Mailing List Archive

If you don't require a tuner (i.e. you're feeding video from a cable/dss
box) this model is pretty cheap if you can find it:

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CYBER-AV


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net [mailto:mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net]
On Behalf Of Wes Biggs
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 8:05 PM
To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Subject: [mythtv] New user

So I'm going to take the plunge and build a MythTV box for a Christmas
project, er, present, and given that the only spare hardware I've got
lying around was bought sometime in the last millenium, I'm planning to
go to the local computer fair and get a new rig. My plan is your
typical "media center" machine, headless except for the TV out, with one

or two big fat hard drives for TV and music.

It sounds like many posters here have had good luck with Athlon 1800s so

I may go that route. Anyone have any preferences they'd like to share
for MoBos?

Also, is the Hauppage WinTV the best value card out there, or is there
something else from ATI that's good?

Apologies for the newbie questions, but consider mine a mind to be
molded.

And, out of curiosity, what's the highest quality setting (resolution)
that MythTV will try to record at?

I'm totally blown away by the screenshots... props to Isaac and everyone

else who has worked on this thing.

Wes

_______________________________________________
mythtv-dev mailing list
mythtv-dev@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev

To be honest ... I would recommend a p4 if you are
going from scratch. I have an athalon 1200 and
heating is a serious problem. My p4 2400 never breaks
45C, and i don't think there is that big of a price
difference if you adjust the amd chips to their
respective pentium competitors. I believe an athalon
1800 would net you around an p4 1600 or 1700. In my
opinion, get something good that can do great
resolution with as little problems as possible. From
what I gather from other ppls experiences, this will
take a 2000+ machine.

My experience is that p4 2400Mhz machine will get you
what you want. You could probably get away with
something a little less though.

Anyway ... my opinion.

--- Wes Biggs <wes@cacas.org> wrote:
> So I'm going to take the plunge and build a MythTV
> box for a Christmas
> project, er, present, and given that the only spare
> hardware I've got
> lying around was bought sometime in the last
> millenium, I'm planning to
> go to the local computer fair and get a new rig. My
> plan is your
> typical "media center" machine, headless except for
> the TV out, with one
> or two big fat hard drives for TV and music.
>
> It sounds like many posters here have had good luck
> with Athlon 1800s so
> I may go that route. Anyone have any preferences
> they'd like to share
> for MoBos?
>
> Also, is the Hauppage WinTV the best value card out
> there, or is there
> something else from ATI that's good?
>
> Apologies for the newbie questions, but consider
> mine a mind to be molded.
>
> And, out of curiosity, what's the highest quality
> setting (resolution)
> that MythTV will try to record at?
>
> I'm totally blown away by the screenshots... props
> to Isaac and everyone
> else who has worked on this thing.
>
> Wes
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-dev mailing list
> mythtv-dev@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev


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On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 06:04:35PM -0800, Wes Biggs wrote:
> So I'm going to take the plunge and build a MythTV box for a Christmas
> project, er, present, and given that the only spare hardware I've got
> lying around was bought sometime in the last millenium, I'm planning to
> go to the local computer fair and get a new rig. My plan is your
> typical "media center" machine, headless except for the TV out, with one
> or two big fat hard drives for TV and music.

Modern drives are pretty fast so you might save some $$ by just getting 1
good 7200rpm drive. If noise is an issue get a liquid bering drive such as
the Seagate units. Maxtor has a slightly faster liquid bering drive but
they havn't been buiding this type for nearly as long as Seagate.

>
> It sounds like many posters here have had good luck with Athlon 1800s so
> I may go that route. Anyone have any preferences they'd like to share
> for MoBos?

I REALLY like the current SiS chipsets and tend to choose boards based on
them. Unfortunately most of these boards are from the various PCChips
companies and many people don't like them because they are cheap (in both
senses) but I've had no trouble with their current SiS based stuff. All the
on board stuff (ethernet, sound, ide controllers, etc) seem to be well
supported in Linux. The full atx boards from both Amptron and Elitegroup
have enough room around the cpu socket for the large Alpha 8045 heatsinks
which make it a lot easier to build a quiet machine.

--
Ray

I'm new to MythTV and still reading and following this mailing list. I
currently own a TiVo but very interested in creating my own. Just
curious why you need a 2.4ghz processor for all of this. I know it must
be pretty cpu intensive stuff but still...shouldn't there be a way to
optimize linux or remove other stuff you don't need? Isn't the TiVo
processor only 33 or 66mhz. Read that on one of the tivo forums. If I
build a set top box for just PVR/mp3/etc/etc I don't think I should have
to buy a p4 2.4 nearly top of the line just to get it to work.

Can't wait to give this project a try, it has real promise, keep up the
good work.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net [mailto:mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net]
On Behalf Of Allen T. Gilliland IV
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 9:51 PM
To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Subject: Re: [mythtv] New user

To be honest ... I would recommend a p4 if you are
going from scratch. I have an athalon 1200 and
heating is a serious problem. My p4 2400 never breaks
45C, and i don't think there is that big of a price
difference if you adjust the amd chips to their
respective pentium competitors. I believe an athalon
1800 would net you around an p4 1600 or 1700. In my
opinion, get something good that can do great
resolution with as little problems as possible. From
what I gather from other ppls experiences, this will
take a 2000+ machine.

My experience is that p4 2400Mhz machine will get you
what you want. You could probably get away with
something a little less though.

Anyway ... my opinion.

--- Wes Biggs <wes@cacas.org> wrote:
> So I'm going to take the plunge and build a MythTV
> box for a Christmas
> project, er, present, and given that the only spare
> hardware I've got
> lying around was bought sometime in the last
> millenium, I'm planning to
> go to the local computer fair and get a new rig. My
> plan is your
> typical "media center" machine, headless except for
> the TV out, with one
> or two big fat hard drives for TV and music.
>
> It sounds like many posters here have had good luck
> with Athlon 1800s so
> I may go that route. Anyone have any preferences
> they'd like to share
> for MoBos?
>
> Also, is the Hauppage WinTV the best value card out
> there, or is there
> something else from ATI that's good?
>
> Apologies for the newbie questions, but consider
> mine a mind to be molded.
>
> And, out of curiosity, what's the highest quality
> setting (resolution)
> that MythTV will try to record at?
>
> I'm totally blown away by the screenshots... props
> to Isaac and everyone
> else who has worked on this thing.
>
> Wes
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-dev mailing list
> mythtv-dev@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev


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_______________________________________________
mythtv-dev mailing list
mythtv-dev@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 06:50:57PM -0800, Allen T. Gilliland IV wrote:
> To be honest ... I would recommend a p4 if you are
> going from scratch. I have an athalon 1200 and
> heating is a serious problem.

Not if the system is built properly.

> My p4 2400 never breaks
> 45C, and i don't think there is that big of a price
> difference if you adjust the amd chips to their
> respective pentium competitors. I believe an athalon
> 1800 would net you around an p4 1600 or 1700.

It obviously depends on what you are doing and the other details of the
system but on average the Athlons are at least as fast or a bit faster than
a similar P4. Judging from your other posts there is something up with your
system but there's no reason to think it's a cpu issue or that it is typical
for an Athlon.

--
Ray

I think it all depends on what kind of user you are.. But if you have a
huge-screen TV with a great sound receiver / speakers, then I suggest you
don't let yourself get bottlenecked by the sound card or video capturing..

I think a WinTV is very economical.. Some of them have S-Video ins, which
is even more appropriate..

Personally, I tried a cheapo sound card.. it had an *unbelievable* amount
of noise coming in from the line in!!! I ended up picking up a second hand
SB Live, and the difference is phenomenal!

At this point, the average viewer can't notice the difference between my
system and a receiver hooked directly into the TV, except at some
high-speed parts.. in which case there is some stuff going on that I am
still trying to figure out / resolve..

Good luck, my friend..

tarek : )

>If you don't require a tuner (i.e. you're feeding video from a cable/dss
>box) this model is pretty cheap if you can find it:
>
>http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CYBER-AV
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net [mailto:mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net]
>On Behalf Of Wes Biggs
>Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 8:05 PM
>To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
>Subject: [mythtv] New user
>
>So I'm going to take the plunge and build a MythTV box for a Christmas
>project, er, present, and given that the only spare hardware I've got
>lying around was bought sometime in the last millenium, I'm planning to
>go to the local computer fair and get a new rig. My plan is your
>typical "media center" machine, headless except for the TV out, with one
>
>or two big fat hard drives for TV and music.
>
>It sounds like many posters here have had good luck with Athlon 1800s so
>
>I may go that route. Anyone have any preferences they'd like to share
>for MoBos?
>
>Also, is the Hauppage WinTV the best value card out there, or is there
>something else from ATI that's good?
>
>Apologies for the newbie questions, but consider mine a mind to be
>molded.
>
>And, out of curiosity, what's the highest quality setting (resolution)
>that MythTV will try to record at?
>
>I'm totally blown away by the screenshots... props to Isaac and everyone
>
>else who has worked on this thing.
>
>Wes
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-dev mailing list
>mythtv-dev@snowman.net
>http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-dev mailing list
>mythtv-dev@snowman.net
>http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev

On Wednesday 20 November 2002 10:40 pm, Jonathan Wirch wrote:
> I'm new to MythTV and still reading and following this mailing list. I
> currently own a TiVo but very interested in creating my own. Just
> curious why you need a 2.4ghz processor for all of this. I know it must
> be pretty cpu intensive stuff but still...shouldn't there be a way to
> optimize linux or remove other stuff you don't need? Isn't the TiVo
> processor only 33 or 66mhz. Read that on one of the tivo forums. If I
> build a set top box for just PVR/mp3/etc/etc I don't think I should have
> to buy a p4 2.4 nearly top of the line just to get it to work.
>
> Can't wait to give this project a try, it has real promise, keep up the
> good work.

You don't need anywhere near a p4 2.4 for this. The XP 1800+ I have is plenty
for really good quality 640x480 mpeg4 video, with lots (>30%) of cpu to
spare. That's almost a gigahertz less if you compare straight speeds with a
p4 2.4ghz. Now, if you want to do _two_ full-size encodings at once, that's
a different matter.

TiVos do all their encoding and decoding in hardware -- this stuff is all
software, unless you use the (still in-progress) hardware mjpeg encoding
support that's in CVS.

Isaac

You guys have all read this article right?

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html

There is a cool video also.

Regards,
Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Ray
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 8:42 PM
To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Subject: Re: [mythtv] New user


On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 06:50:57PM -0800, Allen T. Gilliland IV wrote:
> To be honest ... I would recommend a p4 if you are
> going from scratch. I have an athalon 1200 and
> heating is a serious problem.

Not if the system is built properly.

> My p4 2400 never breaks
> 45C, and i don't think there is that big of a price
> difference if you adjust the amd chips to their
> respective pentium competitors. I believe an athalon
> 1800 would net you around an p4 1600 or 1700.

It obviously depends on what you are doing and the other details of the
system but on average the Athlons are at least as fast or a bit faster than
a similar P4. Judging from your other posts there is something up with your
system but there's no reason to think it's a cpu issue or that it is typical
for an Athlon.

--
Ray
_______________________________________________
mythtv-dev mailing list
mythtv-dev@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev

Gotcha, software encoding is definitely different from hardware
encoding. At least a Athlon XP 1900 is only around $72 right now. For
now I have a spare 1ghz tbird sitting around.

Now when you refer to 2 full size encodings, do you mean recording one
channel in background and watching live tv in another? Or do you mean
recording 2 channels and doing nothing on the tv? Or perhaps another
option?

Any plans to create a self contained distribution CD, almost like some
of gentoo's live cd for unreal tourn 2k3?

Jon


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net [mailto:mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net]
On Behalf Of Isaac Richards
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:03 PM
To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Subject: Re: [mythtv] New user

On Wednesday 20 November 2002 10:40 pm, Jonathan Wirch wrote:
> I'm new to MythTV and still reading and following this mailing list. I
> currently own a TiVo but very interested in creating my own. Just
> curious why you need a 2.4ghz processor for all of this. I know it
must
> be pretty cpu intensive stuff but still...shouldn't there be a way to
> optimize linux or remove other stuff you don't need? Isn't the TiVo
> processor only 33 or 66mhz. Read that on one of the tivo forums. If I
> build a set top box for just PVR/mp3/etc/etc I don't think I should
have
> to buy a p4 2.4 nearly top of the line just to get it to work.
>
> Can't wait to give this project a try, it has real promise, keep up
the
> good work.

You don't need anywhere near a p4 2.4 for this. The XP 1800+ I have is
plenty
for really good quality 640x480 mpeg4 video, with lots (>30%) of cpu to
spare. That's almost a gigahertz less if you compare straight speeds
with a
p4 2.4ghz. Now, if you want to do _two_ full-size encodings at once,
that's
a different matter.

TiVos do all their encoding and decoding in hardware -- this stuff is
all
software, unless you use the (still in-progress) hardware mjpeg encoding

support that's in CVS.

Isaac
_______________________________________________
mythtv-dev mailing list
mythtv-dev@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:13:48PM -0500, Jonathan Wirch wrote:

> Any plans to create a self contained distribution CD, almost like some of
> gentoo's live cd for unreal tourn 2k3?

That wouldn't be a half bad idea, except that you need a database and a lot
of hard disk space to store the program information and audio/video data, so
it can't really be self-contained.

--
- mdz

Well yeah, you'd need the HD to store the actual recordings too :) But
the self contained cd could setup the entire HD or perhaps setup a small
partition for settings/mysql db/etc another partition for recordings.

Just an idea.

Jon


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net [mailto:mythtv-dev-admin@snowman.net]
On Behalf Of Matt Zimmerman
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:23 PM
To: mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Subject: Re: [mythtv] New user

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:13:48PM -0500, Jonathan Wirch wrote:

> Any plans to create a self contained distribution CD, almost like some
of
> gentoo's live cd for unreal tourn 2k3?

That wouldn't be a half bad idea, except that you need a database and a
lot
of hard disk space to store the program information and audio/video
data, so
it can't really be self-contained.

--
- mdz
_______________________________________________
mythtv-dev mailing list
mythtv-dev@snowman.net
http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 09:10:14PM -0700, Steve Meyer wrote:
> You guys have all read this article right?
>
> http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html
>
> There is a cool video also.

In the 10 years or so I've been building PCs I've NEVER had a heatsink just
fall off while the machine was running (or otherwise for that matter).

--
Ray

Matt Zimmerman wrote:

>On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:13:48PM -0500, Jonathan Wirch wrote:
>
>
>
>>Any plans to create a self contained distribution CD, almost like some of
>>gentoo's live cd for unreal tourn 2k3?
>>
>>
>
>That wouldn't be a half bad idea, except that you need a database and a lot
>of hard disk space to store the program information and audio/video data, so
>it can't really be self-contained.
>
>

It would be nice for a distributed environment, like a playback box
without a harddrive, and a server/encoder machine. You could even mount
via NFS to another machine from the diskless box if you wanted it to
have an encoder.

I think they meant while the computer is being shipped
or moved around it might come off some how. If you
are the type of person who never looks inside their
computer, e.g. ordering from compaq, dell, etc. Then
you could get a pc with a fan that fell off and
unknowingly turn it on and fry the cpu.

I couldn't imagine a company not replacing that for
you.


--- Ray <maillists@sonictech.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 09:10:14PM -0700, Steve
> Meyer wrote:
> > You guys have all read this article right?
> >
> >
>
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html
> >
> > There is a cool video also.
>
> In the 10 years or so I've been building PCs I've
> NEVER had a heatsink just
> fall off while the machine was running (or otherwise
> for that matter).
>
> --
> Ray
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-dev mailing list
> mythtv-dev@snowman.net
> http://www.snowman.net/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev


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On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 06:04:35PM -0800, Wes Biggs wrote:
> So I'm going to take the plunge and build a MythTV box for a Christmas
> project, er, present, and given that the only spare hardware I've got
> lying around was bought sometime in the last millenium, I'm planning to
> go to the local computer fair and get a new rig. My plan is your
> typical "media center" machine, headless except for the TV out, with one
> or two big fat hard drives for TV and music.
>
> It sounds like many posters here have had good luck with Athlon 1800s so
> I may go that route. Anyone have any preferences they'd like to share
> for MoBos?

One other motherboard option I should have mentioned would be one of the
nforce based boards. Asus has a nice one (A7N266-C nForce 415D). I havn't
used these but they have a pretty good reputation for Linux compatability
and would be a good match for Myth.

--
Ray

On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Isaac Richards wrote:

> TiVos do all their encoding and decoding in hardware -- this stuff is
> all software, unless you use the (still in-progress) hardware mjpeg
> encoding support that's in CVS.
>

I've found a few references to hardware mjpeg in the mailing list archive
& the CVS sources, but I am not quite sure yet how stable / unstable this
is? What cards would be suppported? How to use & enable it, did I miss
some documentation?

Using my Iomega Buz card I would hope I could reuse my old P3-733 instead
of spending lots of money on new hardware.

Thank you in advance,
Stefan

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Hash: SHA1

> I
> know it must
> be pretty cpu intensive stuff but still...shouldn't there be a way
> to optimize linux or remove other stuff you don't need? Isn't the
> TiVo processor only 33 or 66mhz.

The Tivo has an MPEG-2 encoder/decoder chip that does all the video
processing - the only thing the Tivo CPU has to do is run the system,
keep track of the time and draw the menus. Mythtv is doing
everything in software.

And no, none of the MPEG-2 cards out there right now have good Linux
drivers, so that's why Mythtv doesn't use them.


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On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:34:07 -0700
Ray <maillists@sonictech.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 06:04:35PM -0800, Wes Biggs wrote:
>
> I REALLY like the current SiS chipsets and tend to choose boards based on
> them. Unfortunately most of these boards are from the various PCChips
> companies and many people don't like them because they are cheap (in both
> senses) but I've had no trouble with their current SiS based stuff. All the
> on board stuff (ethernet, sound, ide controllers, etc) seem to be well
> supported in Linux. The full atx boards from both Amptron and Elitegroup
> have enough room around the cpu socket for the large Alpha 8045 heatsinks
> which make it a lot easier to build a quiet machine.
>

You might look at the Leadtek 735KDA, a little higher priced, but
nice quality work (SIS735, which is my desktop). With an athalon
XP2000, I can encode 640x480 TV to divx/mp3 in real time with
about 10% to spare. Has all the standard SIS 735 gizmos.


A couple of tuning tricks to consider:

on video filesystem, add noatime to mount options.
on ext3 based video filesystem add data=writeback to mount options.

Also replace v4l with v4l2.

--
-Monty Walls (mwalls@castor.oktax.state.ok.us)
- MIS, Oklahoma Tax Commission
-
- My opinions are my own, my employer knows nothing about it.

Monty wrote:
> A couple of tuning tricks to consider:
>
> on video filesystem, add noatime to mount options.
> on ext3 based video filesystem add data=writeback to mount options.
>
> Also replace v4l with v4l2.
>
> --
> -Monty Walls (mwalls@castor.oktax.state.ok.us)
> - MIS, Oklahoma Tax Commission
> -


Monty,

Im using a 2.4.18 kernel, am I already using vfl2 wihtout knowing it?
What are the advantages of vfl2?

Thanks

On Thu, 21 Nov 2002 16:44:16 -0500
"Oatz" <oatz@rogers.com> wrote:

> Monty wrote:
> > A couple of tuning tricks to consider:
> >
> > on video filesystem, add noatime to mount options.
> > on ext3 based video filesystem add data=writeback to mount options.
> >
> > Also replace v4l with v4l2.
> >
> > --
> > -Monty Walls (mwalls@castor.oktax.state.ok.us)
> > - MIS, Oklahoma Tax Commission
> > -
>
>
> Monty,
>
> Im using a 2.4.18 kernel, am I already using vfl2 wihtout knowing it?
> What are the advantages of vfl2?
>

No 2.4 still uses v4l not v4l2. 2.5 should have v4l2 (last I heard).

v4l2 supports deeper buffers for bttv and allow buffered capturing, so
applications like mp1e don't drop buffers as much. Application has to
handle having more than 2 buffers though (old bttv default).

v4l2 also seems to have a lower latency.

--
-Monty Walls (mwalls@castor.oktax.state.ok.us)
- MIS, Oklahoma Tax Commission
-
- My opinions are my own, my employer knows nothing about it.

On Thursday 21 November 2002 04:10, Steve Meyer wrote:
> You guys have all read this article right?
>
> http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html
>
> There is a cool video also.
>

Please let's not start a religious war about processors.
For your info, rackspace (One of the biggest PC renting farm on the net) uses
only AMD and they never burned a processor.
And there are other farms using P3/P4 that work fine.

Isaac tell us that a 100$ prcessor from AMD is fine, I think I remember that a
P4 2000 is OK.

What might be interesting to know is what EXCATLY impacts overall speed ?

Disk IO speed/ RAM bandwith / Amount of ram / PCI tuning / ...

I have a nForce system with 2x256 MB 233Mhz DDR, A 7200 RPM HD and don't get
close to Isaac's results... Maybe it's the PCI tuning, or RAM latency
settings...

Regards,


Christian

Ray wrote:
> One other motherboard option I should have mentioned would be one of the
> nforce based boards. Asus has a nice one (A7N266-C nForce 415D). I havn't
> used these but they have a pretty good reputation for Linux compatability
> and would be a good match for Myth.

Thanks Ray and others for your responses. Time to do some shopping.

Here's an economical starting point I found -- wondering if anyone has
experience with this mobo (ECS K7S5A, SIS735 chipset)...
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3516254/

The one thing that stuck out when I was looking at this is the IDE
interface only supports 33/66/100. Is this going to kill me with Myth?
Should I look for a new 133 IDE bus?

Thanks again.

Wes

P.S. Anyone using Adelphia Digital Cable (Scientific Atlanta box) have
tips on IR?

On Saturday 23 November 2002 03:51 pm, Wes Biggs wrote:

> Here's an economical starting point I found -- wondering if anyone has
> experience with this mobo (ECS K7S5A, SIS735 chipset)...
> http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3516254/

I'm using this mobo with the onboard sound, a Duron 1200, and 512mb Ram. No
problems.

Randy

On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 02:51:59PM -0800, Wes Biggs wrote:
>
> Here's an economical starting point I found -- wondering if anyone has
> experience with this mobo (ECS K7S5A, SIS735 chipset)...
> http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3516254/

I've built several systems around that board and they work fine. I'm not
100% sure if the on board sound would work well with Myth so you might need
a real sound card.

>
> The one thing that stuck out when I was looking at this is the IDE
> interface only supports 33/66/100. Is this going to kill me with Myth?
> Should I look for a new 133 IDE bus?

The real world difference between udma 100 and udma 133 is approximately 0.
Even the fastest current hard drives are just barely able to transfer data
to/from their platters fast enough to push udma 66 interfaces near the limit.
Also most current boards that offer udma 133 do so with an extra controller
built into the board in addition to their normal udma 100 controller. If
you really want an extra controller you're better off buying a seperate
controller card.


--
Ray