Re: [LUG] MythTV etc

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?

I'll be switching ISPs... the thread to determine which one comes in a week or two :P

> 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.

Excellent. That's a bit of money saved, currently I'm budgeted £200 for this.

> 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.

Depends on the difference in price between { a hardware analogue tuner + cables + electricity for freeview box + IR thingy + freeview box } and a digital tuner.

> 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.

The only free-to-air ones are the only ones you can watch? That's not coincidental. (Hope that helps.)