[mythtv-users] Output to h.264

[mike at grounded.net]

> In general, no.  You would install all your tuners into a single
> backend system, unless you have more tuners than a single backend can
> handle (which would be a lot of tuners).

Really, what will determine that is which hardware I can use. 
For example, I have a lot of older blade servers I still use for dedicated functions. 
Each blade is an 850Mhz/256MB server which has one PCI slot available. 
Now, if these were powerful enough to be backend servers, I'd love to use them because I've got a lot of them sitting idle in chassis that are already powered up. Turning a few more on for this would be the easiest and cheapest method for me. 
Otherwise, I've got lots of dual 2.8Ghz XEON/4GB servers, again, with only one PCI-X slot and the rest are all dual duo 2.2Ghz/4GB but would need to use up a slot to add a PCI extension. If the 850's would do the trick for back end, that would be sweet.