[ale] mythtv hardware question

[Charles Shapiro]

I'm in the throes of building a mythTV box meself. I got a Shuttle "Zen"
ST62K barebones, threw a P4 2.4 ghz processor, 512 mb of RAM, and a 400 gb
hard drive in there, and splurged on a PVR 500. I used knoppmyth R5B7 for
the initial install.  I haven't actually gotten it to work yet due to ALSA
issues (which I hope to resolve when next I get some time to hack on it).

But ivtv recognizes the card (both tuners), and after some initial thrashing
re loading the firmware from the drive I believe it will actually run it as
well. I also had little trouble (like, only some minor password idiocy on my
part) connecting to zap2it and downloading my local program listings.

The big question about speccing a mythTV box seems to be card vs processor
speed, but a P2.66 should be more than adequate from what I've been able to
gather.

BTW BEWARE of the "separate video modes..." choice in the "Options" part of
mythTV. If you check this blindly, it'll mung X for the "mythtv" user and
you won't be able to get it back -- at least, I was unable to find where
those parameters are kept from the command line. Perhaps it fiddles a
database table. I eventually took the Path of Least Resistance and
re-installed.

If you're gonna try to capture audio, you might want to consider getting a
kool sound card as well.

I concur with Mr. Farris's recomendations re video cards and capture cards.

-- CHS


On 6/14/06, Chris Farris <chris at vitalpowers.com> wrote:
>
> If your video card has TV-Out then get the 250 and use the video card to
> drive X. If your video card lacks TV-Out then get the 350 and use the
> ivtv-fb to drive X.
>
> Other than that, I'd stick w/ 1GB and spend the money on HD space.
>
> Chris
>
> Daniel Howard wrote:
> > Pardon me if I missed the summary of the recent MythTV build-in, I get
> > ALE in digest mode and do occasionally miss things.
> >
> > I'm fed up with my Windows MCE platform for video capture/editing/DVD
> > creation, and even my Snapstream Win2k box with a Hauppauge USB PVR add
> > on, which used to do a wonderful job of PVR and video capture, is
> > refusing to see the capture device now.
> >
> > So, I've got a P4, 2.66 GHz box I'm going to add some RAM to get at
> > least 1 GB, maybe 2GB, add a bigger hard drive, and add a video capture
> > card to turn it into a MythTV PVR/video editing box using, e.g., Kino.
> >
> > After initial Googling, I see that the Hauppauge-PVR 250 is quite
> > popular for MythTV, and the 350 more capable, but lacking in OpenGL and
> > optimum X support.  I want to use this box for PVR, video capture from
> > my digital camcorder, video editing and DVD production, and audio
> > capture from old vinyl records and reel-to-reel and cassette tapes,
> > editing, and studio production if possible.  The MythTV site is somewhat
> > ambiguous about recommending a particular video capture card, does
> > anyone have a recommendation?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Daniel
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
> --
> Chris Farris                            chris at vitalpowers dot com
> The Exercise of Vital Powers            404 806 1403
> http://www.vitalpowers.com
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>
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