On 5/24/05, Adam Pash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'm new to both mythtv and linux, but I'm hoping to tackle both. I'm
Welcome! > hoping to setup a system that I can use as an all-in-one (front-end + > backend) system. I've got an old pc (amd-k6 w/multimedia 300mhz, 288mb ram, This is what I setup when I first got into MythTV, around version .17. However, I'm running a P4 1.8 Ghz with 512MB RAM. You might want to search the list archives (http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/) for posts about minimum requirements, this has been discussed many times in the past. However, I do believe that if you are going the PVR150 route, what you already have just might work (notice, I said might, I've never tried it). The PVR series of cards (and some others I think) use hardware encoding for your video streams. Therefore, the CPU is not taxed very heavily with trying to encode the streams in software. If you were using a type of card that does not do HW encoding, or if you plan to use this box for HDTV, then you will definitely want a more powerful box. > pvr-150 [from my other computer], dvd-rom) and I don't know if I'm ready to > tackle all that would go into installing a linux distrubution and mythtv on > a system as old as this. I'm looking for suggestions for hardware (mobo, > processor, video card w/tv out) that I can throw together with the pvr-150 > remaining salvagable parts and get a mythtv up and running in the most > simple fashion for a linux newbie. I mentioned my hardware above. Works great for me. If you eventually want to use the box for HDTV, I think that you need at least a 3Ghz CPU. This has been discussed numerous times as well, so, if you don't get any answers with this post, you should be able to find them in the archives. What I would recommend for hardware is the largest Hard Drive you can afford. I started with a 200GB, and I'm constantly at about 140GB used, out of about 175GB of /video partition. I'm looking to install a 400GB just as soon as I can pick one up fairly cheap. > I understand that this will probably be a somewhat large undertaking for > someone who doesn't know anything about linux, so I'm ready to put some time > into it; nonetheless, I figure that it'd be best to start out with the odd > in my favor when it comes to hardware. I've read the Fedora-Myth HOWTO, and > I think that's the route I'd like to take, but like I said, I'm looking for IMHO, that is definitely the way to go, although I've seen many others post about Knoppmyth (Linux distro geared around MythTV) and other solutions. Jarod's guide made it very easy for me. I was not new to Linux, but had never heard of MythTV until a few weeks before I setup my box. I've only had to rebuild it once, but this was due to a corrupted disk after a power failure, not a Linux or MythTV issue. I've upgraded twice since then (.18 & .18.1) and never had any major problems. MythTV is the greatest thing since sliced toast. > suggestions for the cheapest hardware purchases that will still get me a > good system. I think that one of the first things that you will want is more than one tuner. The number of tuners in the box dictates how many things you can watch OR record at the same time. For instance, with one tuner, you can record one thing while watching something that was recorded previously. Or watch live TV only if nothing is currently recording. You'll hear this quite a bit on this list, but many people don't watch live TV after setting up their recording schedules. I didn't believe it at first, but it's now true for me as well. The last time I watched live TV was at my brother's house. I currently have 4 tuners, on three cards. Two PVR250s and one PVR500. The PVR150s are cheaper than 250s, and seem to work just as well. I believe that the PVR500s are the most expensive of the bunch, but since you get two tuners on one card, it works out to be a better deal in the end. > I'm hoping to use it mostly to record, transcode, and watch my video. I > don't need it for live tv watching, but that wouldn't hurt! I'm excited to > try the different offerings of mythtv, but those are my main NEEDS. > > Thanks a lot for any suggestions, > Adam Good luck! --Garry _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
