[mythtv-users] [Slightly OT] comcast moving to settop on Bay Area - goodbye analog

[Yan Seiner]

Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>    I'm at an impass with this whole MythTV thing. Our PG&E bill is
> running $350/month right now, about 60% is electricity. ($200 last
> month) We have a gas heater and gas water heater, but electric pool
> pumps and oven/range. My Kill-a-Watt told me that if I assume the
> MythTV server is the most expensive electricity I buy (because it is a
> luxury) then it's costing me about $18/month to run the backend. My
> old fridge is about $30. We've got 6 PCs running here, 1 STB, 1 HDHR,
> a couple of TVs, monitors, wireless phones, network equipment, etc.,
> etc., etc. so I'm pretty sensitive to the electricity usage at this
> point. We converted the whole house to CFL already. I figure it's
> probably $10-$15/month to rent an STB and also pay the electricity
> bill to run it. If I end up with 3 - 1 on the main TV and 2 for
> recording, then MythTV is starting to look like $40-$60/month in
> reoccurring costs along with about $125 going to Comcast already.
> Ugly...
>   

I've spent a lot of time and effort getting Myth to run in a multi-seat 
environment.  I've gone from 7 PCs to 4, and soon to 2.  (The only thing 
between me and 2 PCs is a weekend in the attic stringing cable.)

OK, you give up XvMC and you have to pick-and-choose - basically HD only 
runs on 1, maybe 2 heads per server at a time, but other than that it 
works and you don't get the hit of multiple PCs running up the power 
bill.  As soon as my new mobo gets here I'll start playing with nouveau 
and see if I can get a bleeding-edge setup without the evil binary blob 
nvidia drivers.

:-)

--Yan

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