[mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations

Thu Jan 12 18:31:10 GMT 2012

> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:03:39 +1300
> From: Paulgir <paulgir at gmail.com>
> Subject: [mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations
> To: mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz
> Message-ID: <op.v7ydkdgbw14o5f at ubuntu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:58:15 +1300, Paulgir <paulgir at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>> Message: 3
>>> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:46:20 +1300
>>> From: Curtis Walker <sultanoswing at gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations
>>> To: MythTV in NZ <mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz>
>>> Message-ID:
>>> 	<CAPzMZFEJi-pjC=DwiDDiD1hUyvGStK3o2Zo3+ZJYx==wP9MViA at mail.gmail.com>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>>> On 10 January 2012 18:49, criggie <criggie at criggie.org.nz> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > I'd recommend that the boot drive is a small (say 64GB) SSD as it
>>>> makes
>>>> > trying out new stuff and rebooting very fast!
>>>> > Cheers Douglas
>>>>
>>>> >> My only comment would be to add a 2nd small hard drive for the OS
>>>> and
>>>> >> MySQL. ?Leave the 1TB dedicated to just your recordings.
>>>> >> - Wade
>>>>
>>>> > I have a spare 160 GB drive for the OS .I did consider an SSD but as
>>>> I
>>>> > have the 160 I will leave that for the future.
>>>> > Paul
>>>>
>>>> Paul - I agree with Wade, so using the 160 is a great idea for OS.
>>>> Personally I'd love some SSDs but they're not reasonably priced yet.
>>>> Its only TV - the difference in speed between normal HDD and SSD isn't
>>>> going to make any real difference.
>>>> You can put a swap file on whichever of your hard drives is fastest,  
>>>> if
>>>> you need swap.
>>>> Adding more storage later is straightforward... just tell myth that it
>>>> can
>>>> store in /myth1, /myth2, ... /mythX ? No need to mess about with raid
>>>> and
>>>> md devices.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Now is a terrible time to purchase a drive - so unless you absolutely
>>> have to, recycle that 160GB.
>>> In early October, Western Digital and Seagate had a junket in
>>> Thailand. WD was buying Hitachi GST and already owns the late Maxtor,
>>> and Seagate was buying Samsung. Both were well aware of this and had
>>> been for over a year, and appear to have wanted to come to an
>>> arrangement as to how they wanted to divide the market between each
>>> other, now that there would be effectively only two big hard disk
>>> manufacturers.
>>> Thanks also to July floods in Thailand they decided what might be best
>>> was to arrange for the big OEMs to buy huge loads in bulk to offset
>>> the Q4 losses they would have from the purchases otherwise (and shore
>>> up for any potential flood damage, which they?d use as the reason for
>>> the resulting shortage, despite being fully insured.
>>> They held another ?consultation? in Thailand on October 17th and
>>> appear to have decided this would make a?brilliant?excuse, and they?d
>>> need the funds on tap to refurb the flood-damaged plants afterwards,
>>> and agreed with each other to fix the prices, jacking them up
>>> dramatically across the board: despite it only taking an estimate of 8
>>> weeks to refurbish the machinery after the floods subsided?in fact, it
>>> was in full production again by November 30th, well ahead of schedule
>>> (they rushed it), although one building was still under 2 foot of
>>> water by early December. This was offset ?WD used Hitachi GST?s
>>> various un-flooded production facilities to produce the shortfall of
>>> WD drives.
>>> Effect of the price-fixing was immediate: the price pretty much
>>> doubled-to-tripled across the board, sometimes even higher, and
>>> retailers started limiting supply. Profits were high and enormous
>>> insurance claims had gone in, and the executives appeared to have been
>>> in quite a congratulatory mood by mid-December - production was back
>>> up to what appears to be full capacity, prices were still flying high,
>>> sales were still limited, they?d cherry-picked the last of the
>>> pre-flood drives for sale to OEMs at inflated prices, and were selling
>>> the brand new drives to the wholesale retail channel for almost twice
>>> what they were worth before October. The executives have pocketed a
>>> very nice Christmas bonus.
>>> There's more: The first lot of drives off the refurbished production
>>> lines will very likely be very dodgy, as the equipment was, frankly,
>>> repaired and replaced in a hurry and has not had time to properly
>>> calibrate. The solution? Increase firmware tolerances and reduce
>>> warranties. The OEMs don't want these drives and neither should you if
>>> you value your data and the value of your purchase dollar.
>>> Don't believe it? Check out the prices of HDD storage compared to 6
>>> months ago. And keep an eye out on the warranty times.
>>>
>>
>> I was surprised that the prices weren't lower - so that explains it.
>> I wonder what chance of them coming down in the future if WD and Seagate
>> have a duopoly?
>> I tested the system with an Ubuntu 11.10 live USB stick.I get HDMI video
>> straight off.
>> No sound yet via HDMI.I will temporarily install 11.10 and install the
>> Nvidia drivers
>> to see if that gives me sound also look at ALSA mixer settings.
>> I fitted Arctic Cooler F Pro fans to the case - these are very quiet.
>> Cheers
>> Paul
>
>
>
> I had some trouble installing the OS that was due to the UEFI BIOS not
> liking
> a IDE HDD with a SATA converter on it.But I got that sorted.
> I've got the graphics card  feeding video and audio down the HDMI cable.
> I'm just having a little trouble getting the HVR-2200 to work with the  
> Myth
> Backend I installed for testing.
>
> I posted a thread on Ubuntu Forums to see if I get some answers.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:18:57 +1300
> From: Mike Brady <mike.brady at devnull.net.nz>
> Subject: Re: [mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations
> To: mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz
> Message-ID: <20120112171857.11015phdasxr70vl at kolab02.devnull.net.nz>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes";
> 	format="flowed"
>
> Quoting Paulgir <paulgir at gmail.com>:
>
>> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:58:15 +1300, Paulgir <paulgir at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> Message: 3
>>>> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:46:20 +1300
>>>> From: Curtis Walker <sultanoswing at gmail.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations
>>>> To: MythTV in NZ <mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz>
>>>> Message-ID:
>>>> 	<CAPzMZFEJi-pjC=DwiDDiD1hUyvGStK3o2Zo3+ZJYx==wP9MViA at mail.gmail.com>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>>>> On 10 January 2012 18:49, criggie <criggie at criggie.org.nz> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> > I'd recommend that the boot drive is a small (say 64GB) SSD as it
>>>>> makes
>>>>> > trying out new stuff and rebooting very fast!
>>>>> > Cheers Douglas
>>>>>
>>>>> >> My only comment would be to add a 2nd small hard drive for the OS
>>>>> and
>>>>> >> MySQL. ?Leave the 1TB dedicated to just your recordings.
>>>>> >> - Wade
>>>>>
>>>>> > I have a spare 160 GB drive for the OS .I did consider an SSD but  
>>>>> as
>>>>> I
>>>>> > have the 160 I will leave that for the future.
>>>>> > Paul
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul - I agree with Wade, so using the 160 is a great idea for OS.
>>>>> Personally I'd love some SSDs but they're not reasonably priced yet.
>>>>> Its only TV - the difference in speed between normal HDD and SSD  
>>>>> isn't
>>>>> going to make any real difference.
>>>>> You can put a swap file on whichever of your hard drives is fastest,  
>>>>> if
>>>>> you need swap.
>>>>> Adding more storage later is straightforward... just tell myth that  
>>>>> it
>>>>> can
>>>>> store in /myth1, /myth2, ... /mythX ? No need to mess about with raid
>>>>> and
>>>>> md devices.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Now is a terrible time to purchase a drive - so unless you absolutely
>>>> have to, recycle that 160GB.
>>>> In early October, Western Digital and Seagate had a junket in
>>>> Thailand. WD was buying Hitachi GST and already owns the late Maxtor,
>>>> and Seagate was buying Samsung. Both were well aware of this and had
>>>> been for over a year, and appear to have wanted to come to an
>>>> arrangement as to how they wanted to divide the market between each
>>>> other, now that there would be effectively only two big hard disk
>>>> manufacturers.
>>>> Thanks also to July floods in Thailand they decided what might be best
>>>> was to arrange for the big OEMs to buy huge loads in bulk to offset
>>>> the Q4 losses they would have from the purchases otherwise (and shore
>>>> up for any potential flood damage, which they?d use as the reason for
>>>> the resulting shortage, despite being fully insured.
>>>> They held another ?consultation? in Thailand on October 17th and
>>>> appear to have decided this would make a?brilliant?excuse, and they?d
>>>> need the funds on tap to refurb the flood-damaged plants afterwards,
>>>> and agreed with each other to fix the prices, jacking them up
>>>> dramatically across the board: despite it only taking an estimate of 8
>>>> weeks to refurbish the machinery after the floods subsided?in fact, it
>>>> was in full production again by November 30th, well ahead of schedule
>>>> (they rushed it), although one building was still under 2 foot of
>>>> water by early December. This was offset ?WD used Hitachi GST?s
>>>> various un-flooded production facilities to produce the shortfall of
>>>> WD drives.
>>>> Effect of the price-fixing was immediate: the price pretty much
>>>> doubled-to-tripled across the board, sometimes even higher, and
>>>> retailers started limiting supply. Profits were high and enormous
>>>> insurance claims had gone in, and the executives appeared to have been
>>>> in quite a congratulatory mood by mid-December - production was back
>>>> up to what appears to be full capacity, prices were still flying high,
>>>> sales were still limited, they?d cherry-picked the last of the
>>>> pre-flood drives for sale to OEMs at inflated prices, and were selling
>>>> the brand new drives to the wholesale retail channel for almost twice
>>>> what they were worth before October. The executives have pocketed a
>>>> very nice Christmas bonus.
>>>> There's more: The first lot of drives off the refurbished production
>>>> lines will very likely be very dodgy, as the equipment was, frankly,
>>>> repaired and replaced in a hurry and has not had time to properly
>>>> calibrate. The solution? Increase firmware tolerances and reduce
>>>> warranties. The OEMs don't want these drives and neither should you if
>>>> you value your data and the value of your purchase dollar.
>>>> Don't believe it? Check out the prices of HDD storage compared to 6
>>>> months ago. And keep an eye out on the warranty times.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I was surprised that the prices weren't lower - so that explains it.
>>> I wonder what chance of them coming down in the future if WD and  
>>> Seagate
>>> have a duopoly?
>>> I tested the system with an Ubuntu 11.10 live USB stick.I get HDMI  
>>> video
>>> straight off.
>>> No sound yet via HDMI.I will temporarily install 11.10 and install the
>>> Nvidia drivers
>>> to see if that gives me sound also look at ALSA mixer settings.
>>> I fitted Arctic Cooler F Pro fans to the case - these are very quiet.
>>> Cheers
>>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> I had some trouble installing the OS that was due to the UEFI BIOS not
>> liking
>> a IDE HDD with a SATA converter on it.But I got that sorted.
>> I've got the graphics card  feeding video and audio down the HDMI cable.
>> I'm just having a little trouble getting the HVR-2200 to work with the  
>> Myth
>> Backend I installed for testing.
>>
>> I posted a thread on Ubuntu Forums to see if I get some answers.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>
> Would the problem be that the driver is loading but says "Unsupported
> board detected"?
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:54:40 +1300
> From: Steve Hodge <stevehodge at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations
> To: MythTV in NZ <mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz>
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAKQyFDaWgVVGs=AhgEUVupZNPb5MaDrNvd7tkNeM5BerVzAOAg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 12:12, Douglas Pearless <
> Douglas.Pearless at pearless.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> I'd recommend that the boot drive is a small (say 64GB) SSD as it makes
>> trying out new stuff and rebooting very fast!
>>
>
> My personal opinion is that if you're planning leave it on 24/7 then an  
> SSD
> is a waste of money. I don't really think a separate boot/OS drive is
> necessary - I've been running a combined backend/frontend with a single
> drive for more than 5 years and never felt I needed a separate boot/OS
> drive. If you're going to be recording a lot of stuff simultaneously then
> perhaps having MySQL on a separate drive might be important but I'd wait
> until you have problems before worrying about it. If I found I did need a
> second drive for MySQL I'd consider an SSD just for the noise reduction.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:12:48 +1300
> From: criggie <criggie at criggie.org.nz>
> Subject: Re: [mythtvnz] New list member - Hardware recommendations
> To: MythTV in NZ <mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz>
> Message-ID: <4F0E87F0.5080302 at criggie.org.nz>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 12/01/12 18:54, Steve Hodge wrote:
>> If you're going to be recording a lot of stuff
>> simultaneously then perhaps having MySQL on a separate drive might be
>> important...
>
> Why?  The mysql output is a single record to the recordings table, a
> single record in the recorded table, and maybe a few state updates that
> the tuner is in use.
>
> The bulk of the data is streamed to your hdd, but its steady rather than
> bursty, and its not more than a few Mbit/second.
>
> .: a mythbox needs space for recordings and enough bandwidth to stream
> those recordings to the disk, over anything else.
>
>
> Mine's got a 40 GB drive with the OS, two 1TB drives for recordings, and
> a separate "refurbished" 250 GB drive I use for backups.
> The 40 has 73001 hours of poweron time (8.327 years)
>
>
Back on the problem with the HVR-2200.I haven't been able to actually test  
it
yet,but I did go through the set up on a Myth backend.Initially it wasn't
recognised and did not appear in the capture cards section.I followed some
driver firmware install instructions on ubuntu forums and MythTV.org.It is  
now
recognised.It appears as a VL4 analog capture card instead of a DVB DTV
capture card which one post said it should be.I don't know if this is  
correct.
My thread on ubuntu forums is here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1907689
This is the output of demsg | grep saa:
paul at myth:~$ dmesg | grep saa
\[ 14.200625] saa7164 driver loaded
[ 14.200660] saa7164 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ  
17
[ 14.201242] CORE saa7164[0]: subsystem: 0070:8940, board: Hauppauge  
WinTV-HVR2200 [card=4,insmod option]
[ 14.201246] saa7164[0]/0: found at 0000:03:00.0, rev: 129, irq: 17,  
latency: 0, mmio: 0xfb800000
[ 14.201253] saa7164 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 14.359232] saa7164_downloadfirmware() no first image
[ 14.359243] saa7164_downloadfirmware() Waiting for firmware upload  
(NXP7164-2010-03-10.1.fw)
[ 14.788012] saa7164_downloadfirmware() firmware read 4019072 bytes.
[ 14.788014] saa7164_downloadfirmware() firmware loaded.
[ 14.788022] saa7164_downloadfirmware() SecBootLoader.FileSize = 4019072
[ 14.788028] saa7164_downloadfirmware() FirmwareSize = 0x1fd6
[ 14.788030] saa7164_downloadfirmware() BSLSize = 0x0
[ 14.788031] saa7164_downloadfirmware() Reserved = 0x0
[ 14.788032] saa7164_downloadfirmware() Version = 0x1661c00
[ 21.635726] saa7164_downloadimage() Image downloaded, booting...
[ 21.739620] saa7164_downloadimage() Image booted successfully.
[ 23.857542] saa7164_downloadimage() Image downloaded, booting...
[ 25.519905] saa7164_downloadimage() Image booted successfully.
[ 25.564461] saa7164[0]: Hauppauge eeprom: model=89619
[ 25.925131] DVB: registering new adapter (saa7164)
[ 28.555614] DVB: registering new adapter (saa7164)
[ 28.555839] saa7164[0]: registered device video0 [mpeg]
[ 28.786961] saa7164[0]: registered device video1 [mpeg]
[ 28.997134] saa7164[0]: registered device vbi0 [vbi]
[ 28.997156] saa7164[0]: registered device vbi1 [vbi]

Are there any good guides to using/setting up MythTV?

Cheers

Paul