[mythtv-users] Myth TV on server

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sat Nov 6 14:21:08 UTC 2010


On Friday, November 05, 2010 05:41:02 pm Mark wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm hoping to set up MythTV on my a server I bought used.  I want to be
> able to capture TV shows to the server and then have any computer on the
> network play those shows.  My question for you guys is what sort of TV
> capture card should I be looking at.  The server has 3 PCI-X (not PCIe)
> slots available, it only has USB 1.1, It also has a built in serial
> port, and we are using a digital cable set top box.  I spent the last
> couple of days reading about capture cards in the MythTV wiki but I'm
> even more confused now!  I want to capture the signal from the set top
> box and control it with the server through an IR interface.  I think I
> need to use an analog framebuffer card like the WinTV-Go card, but I'm
> not sure, and I don't want to spend the money to find out I cant use
> it.  As for the IR control I plan on using the IR Blaster that is
> recommended in the wiki. The server is also running openSUSE as its OS.
> I would also love to capture HDTV at some point, so if I can get a
> capture card that can do that as well then that would be great!  Am I
> going in the right direction, or is there something I'm missing?
> Any help would be appreciated.
> Thanks
> Mark

There have been lots of good comments on your plans, but consider power consumption.

I used to run a Myth backend on hardware similar to what to what you have described (a pair of dual-core Opterons and 16 
GB of RAM). It worked fine, and I was also able to run a virtual machine under Virtualbox in order to run XP, so that I 
could run PlayOn.

The problem was power consumption. Machines of that vintage draw considerable power, and tend to run 24/7, especially, 
since you will be doing fileserver duty as you mentioned. Power consumption was just not a major factor in the design of 
servers like we are talking about. ECC RAM, lots of fans, possibly multiple PSUs and 15,000 RPM drives are just not "low 
power green" devices.  

After some measurements with a Kill-a-Watt and some calculations I finally decided I could accomplish what I needed with 
far less power. I am now using a PogoPlug and an NSLU2 to do fileserver and a few other tasks, and am running the Myth BE 
on a Phenom quad-core machine, which draws less power in the first place, and allows better CPU throttling to use even 
less. Using SATA drives allows me to use less power for the HDDs.

Your server will probably work fine for Myth, but will add considerably to your power bill. Not necessarily a big problem 
but something to be aware of.

Of course the savings would probably take many years to pay for newer hardware, so I'm not suggesting you run out and buy 
lower-power gear, just pointing out that you may be adding close to $50/month to your utility bill, depending of course on 
your local rates.

Noise is another issue, but I'm sure you have considered that. I ran my machine in the garage, so it wasn't a problem, but 
machines of that type were not known for being quiet.

It's always nice to have plenty of CPU and RAM available, but always remember that they come at a cost.


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