MythTV Setup time!

[Jarod Wilson]

On Mon, 2008-09-29 at 03:11 -0700, Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote:
> Jarod/All :-)
> 
> Hello from Los Angeles!  I am looking to build a new MythTV setup to
> go with the sexy new 42" LCD HDTV below.
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00140R0G2/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A1J7WSBJHTGUFA&v=glance
> 
> I am contemplating the setup below, unless someone can recommend a
> good value pre-built system via a distributor!  Your thoughts?  I'm
> looking for the best value Myth HDTV setup I can put together.
> Nothing over the top, just down the middle of the road.  Here's the
> current component list in my shopping cart @ newegg.  OK, so maybe I
> did go a little overboard with 8GB RAM and 2.5TB HDD storage ;-P

As Dan already mentioned, yeah, 8G of RAM is gross overkill for a Myth
box. That said, my own master backend has 8G of RAM... :) (Its also the
home file server, wilsonet.com web and mail server, etc., but even for
all that, 8G is still overkill, but I had the memory, so I figured I'd
use it).

> AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core
> Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail ($169.00)
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103249

Quad may or may not be overkill, depending on what all you plan to do. I
definitely recommended at least dual, so you can have at least one core
for decode/playback and another for backend work. Quad is rather nice if
you're planning on doing much transcoding and/or doing anything with
h.264. Me, I'd definitely go quad, especially if this is both the
recorder and viewer system. My own master backend doesn't do any
playback, so its more than happy with dual Opteron 252 procs, and my
frontend doesn't do any recording[*] or transcoding, just playback, so
its perfectly suitable with its mere two cores.

* - I just got a Hauppauge HD PVR, which will be hooked to my frontend,
but its a hardware encoder, so the frontend won't be doing anything but
scribbling the files out to the nfs share on the master backend.
However, these are h.264-encoded files, so my current core duo 1.66
might be in need of an upgrade to be able to play 'em back, since h.264
playback of HD PVR-encoded files currently can only use one thread, aka
one core, and a single 1.66GHz core isn't quite enough oomph...


> SiliconDust HDHomeRun Network-based Dual Digital HDTV Tuner Ethernet
> Interface - Retail ($168.99)
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815327005
> 
> Any suggestions on this?  Anything looking bad?  I think this is a
> great setup, but I have been wrong before :-)  I went with the
> HDHomeRun because Jarod recommended it numerous times and mentioned
> during his BLU talks that it is well supported by MythTV, which I also
> verified on the project website.

As Dan also mentioned, you'll only be able to record unencrypted cable
and over-the-air, and digital-only, no analog. Many cable companies only
provide the basics (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, etc) in unencrypted form,
so everything else, you need either the analog version (which the HDHR
can't record) or a set top box to decrypt and output them to an analog
capture device (which also means !HDHR), or (if you're lucky) a working
unencrypted firewire output on your cable box.

I second the recommendation for some sort of cheap wireless keyboard and
a remote control. The keyboard is incredibly useful until everything is
just so. But once its just right, the keyboard shouldn't be needed much
at all, so don't spend too much on it. Mine hasn't been used in months
-- anything that requires typing I do over ssh, and the rest of the
time, the remote does everything I need to have done.


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org