[mythtvnz] Basic hardware help

[Wade Maxfield]

matthew pearce wrote:

> This seems to be a paticually hot topic. I know more RAM the merier
> but for the moment it is a "proof of concept" box as Toby said. I am
> happy to go with an underpowered system as long as it will not be
> compleatly useless as a mythbox. i.e it will work well enough to do
> basic things well.

i.e. it will work well enough to do basic things.  Not "basic things well".


> I was going to ask Jonathan's question. If I do get freeview will a
> 1.2Ghz hack it?

More than enough for recording, will be a little slow for transcoding 
(which you may end up doing a lot of with a 120GB drive) and should work 
for watching, though you might need to use XVMC to help with playback 
duties. In which case you need an AGP graphics card, not a PCI one.  You 
won't want to be trying to watch while it's transcoding though...


> Also is it worth getting a internal PCI freeview decoder or should I
> use a "set top box"?

Go with the internal PCI DVB-S card.  Otherwise you will need a way of 
changing channels (IR blaster or similar device) in addition to the 
analog capture card.


> Also do the freeview set top boxes work with the Hauppauge cards. i.e
> should I get a Hauppauge card and be safe in the knowledge that it
> will not be junk if I swittch to Freeview.

That would work (depending on what the connections are on the freeview 
box), but then what would you connect the Sky Box to? And it would be 
lower quality:
freeview box -> Analog (s-video or composite) -> Capture Card -> Encoder 
-> digital MPEG2 file written to Hard Drive
vs
DVB-S Card -> Original digital MPEG2 stream written to hard drive


> One last thing, is Prime ever going to be on Freeview?
> Do you need to download the epg data from http://epg.pvr.geek.nz/ when
> you have freeview?

That's one of the easier ways.  You can also set up epgsnoop to capture 
the data via a DVB-S card


> Whats a DVB card?

Generally a PCI card (or PCIe), or even USB device, that lets you 
receive a DVB signal.  The most common cards amongst NZ Myth users are 
SkyStar 2 cards that are PCI DVB-S (satellite signal via Sky sat dish). 
There are also DVB-T cards for picking up DVB-T (terrestrial signal via 
UHF? style aerial)


> I am very interested in the Hauppauge pvr 500 cards that Steven Ellis has.
> 
> While I am here, does anybody know why Celerons are cheaper than Pentiums?
> 

Celerons generally have smaller caches, and other architectural 
differences from Pentiums (differences in MMX, SSE, etc.)  Depends on 
exact chip.  Ares Technica is a good source for that kind of info.

> It seems like a 120Gb hard drive is way to small it you are using the
> mythbox full time
> . I was under the delusion that 120Gb was more than enough. Must have
> been reading old data.
> 

TV3 via DVB-S is generally 3-4GB/hr, and I've got my PVR-150 capturing 
at 2.2GB/hr for stuff from the Sky decoder.  So a 120GB would be enough 
for 30-40 hrs if it's only for recordings.  The space fills quickly though.


> Nvidia PCI 128mb graphics cards are available on trademe. What sort of
> grapics card do you need to run mythtv. How low can you go? 16mb?
> S-video out is needed I supose. Does anybody have a PCI nvidia grapics
> card lying around? I (again) would be very interested.

Avoid the PCI graphics cards if at all possible. With your CPU specs you 
may need to turn on XVMC.  A 32MB AGP card should be fine.


  - Wade