[mythtvnz] Hardware Recommendations

[Nick Rout]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:11 AM, David Kirk <davidrkirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> I've been lurking on the list for a while.  Now I'm finally going to get
> around to building my first MythTV box.  I was hoping I could get some
> recommendations from you all.
>
> I have a satellite dish setup already and after a few adjustments I'm
> getting a pretty good signal.  We don't have a flash LCD or plasma TV.  We
> are happy with our CRT for now, so I don't need to bother with DVB-T.  We
> only watch the Freeview channels.  We don't have Sky.
>
> Basically what I want is a small quiet PC sitting under the TV with a dual
> DVB-S tuner card and a big hard drive for storing recordings.  I'd like to
> be able to record 1 or 2 channels at the same time and also be able to watch
> recorded programs at the same time.

Each card can capture a whole multiplex (subject to being able to
write to the disk fast enough)

One multiplex has Prime, TV3, C4, Stratos, Parliament, Cue TeReo and
TV3+1 and the radio stations

The other has TV1, TV2, TVNZ6, TVNZ7, Maori

If you have two tuners you can record all this at once (subject as
above). If you have one tuner you are restricted to one multiplex at a
time.

> Front end and backend will be on the
> same PC.
>
> Firstly I'll need a PC to install on.  How grunty does it need to be for
> what I am using it.

It doesn't, particularly if you have a vdpau capable nvidia card,
which is HIGHLY recommended. However if you want to do commflagging or
transcoding, CPU does become important.

>Should I get a full blown PC or is there something less
> power hungry around?  I've seen the Zotac Ion, but it doesn't seem to have
> any PCI slots for adding a tuner.  I assume people use these as frontends
> only.  Is there something else similar that might be suitable or do I need
> something with more grunt for a backend/frontend setup?

ION's advantages are low power and vdpau. An atom processor
(particularly a single core) will not do much commflagging or
transcoding.



>
> I'll also need some tuners.  I've had a quick look around and found the TBS
> 6980 PCI-E DVB-S2 Dual Tuner Card
> http://www.justtech.co.nz/shop/satellite-equipment/tbs-6980-pci-e-dvb-s2-dual-tuner-card.
> It comes with a remote and IR receiver and it is apparently supported by
> Linux.  Has anyone had any experience with this card, or is there something
> else I should consider?

One thing you should consider is that this card is PCI-E whereas you
were talking before about PCI slots...

>
> Is it really necessary to have 2 tuners?  I've heard that a single tuner can
> stream multiple channels at the same time.  Is this true?  Can I have a
> single tuner record 2 or 3 channels at the same time?  Will that allow me to
> watch live TV at the same time if I want to?
>
> I guess I'll need a video card that has component outputs to the TV.
>
> What else do I need to consider?
>
>
> Thanks
>
> David Kirk
>