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Quoting Ben Goodger <goodgerster@xxxxxxxxx>:
Hi, Similarly to someone else on this list whose name escapes me, I am about to set up a server/mythtv system in my home, to provide PVR functionality and commercial web hosting, web design, file storage etc.
Could have been me. I take it you're going to use a proper hosting account or co-located server for the hosting?
Can anyone recommend a stupidly underspecified, small and ultra-silent PC I could obtain to stick mythfrontend on? Obviously its only functionality will be starting knoppmyth, logging into GNOME, and decoding a live MPEG-2 stream. I'm talking 500mHz PII here, or something... Must also be very cheap, I'm on a budget of £600 for that, two tuners, cables and parts of a new desktop for myself.
Well where I am working we use some Compaq Deskpro En machines. They have socket 370 board in them and as far as I know would take up to a P3-1000 or so. I've seen similar PCs on eBay quite cheap. I dare say you'd be able to pick up one of those Compaq's for about £25 or so.
Also advice on the tuner cards -- should I buy digital now or upgrade in 2008?
I'd go for either a digital tuner, or an analogue tuner with MPEG encoder built in. I have an Adaptec VideOh Media Center PCI card which does MPEG2 encoding and works with ivtv. At least with an analogue tuner you can plug other devices in such as a Sky box or external Freeview box.
And given the computer will be an Athlon XP 2400+ with a gig of RAM and also be functioning as an FTP, NFS and HTTP server, should I purchase a hardware tuner?
I'd purchase a hardware tuner. The system I put together as a test system was an Athlon XP 2000+ with 512MB memory and a 7200RPM hard disk. Although it had a hardware card (which basicly grabs the MPEG2 stream as it is broadcast), it did run a bit slow when timeshifting. Changing channels was slow too. Add in other services and it might slow things down a bit more with a software based card. From what I can tell, it's always better to have a higher spec machine. From experience, I wouldn't go for the K-World Freeview cards or USB adaptors either. The one I had still WON'T tune in anything other than the BBC channels which isn't much use to me. Hope this helps. Rob - The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html