Re: [mythtv-users] Debian 'apt-get build-dep mythtv' problem?

[Alexander Fisher]

On 1/28/06, A JM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I notice that currently my Xbox is using xfree86 instead of xorg-x11, I
> think there is a difference... The librarary 'libxvmc-dev' is part of
> xorg-x11 so does this mean I need to use xorg-x11 as opposed to xfree86?

I think this is all academic.
Since the xbox doesn't work with binary only Nvidia linux drivers,
your xbox can't make use of xvmc anyway.  You only need libxvmc-dev
installed if you're enabling xvmc during the mythtv compile.

Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Debian 'apt-get build-dep mythtv' problem?

[Alexander Fisher]

On 1/27/06, A JM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm having a bit of a problem getting the dependancies for Myth so that I
> can compile it on my Xbox.
>
> When I run 'apt-get dep-build mythtv' I get the message "Build depends for
> mythtv cannot be satisfied because the package libxvmc-dev cannot be found".
>
> After doing some reading it looks like this library should been installed
> with xfree86 which I guess is the default xserver on the xbox using Debian.
> I've tried to use apt to get the file but get "couldn't find package
> libxvmc-dev" so how do I get this lib and move on? Am I mising a dependancy
> in my sources.list?

http://bjorn.haxx.se/debian/testing.pl?package=libxvmc-dev

I'm guessing that you are running Debian stable which doesn't contain
this package.  If you don't want the xvmc functionality, you could
always remove the build-dep and adjust the debian/rules file
accordingly.

Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV.org Wiki

[Alexander Fisher]

> > An additional note - I'll be adding an "official" link from the main
> > mythtv.org website as soon as 0.19's released (ie., one week-ish)
> >
> > Isaac
>
> Yes!! We finally have a wiki!

Forget the wiki, 0.19 is going to be released! :)

So what's the plan?  A release candidate first, or just a 0.19-fixes
branch with releases if necessary?

Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Compiling Mythtv on an Xbox error?

[Alexander Fisher]

On 1/18/06, A JM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Even after the upgrade still having thesame issue?
>
> Build Date: 31 December 2004
> Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.X.Org
> to make sure that you have the latest version.
> Module Loader present
> Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
> (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
> (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
> (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Wed Jan 18 01:03:03 2006
> (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
> (EE) NVXBOX(0): No V_BIOS found
> error opening security policy file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xserver
> /SecurityPolicy
> (EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/lircm
> No such file or directory.
> (EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/lircm
> No such file or directory.
> Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/, removing
> from list!
> Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/, removing
> from list!
> Could not init font path element
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/, removing from list!
> Could not init font path element
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/, removing from list!
>
> waiting for X server to shut down .

Perhaps you should cut your losses and install xebian?  I know lots of
people have xebian and mythtv working well.  Not so sure about Fedora
for xbox with mythtv.  Getting your Fedora xbox install running X is
becoming increasingly offtopic.  Sorry for being so negative, but I
think we might get your xbox frontend running quicker this way.

Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Compiling Mythtv on an Xbox error?

[Alexander Fisher]

> I'll verify the correct command 'startx'  when I get back to the house
> tonight. I do believe I tried to run X by using 'start x' though... Is there
> a command I can run to check the running processes on the Xbox to see if X
> is even running?

It should be easy enough to tell is X is running!  Doesn't your xbox
linux boot into a desktop?

Getting mythtv to work on an xbox isn't *that* difficult and it does
work quite well, so don't give up.  Let's start at the start, what
exactly have you installed on your xbox.  Gentoo, xebian, something
else?!

Regards,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Compiling Xbox "nothing to do" error?

[Alexander Fisher]

On 1/17/06, A JM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Well I recompiled again using "distcc" awesome application thanks for the
> tip. The compiling time went from 36 hours or so to less than 8, I'm not
> really sure how long because I went to bed. Installation of distcc wasn't as
> straight forward as it let on it was missing some points, it was close but
> then anything that I've found with Linux has been close, there are
> assumptions made...  I'm sure that will get a few reply's sorry if it
> offends anyone I realize that is a very broad statement and should be
> loosley interpreted..
>
> Back to the problem I'm having, compiling completed fine this time without
> the "Nothing to be done for Install" message. I think my problem was not
> exporting qt before compiling. Anyway, there is no application mythtv-setup,
> it doesn't exist? I have no idea why?

I don't know why you can't find it but ...
mythtv-setup is a backend application.  An xbox can only be used as a
frontend as it doesn't support video capture.
 
**
> This might help for anyone in the future trying to install distcc If
> your compiling on an XBOX you NEED IT!
>
>
>
> Download it from http://distcc.samba.org (wget
> http://.../distcc-2.18.3.tar.gz) Untar the source code on your hard disk
> (tar xvfz distcc-2.18.3.tar.gz)
>
> Compile and install distcc by typing in a shell as root:
>
>
>  $ ./configure
>  $ make
>  $ make install
>
>  Once installed on each computer, start the daemon on each computer by
> typing as root in a shell:
>
>  $ distccd --daemon --allow 192.168.1.100  192.168.1.101 (add the IP for
> each computer allowed to connect to it)
>
>  On the computer that has the source code for the software you are planning
> to compile, type the following:
>
>  $ export DISTCC_HOSTS='localhost computer1 computer2' (if you rebooted you
> must run this again)

When running distcc from an xbox, you'd probably find it quicker to
drop the 'localhost' from DISTCC_HOSTS and have all the compilation
done on the remote boxes.

Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Compiling Mythtv on an Xbox error?

[Alexander Fisher]

On 1/15/06, A JM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Responding to my own thread. The answer was that gcc-3.2 and g++-3.2 were
> not installed I also enabled memalign and the error disappeared when running
> ./configure.
>
>  Currently the XBOX has been compiling for nearly 24 hours, this is insane!
> How much longer can it go

With only 64MB of RAM, another day maybe?  Freeing up memory, by
shutting down X for example, might help.

>  Can I compile this on another box then move it back to the xbox? I found
> this thread with the suggestion to mount the drive but no real directions

Perform the compile on your backend.  Ideally, you want to optimise
for P3 and a small memory system.  After the 'make' has finished, use
NFS to export the source directory.  Mount the NFS share on your xbox
and perform the 'make install' from there.

Hope this helps,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Mythweb problems - missing thumbnail causes backend to crash

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/31/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 07:24:32PM +, Alexander Fisher wrote:
> > I run Debian and have noticed that when it boots it displays 'Checking
> > for crashed MySQL tables in the background' when starting mysql.  I''m
> > guessing this is the mysqlcheck you're referring to.  But it didn't
> > seem to fix my corruption.
>
> In my case I received an email saying that the following tables were
> corrupt or in use  When I stopped Myth and ran the check manually
> everything was OK.

That's nice of it.  I've just checked and I've had plenty of emails
too!  I really must start forwarding them to somewhere I actually
check once in a while! :)

Thanks for the tip,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Mythweb problems - missing thumbnail causes backend to crash

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/30/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 04:07:26PM +, Alexander Fisher wrote:
> > After I ran mysqlcheck, all new recordings were fine again.
>
> The Debian version of MySQL does a mysqlcheck as part of the boot
> sequence, so when recovering from a power failure (or crash) that's
> one less thing to worry about.  I'm surprised your distro doesn't do
> that as well, but it's easy enough to add.  If you don't want to get
> your hands dirty in the boot scripts you can add an "@reboot" cron
> job.

I run Debian and have noticed that when it boots it displays 'Checking
for crashed MySQL tables in the background' when starting mysql.  I''m
guessing this is the mysqlcheck you're referring to.  But it didn't
seem to fix my corruption.  Perhaps I should change the
'MYCHECK_PARAMS="--all-databases --fast --silent"' line in
/etc/mysql/debian-start?  Remove the --fast?

As for fixing my messed up recordings, any thoughts?

Cheers,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Mythweb problems - missing thumbnail causes backend to crash

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/30/05, Richie Jarvis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I am having a bit of a problem with my 18.1 installation.  When I try
> and use Mythweb to display a list of recordings, I have a problem where
> a bunch of the programs I have recorded are missing their thumbnails,
> this causes mythbackend to go into an infinite loop with 'waiting for a
> thread..'
>
> So, 2 questions, why is mythbackend not create the thumbnails?  and why
> does Mythweb take out mythbackend?
>
> If anyone has any idea what is going on, could they let me know please?
>

I've got a bunch of recordings without thumbnails.  I don't think I
can skip through them properly when playing them either.  My backend
doesn't crash, however mythweb does take a long time to load the
'recorded programmes' page.  I believe the problem was caused by
running mythtv with a corrupted/crashed? mysql database after a power
cut.  It took me a week or so to figure out something wasn't right. 
After I ran mysqlcheck, all new recordings were fine again.  Other
than deleting the recordings affected, I don't know how to fix this
but would be interested to learn of a way to regenerate the missing
database data.  Perhaps someone else knows how to do this?  Also, am I
right in thinking mysql has a mode of operation that is more resilient
to power failure?

Kind Regards,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] An LVM'd drive died! What do I do...

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/27/05, David Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I must admit you have me quite intrigued by this RAID 5.
>
> So heres the deal, I am going to go out and buy some disks.
> Anything I need to know before I start?

250GB disks currently seem to give the most GB per $ or £

> How (and what) do I need to know to setup a software Raid 5 on my
> linux? Any guides etc.?

I've had quite a bit of success installing Debian with RAID and LVM
configured during the install.  GRUB won't boot off RAID5 (or LVM?)
but it will boot off RAID1.  Therefore, I would suggest something like
this ...

3 disks sda,sdb,sdc. 3 partitions on each.
sd[abc]1 small (<1GB) RAID 1 (md0) formatted ext3 and used for /boot.
sd[abc]2 small formatted for swap.  Swap is automatically striped
across swap partitions.  If you don't want your system to potentially
crash when you have a disk failure, you can put swap over RAID 1
instead.
sd[abc]3 remaining space, RAID 5, and one LVM PV on top of this. 
Create one VG and several LVs out of this, one for each of your other
filesystems (/, /usr /var/mediastore etc.)  Format these XFS but don't
make them bigger than they need to be, (XFS can easily grow
filesystems online but doesn't support shrinking).

Other hints ...
Don't put more than one ide drive on a single ide channel.   A failing
drive often takes out the bus.  SATA drives make sense, but SMART
support for SATA is still under development.  You should also make
sure that your SATA chipset has got linux support!

With some luck, by the time you're ready to grow your RAID 5, online
RAID resizing will have been finished and been tested a bit.

> Also, I wonder if there is any easy way to get the info off from my
> current 2 drive LVM onto the raid? (I would like to use some of these
> LVM drives to be put in this raid).

This could be tricky.  I can't think of a way to do this at the
moment.  If you can consolidate this data into a 1 disk LVM ...

> Can I started with all my info on
> one HD and turn that into a Raid, or does a raid have to be
> parititoned, constructed and THEN have information copied on to it...

In theory, you could start by only using 2 of the 3 disks.  You'll
have to create a degraded RAID 5.  Once you've freed up the 3rd disk
(possibly my moving some LVs?) you can add it back to the RAID 5 and
let it resync.

Hope this helps,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Debian problems

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/24/05, Dave Sherohman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 09:35:24AM -0400, James Grant wrote:
> > On Sunday 23 October 2005 9:36 pm, Paul Pick wrote:
> > > I had to build my own plugins, but using the mdz sources made that a snap.
> >
> > Can you please give some details here? I haven't had any luck building the
> > plugins :(
>
> I got my main mythtv install off debs at
>
> deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main
> deb-src http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian unstable mythtv
>
> but apt-cache search couldn't find mythplugins there

How hard were you looking? :)
http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian/dists/unstable/mythtv/source/
does contain the plugins source package which can be recompiled
without any real problems.  If you're using Debian testing (possibly
unstable too), feel free not to bother and use my recompiled packages
instead.  Replace your mythtv binary apt source with ...
deb http://alexfisher.me.uk/debian testing main
Then again, I've only got 256kbit upload so it might be quicker to
recompile yourself!

Cheers,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV on Xbox, again, SUCCESS

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/14/05, Russell Salerno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Which release of Myth gets installed by this process?
>
> Any chance it is release-0-18-fixes (aka 0.18.2 source - revision 7448)?

0.18.1 only but don't let this bother you.  As far as I can see, the
0.18 fixes branch hasn't seen much go in since 0.18.1 was released. 
You're not really going to miss a few gcc4 compile time fixes are you?
 Isaac - Is it worth looking for other fixes to backport from the
trunk or is 0.19 likely to emerge in the next month or so?

Anyway, I'm happy that my repository has been of help to people, but I
think some of you are giving me too much credit.  I'm beginning to
feel like a bit of a fraud!  All I've done is recompile somebody
else's deb source packages to produce debian etch compatible binary
packages. Not only this, but so far I haven't contributed a single
line of code to the project!

So please, a big thankyou to Matt for his expert packaging skills and
of course Isaac and the gang for their most excellent code.

I feel a lot better for that :)
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV on Xbox, again

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/13/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Vladan,
>
> I feel your pain.  I cannot wait to hear an  answer.  I even tried to
> compile  from source, but that resulted in other errors.
>
> I am not concerned with the long build times, so I would appreciate it if
> some itelligent person could spell out the steps to compile from source that
> work on an xbox.
>
> I compiled my backend from source for a Mandrake machine, so I am familiar
> with the process.  I am confused as to what source to use for a debian
> (xbox) install.  Should I just grab the source according to the mythtv
> install instructions?  Or should I use the source that has already been
> packaged at "deb-src
> http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian unstable mythtv"?
> I reviewed that source at
> http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian and the source for
> mythtv appears to be based on 0.18.1.4 and the plug-ins on 0.18.1.2. Is this
> a concern?

The mdz source versions are actually 0.18.1-4 and 0.18.1-2.  The -4
and -2 have been appended by the package maintainer.  The mythtv
packages has just been tweaked and rereleased more times than the
plugin packages.  But they're both based on mythtv 0.18.1 so no need
to be concerned.  Check the debian/changelog file for more details.

Anyway, I used pbuilder to rebuild the packages against etch.  This
website http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto/howtos/debcustomize has
some hints on how to do this if you want to try it yourself.  I had a
bit of bother building the plugin packages until I figured out how to
add the libmyth package I had previously built to the pbuilder chroot.

BTW I also have an xbox frontend, but I set it up when everything
'just worked' a few months ago.  If I'm feeling adventerous, I might
try and build some xbox optimised packages.  I wonder if I'll notice
any performance improvement if I go for -Os and --mtune=pentium3?

Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV on Xbox, again

[Alexander Fisher]

On 10/13/05, Vladan Bato <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have written before with my difficulties with installing mythtv on
> Xebian. No matter what repositories I used I couldn't manage to install
> mythtv.
>
> I got some suggestions on this list. Specifically to follow the
> instructions at this page:
> 
> and use the apt sources posted in a reply.
>
> Well, yesterday I finally found the time to try that by doing a Xebian
> 1.1.4 install from scratch.
>
> I managed to install mythtv-frontend, but when I try to install
> mythvideo I get a broken packages error (details below).
>
> I browsed the www.mythtv-xbox.org forums and it seems that I'm not alone
> with this problem, and that nobody got beyond installing the frontend.
>
> It all must have worked some time ago, but it doesn't anymore.
>
> The errors are probably due to Xebian using sarge, while the mythtv
> repository uses sid.
>
> What should I do now? Should I do a dist-upgrade? Should I try
> recompiling MythTv (and wait a few days for it to finish)?

A few weeks ago I rebuilt the mythtv debian source packages against
libraries available in etch.  These *might* install on xebian.  Add
"http://alexfisher.me.uk/debian/ etch main" to your apt sources and
comment out the other mythtv source to find out.  If this doesn't
work, I wouldn't go as far as doing a dist-upgrade.  Just change the
apt sources list to point to unstable and then try installing
mythvideo again.

Hope this helps,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] mythtv 0.18.1-5 and mythplugins 0.18.1-2

[Alexander Fisher]

Matthias Meyer wrote:
SNIP
> Anyone can help me? It is the first time I use equivs.
> Thanks in advance
> Matthias
> 

Still stuck?  I've just (today) rebuilt the mythtv packages against
debian testing.  OK, so I haven't actually tested them yet but if you
wanna give them a go replace the line:

deb http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian unstable mythtv
with:
deb http://82.70.67.142/debian/ testing main non-free contrib

This should also make available a 2.6.12 debian kernel with Nova-T dvb
drivers included.

Let me know how you get on.

Regards,
Alex
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Re: [mythtv-users] Setting up time syncronisation

[Alexander Fisher]

Geek Stuff wrote:
> I've trying to set up time syncing on my Mythbox as the time seems to
>  drifting quite badly...
> 
> I've added
> 
> ntpdate ntp2d.mcc.ac.uk
> 
> to cron

Not really the way go about it anyway. ntpdate typically gets run at
startup to sync the time. After this ntpd should be run instead. It
can continuously track one, or preferably more time servers.

As to your timezone problem, what distro. are you using?

Alex

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[mythtv-users] RE: Newbie needs help choosing hardware for use in the UK

[Alexander Fisher]

Hi again.  I just thought I should update you on my progress.  I wouldn't
want somebody searching the list archives to make the same mistake as me ...

So, I went and bought the Nova-Ts.  Its just a shame that they seem to be
completely incompatible with my motherboard!  I don't have to worry about
which driver I use.  They don't even appear when I do an lspci!  I've tried
just about everything I can think of - different bios settings, different
PCI slots, removing all other cards, trying one at a time etc.  Has anybody
else had similar experiences?  Perhaps Scan will agree to exchange them for
two of the other freeview cards they do.  What's really annoying is I also
bought some new ECC RAM, ide controller and some cooling.  Most of this will
be completely useless if I have to buy a new motherboard :(

Ideas, (or just general sympathy) welcome.

Alex

-Original Message-
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:45:26 -0000
From: "Alexander Fisher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [mythtv-users] Newbie needs help choosing hardware for use in
the UK
To: 
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="iso-8859-1"

Hello.

I had a little play with mythTV over the weekend and was very impressed.
Great work guys!  I was using an old Hauppaggue frame grabber and no
soundcard, but it did suffice as proof of concept.

I'm now ready to take the plunge and invest in some proper hardware.  I've
got a base PC which I think will be good enough and I plan to get a
secondhand xbox to use as a frontend.

Here's the spec of what I've got...

Gigabyte GA-6BXD MB
Dual Pentium III 800Mhz
352MB 100Mhz SDRAM
250GB PATA HD (Western Digital)
30GB PATA HD with Debian Sarge installed.
nVidia MX200 (but I guess this isn't relevant for a backend only system)

Living in the UK, 2 DVB cards seem to be the way forward.  Am I right in
thinking that they all produce MPEG2 streams so no encoding has to be done
in software?  I've come up with a 3 card shortlist all available from
www.scan.co.uk (where I'll be placing an order for some unrelated stuff
later this week.) They are ...

Avermedia DVB-T PCI Card £64.44
Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-T Freeview receiver PCI (909) £62.06 Vision + PCI TV
Tuner - HDTV Compatible + Remote £46.06

Do all these cards definately have suitable drivers?  I think I read
somewhere that not all Nova-T's were the same.  I wouldn't want to end up
with an unsupported variant.
Or should I just go for the cheapest?  Shouldn't the outputted MPEG2 stream
be identical for each card?  The option to receive some of the top-up-tv
channels might be good too.  Has anybody got this working yet?

I'm hoping that the system will be capable of recording two programmes,
whilst simultaneously letting me watch a previously recorded show on the
xbox.  I don't suppose I'll want to do this that often but it would be nice.

Since my MB only supports UDMA-2, I'm also thinking of buying an addon PCI
ATA card.
I'm guessing I won't need any soundcards in a DVB only system?

Wow, what a lot of questions!  I really hope that somebody can help me out
with some of these.

Thanks!
Alex 


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[mythtv-users] Newbie needs help choosing hardware for use in the UK

[Alexander Fisher]

Hello.

I had a little play with mythTV over the weekend and was very impressed.
Great work guys!  I was using an old Hauppaggue frame grabber and no
soundcard, but it did suffice as proof of concept.

I'm now ready to take the plunge and invest in some proper hardware.  I've
got a base PC which I think will be good enough and I plan to get a
secondhand xbox to use as a frontend.

Here's the spec of what I've got...

Gigabyte GA-6BXD MB
Dual Pentium III 800Mhz
352MB 100Mhz SDRAM
250GB PATA HD (Western Digital)
30GB PATA HD with Debian Sarge installed.
nVidia MX200 (but I guess this isn't relevant for a backend only system)

Living in the UK, 2 DVB cards seem to be the way forward.  Am I right in
thinking that they all produce MPEG2 streams so no encoding has to be done
in software?  I've come up with a 3 card shortlist all available from
www.scan.co.uk (where I'll be placing an order for some unrelated stuff
later this week.) They are ...

Avermedia DVB-T PCI Card £64.44
Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-T Freeview receiver PCI (909) £62.06 Vision + PCI TV
Tuner - HDTV Compatible + Remote £46.06

Do all these cards definately have suitable drivers?  I think I read
somewhere that not all Nova-T's were the same.  I wouldn't want to end up
with an unsupported variant.
Or should I just go for the cheapest?  Shouldn't the outputted MPEG2 stream
be identical for each card?  The option to receive some of the top-up-tv
channels might be good too.  Has anybody got this working yet?

I'm hoping that the system will be capable of recording two programmes,
whilst simultaneously letting me watch a previously recorded show on the
xbox.  I don't suppose I'll want to do this that often but it would be nice.

Since my MB only supports UDMA-2, I'm also thinking of buying an addon PCI
ATA card.
I'm guessing I won't need any soundcards in a DVB only system?

Wow, what a lot of questions!  I really hope that somebody can help me out
with some of these.

Thanks!
Alex

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