in
*this* system.  That's already covered to the extent that it needs to be
covered, at least for now.  I *may* eventually migrate one of the PVR-150s
from my existing FE/BE system to this box at some point down the line; but
even so, that won't happen until I have effectively replaced that existing
FE/BE box, which in turn won't happen until *after* the new BE-only box is
up and running.

I'm still collecting information (thanks in large part to this list); but
as of the moment, I will most likely be going with two HDHomeRuns (for a
total of 4 ATSC tuners), and *no* PCI tuner cards.  So the PCI "slot
crunch" is really a non-issue.  I've still not decided between an "real"
Hardware RAID card vs. a cheap  non-RAID (or "fakeRAID", but I wouldn't
actually use that feature) 4-8 port SATA interface; but either way, I'll
have more than enough slots open for it.

 > You
 > should find that you wont need a DVD drive in your backend, you will
 > use one to install etc but just use a usb external type for that.

Actually, I rather suspect it will be "only" a CD-ROM drive.  As you note,
it will only be needed for the initial software load -- and CD is more than
adequate for that.

 > The HDhomerun is like magic, hook it to an antennae plug in the lan,
 > tell myth and schedules direct what channels it receives then enjoy
 > the show, don't think into it to much. You dont need any IR nothing
 > for it.

Thanks.  That's what I wanted to hear.

 > As far a cookbook for lirc there really isnt one unless you want to be
 > happy with what other people like...It's really not that difficult and
 > posses no risk to your system if you make a couple of these 3 files
 > first.
 > 
 > If your remote is working then your 99.9% done, there are 3 files to
 > look at. The first is /etc/lirc/hardware.conf to see what file is
 > being read. A snip looks like this.
 > 
    [snip]

Thanks for this.  I'll need to study it in more detail later before I can
comment on it tho'.

 > In mythbuntu the logs are in /var/log/mythtv/mythfrontend.log
 > /var.log/mythtv/mythbackend.log
 > and for the exporting failure you will need to look in
 > /var/lib/mythdvd/temp/logs/mythburn.log and progress.log

Thanks also for this.  I'll take a look at it tomorrow (tonight's
"disposable time" is rapidly fizzling away).