[mythtv-users] PCI-E Analog Card

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sun Jan 24 18:13:53 UTC 2010


On Sunday 24 January 2010 11:01:00 am Another Sillyname wrote:
> 2010/1/24 Brent Norris <brent at brentnorris.net>:
> One solution is to go for a motherboard like an Asus P5WDG2 Pro which
> supports PCI-X slots.  The bus structure of the board splits the PCI
> slots from the PCI-X slots (you can plug a Hauppauge 500 into a PCI-X
> slot because I do) and you shouldn't get bus saturation.
> 
> I run a backend with 2 dual terrestrial and 3 satellite feeds (all
> digital though) but with multirec that's 8 terrestrial and 6 satellite
> on that board.  The most I've had recording was two HiDef channels at
> about 8gb per hour, 3 satellite channels at about 4.5GB per hour and 6
> terrestrial at about 1.6GB per hour all at the same time.  With the
> loading split it worked like a charm.
> 
> It is a quad core processor with 4 hard disks to spread the recording
> load as well.

I agree with you, I have many PCI-X server boards, they can be had cheaply 
today, and perform very well, though they do draw a lot of watts (or rather 
the CPUs that fit into them do).

But the OP wants to use a new server, with PCIe slots, so let's see what we 
can find to help him do that.

If power consumption is a factor, this will probably be better for him.

Looking at his situation, I think the main thing is to be certain what sort of 
signals the cable company sending him, and how that might change in the 
future.

Nobody wants to make a substantial investment in hardware and time, only to 
have to re-do it when the cable company decides to go all digital.

If it were me, I'd start by sitting down with a cable company exec, and finding 
out what their plans might be, assuming they even know.

Since his new server has gigabit NICs, perhaps multiple HDHRs would work, if 
the channels he wants are available as clear QAM, and will continue to be. 
This will remove any dependency on a particular type of slot.


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