[ale] Using MythTV in a networked DVR farm setting

[Daniel Howard]

Mike Harrison wrote:
> 
> Advice: Having dealt with teachers and education: let some-one else do it.

   And the PVR-350 Cards rock! - Please use hardware MPEG
>  
> Oh.. and check out VLC http://www.videolan.org  - It's streaming server rocks. 
> It makes a good tool for streaming video server from live inputs as well 
> as files. 
> 
> Although I run a KnoppMyth machine at home, I've found it easier to build
> custom boxen based on FC4, but I'm a RedHat kinda guy...
> 
> Here's a ps from a single CPU machine with 4 PVR350 cards encoding and 
> streaming at the same time: Avg System load:  5.26
> 
Thanks Mike, and agree completely with PVR-350/hardware encoding.  I am 
pleasantly surprised that you can do four simultaneous channels (there's 
the benefit of hardware encoding), and maybe that eliminates the bank of 
DVR boxes, as long as MythTV supports multiple encoder cards (which I'm 
guessing it does).  We use FC4 since we're running K12LTSP servers 
throughout the school now.  With four PVR-350 cards in your PC, when you 
go to record a show that conflicts with another in that timeslot, does 
it automatically select the next available 350 card for recording or do 
you have to do that manually?

You might have me leaning more toward the non-centralized architecture 
(i.e., a MythTV PVR in each classroom).  We've got MythTV up and running 
and feeding video to our thin clients (initially the sound card was a 
problem, and now works fine with a soundblaster-type card and allowing 
the client to have swap space on the server), but now we're focusing on 
recording capabilities.  It's just too much trouble for teachers to go 
to the media center and pop a tape in and set the VCR to record programs.

Regards,
Daniel