Joshua Lewis wrote:
Two: Can I even do what I am trying to do? The Windows XP Media Center
allows you to hook up an X-Box or media extender to TV's so you can watch
your Prerecorded information from a TV not directly hooked to the Media
Center PC. That is what I want to do with MythTV.
You will need a MythTV frontend at every TV. One frontend per display,
so for 5 TV's, you'll need 5 frontends. Options include computers
In MCE terms, Microsoft Windows Media Center PC is like a combined
MythTV frontend/backend.
Media Center Extender is a MythTV frontend. TTBOMK, you cannot have
multiple Media Center "backends," but MythTV allows you to use as many
backends and as many frontends as desired and backends do not need to
also be frontends. So, whereas a Media Center PC has to be pretty beefy
(for playback), a MythTV backend--that's not serving as a
frontend--typically can be a very low-end computer.
Although it looks like
MythTV can record my DVD's to disk drive where I can't get a confirmed yes
on that ability for Windows MCPC.
Definitely can with MythTV. Biggest problem is storage space.
DVD's--especially if you do full menus, etc.--take up a lot of space.
I would like to load all my families DVD's (If they are all loaded the way
I want then I don't have to keep baying new DVD's when my kids scratch
them. I got to get a new Harry Potter this weekend), MP3's and hook up
like 5 TV tuners to the system so everyone can watch and record TV from
there own room. Then I can watch Sci-Fi and Westwing until I am blue in
the face in my bedroom while my wife watches Desperate House Wives and
America's Next top Model downstairs (ok those two shows have enough
hotties that I don't mind so much) but you get the picture. I got Barney
in one room and GI Joe in another and so on and so fourth.
If you stick with satellite (and are using DISH or DirecTV), you'll need
to keep the 5 satellite receivers (because they encrypt the signals so
only their equipment can decrypt it). If not (i.e. if you're using
FTA), search the lists for more info.
And, remember, you'll need a MythTV frontend for each TV...
Three: I plan to get a truly beefy system to do all of this. I am looking
into a SARA raid array to prevent data loss and if possible dual core
system (do they make duel CPU Dual Core motherboards) I want to avoid any
kind of Encoding in the main processors. So do I need a certain TV Tuner
to do everything in the tuner and such? Let's pretend money is no object
(unfortunately it is so this will be an ongoing project) how would you
design your system.
Go with Hauppauge PVR-150's (preferred) or PVR-250's (more expensive,
older, take more power, and lower quality--bigger number doesn't mean
better) for analog TV. If you're doing HDTV, you can get HD-x000's or
Air2PC. See http://mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.1 for more info.
Also, note that bigger is not necessarily better. Since you're going to
have to have 5 frontends for 5 TV's, and since frontends need more power
than backends (when using the PVR-x50's/HDTV capture cards), you could
"parallelize" the system by making some of those additional frontends
into combined frontends/backends.
Mike
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