[mythtv-users] Hardware questions

[Colin McGregor]

On 10/21/08, Bobby Gill <bobbygill at rogers.com> wrote:
> Well I am more than likely getting a Rogers Digital box soon, so am
> wondering how to upgrade here. My server specs are:

Let me preface my comments by noting what I think of Rogers as a
customer ... sad to say, but my comments are not fit for polite
company (and not fit for most impolite company...), which seems to be
par for many cable companies....

Back to central issue, Rogers, HDTV, and MythTV do NOT mix. Rogers
seems to have gone out of their way to make HDTV as MythTV hostile as
possible. Unlike the US, where cable companies are required to offer
local HDTV broadcasts unscrambled that is not required in Canada. This
means that Rogers scrambles ALL digital content. Okay, so you can take
the analog output of your digital box and feed that into an analog
tuner card... That works, but then you have to control the digital box
with a IR blaster (which can also work, but further pain...). SOME of
the BELL Express sat. boxes can be made to talk to firewire, which has
issues, but at least is a far far better option that anything I have
heard of from Rogers...

> ASUS P4V8X-MX mobo
> 1.2gb ram
> P4 3.4ghz EE cpu
> 7600 GS AGP card
>
> 1. I'd say I'm relatively out of the loop with current hardware, so I'm
> wondering if there such a mobo that will support any or all of the above
> parts but also have the newer PCI Express needed for newer tuner cards?

As long as you are only dealing with one HDTV channel at a time what
you list should be okay.

> 2. Or am I looking at having to get new mobo+cpu+ram+card?

Well, a new mobo+cpu+ram+video card will set you back $200+ . I would
be making sure your current set-up is unable to do what you want
before spending $.

> 3. What are the top tuner card(s) that can capture analog+digital\HD that
> work great with Myth?

I have heard many nice things said about the HDHomerun. I am currently
using a pcHDTV-5500 card, which has analog issues, but does a nice job
on over the air digital TV (at least from where I am in mid-town
Toronto).

> Got a birthday and big bonus coming, trynna prepare myself here.. much
> appreciated for any help.
>
> Thanks
> Bob