Mailing List Archive: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV

Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV

paul_arthur at yahoo

Feb 22, 2006, 3:16 PM

Post #1 of 51 (8693 views)

Im about to start building a MythTV system for my brother - some help with the planning please

budget - $5000 including screen/reciever/speakers excluding PC (have 1 already)

Its intended use

a) Drive's new plasma/lcd DVI+HDTV bigwidescreen
b) Good audio via alsa/digital to new receiever - recommendations
c) EPG via dialup
d) no FTA TV due to bad reception (bad phone lines too.)
e) contolling SKY Digital receiver via IRBlaster or similar
f) Mp3 music
g) Divx playing
h) JPG photoalbum
i) Quiet - Reliable - appliance level availability/simplicity
j) Supportable - dont want to go too far to the bleeding edge...

looks like being a 1 box solution for now - ie frontend+backend in same box

1) using existing Compaq AMD Athlon 1GHZ processor - 384MB memory - 250G disk
2) Purchase new
- PVR150
- Learning Remote (MSMediaCentre remote?)
- IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer them)
- Digital Sound Card - advice please
- TV-Out : DVI + - advice please Nvidia 5200 ?
- 5.1 Reciever
- HDTV? Big Wide Flat Screen

3) Knoppmyth with MythTV v0.19 version when released (ETA?) or Gentoo/Ubantu ??

Have heard Sky will be going to HDTV this year - what do we need to timeshift it?

Thoughts please - i'll be procuring the HW in the next few weeks...

Paul Arthur and Cathy Windsor
New Zealand

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 3:28 PM

Post #2 of 51 (8611 views)

On 2/23/06, paul arthur <paul_arthur@yahoo.com> wrote:
> d) no FTA TV due to bad reception (bad phone lines too.)
...
> 2) Purchase new
> - PVR150

If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
back at the same time.

The other thing I'd suggest is to consider a DVB-S card. Gets you TVNZ
FTA channels and EPG data (so no dialup required).

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

Feb 22, 2006, 3:39 PM

Post #3 of 51 (8632 views)

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:28:43 +1300
Steve Hodge wrote:

> On 2/23/06, paul arthur <paul_arthur@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > d) no FTA TV due to bad reception (bad phone lines too.)
> ...
> > 2) Purchase new
> > - PVR150
>
> If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
> why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
> http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
> Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
> back at the same time.

I don't fully concur. The hardware conversion to mpeg2 would be a
definite advantage on that system IMHO.

>
--
Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz>

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RE: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

craig at dubculture

Feb 22, 2006, 4:15 PM

Post #4 of 51 (8634 views)

> Im about to start building a MythTV system for my brother - some help with
the planning please

Not to detract from the fun value of MythTV, but have you considered buying
him a MySky for the TV part of it? You could do MP3/DivX etc with something
else.

I like MythTV for many reasons, but I wouldn't try doing Sky on it
personally. Others are. When I can put my Sky card into a DVB-S card I'll
reconsider.

Craig

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 4:29 PM

Post #5 of 51 (8620 views)

On 2/23/06, Craig Box <craig@dubculture.co.nz> wrote:
> > Im about to start building a MythTV system for my brother - some help with
> the planning please
>
> Not to detract from the fun value of MythTV, but have you considered buying
> him a MySky for the TV part of it? You could do MP3/DivX etc with something
> else.
>
> I like MythTV for many reasons, but I wouldn't try doing Sky on it
> personally. Others are. When I can put my Sky card into a DVB-S card I'll
> reconsider.

MySky doesn't do music, video, or pictures. But it might well be worth
getting MySky and doing the non-PVR stuff as a separate box. That's
probably what I'd do if I was starting now. On the other hand MythTV
is a better PVR than MySky (AFAIK) - things like timeshift and skip
forward are not available on MySky and apparently their "series
record" feature is pretty hit and miss.

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

zilla at paradise

Feb 22, 2006, 4:29 PM

Post #6 of 51 (8635 views)

> > > 2) Purchase new
> > > - PVR150
> >
> > If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
> > why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
> > http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
> > Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
> > back at the same time.
>
> I don't fully concur. The hardware conversion to mpeg2 would be a
> definite advantage on that system IMHO.

I agree. These are now very easy to get going under Linux - something you are
not always guaranteed which using a generic framegrabber.

Another reason is that a 150 will deal with the audio capture for you also -
this avoids a loop cable on the back of the PC and potentially the many and
varied volume and driver issues which again are tied to your choice of sound card.

Duncan

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 4:35 PM

Post #7 of 51 (8613 views)

On 2/23/06, Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
> > why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
> > http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
> > Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
> > back at the same time.
>
> I don't fully concur. The hardware conversion to mpeg2 would be a
> definite advantage on that system IMHO.

You mean in terms of CPU usage? I haven't actually tried recording
with a dumb capture card on anything that low-end, but my 2GHz Sempron
happily records from two dumb tuner cards and plays back at the same
time.

The only other advantage I can see is that transcoding is easier.
OTOH, you've got to deal with ivtv and that doesn't always seem to be
smooth (compared to the in kernel bttv drivers).

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

Feb 22, 2006, 4:38 PM

Post #8 of 51 (8634 views)

>
> If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
> why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
> http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
> Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
> back at the same time.

I disagree on this one. A PVR150 is under $150. A bt878 is under
$80. That is around $70 more for a cooler, quieter, more responsive
system.

> The other thing I'd suggest is to
> consider a DVB-S card. Gets you TVNZ
> FTA channels and EPG data (so no dialup required).

Absolutely. I think this is a huge plus.

2) Purchase new
- PVR150
- Learning Remote (MSMediaCentre remote?)

MCE remote is good

- IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least
defer them)

Sure. The budget logitech is good. I've ordered the MCE one but it
hasn't arrived yet. Apparently, the mouse hasn't bee made to work yet.

- Digital Sound Card - advice please

Dunno. Creative would be my assumption.

- TV-Out : DVI + - advice please Nvidia 5200 ?

5200 should be fine.

- 5.1 Reciever

Dunno. I would get altec lansang 5.1 system. It sounds pretty good
and is moderately priced (under $500).

- HDTV? Big Wide Flat Screen

I would go with an LCD, around $2600 gets a nice 32" or so from ascent.

I would wonder about getting a new 6150 based motherboard with SPDIF
out and a bottom-end 939 instead of buying a video card and sound
card. It isn't going to cost much more.

Corrin

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

david.zanetti at catalyst

Feb 22, 2006, 5:09 PM

Post #9 of 51 (8613 views)

On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 15:16 -0800, paul arthur wrote:

> c) EPG via dialup

Others have said it before, I'll say it as well.. DVB-S for EPG is good.
And you get FTA TVNZ stuff.

> 2) Purchase new
> - PVR150

IMO, go with the PVR150 or even the PVR500, if you're pulling from
analog (which includes Sky) sources.

> - IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer them)

I ended up picking a USB HID IR remote, and remapping the buttons to my
universal. It works real well, and avoids all the lirc madness.

> - Digital Sound Card - advice please

The cheap DSE ones with spdif out work fine for MP3->PCM and AC3
passthru with my Yamaha reciever.

> - TV-Out : DVI + - advice please Nvidia 5200 ?

Given the plasma/flat panel/HDTV talk, see if you can get one with DVI
(and actually treats it as normal video, not PC input) or HDMI and grab
an DVI->HDMI cable. Note: I have never personally done this, but I
believe it works.

> Have heard Sky will be going to HDTV this year - what do we need to timeshift it?

I've not heard any confirmation of HDTV from Sky this year. In either
case, you can be assured they will NOT allow anything other than maybe
low-res analog, it'll be HDCP/HDMI and nasty to get out. There are (in
the US) bits of HD kit with firewire out, but I just can't see Sky being
that .. useful :)

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Catalyst IT Limited
+64-4-8032233 +64-21-402260

RE: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

craig at dubculture

Feb 22, 2006, 5:29 PM

Post #10 of 51 (8608 views)

>> - IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer
>> them)
>
> I ended up picking a USB HID IR remote, and remapping the buttons to
> my universal. It works real well, and avoids all the lirc madness.

Does it fake keypresses? Where'd you get it from?

Craig

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 5:35 PM

Post #11 of 51 (8616 views)

On 2/23/06, David Zanetti <david.zanetti@catalyst.net.nz> wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 15:16 -0800, paul arthur wrote:
> > - IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer them)
>
> I ended up picking a USB HID IR remote, and remapping the buttons to my
> universal. It works real well, and avoids all the lirc madness.

What model?

Personally I've got a RF keyboard (BTC9019URF) - works really nicely.
But if you go with RF make sure what you buy has decent range - a lot
stuff intended for desktop use has 2m range which is generally not
enough for loungeroom use.

> > - Digital Sound Card - advice please
>
> The cheap DSE ones with spdif out work fine for MP3->PCM and AC3
> passthru with my Yamaha reciever.

I'll second that - it's what I'm using.

> > Have heard Sky will be going to HDTV this year - what do we need to timeshift it?
>
> I've not heard any confirmation of HDTV from Sky this year. In either
> case, you can be assured they will NOT allow anything other than maybe
> low-res analog, it'll be HDCP/HDMI and nasty to get out. There are (in
> the US) bits of HD kit with firewire out, but I just can't see Sky being
> that .. useful :)

Given how long it took Sky to get MySky out I can't see it happening
for years. They're still not even broadcasting in 5.1. And until Optus
D1 replaces B1 they don't have the bandwidth for HDTV. Speaking of D1,
anyone heard anything about the change over? Like when, and how are
Sky going to handle it? I know they're installing MySky with dual
LNBs, presumably for this reason, but what about the rest of us?

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

mail_lists at stevencherie

Feb 22, 2006, 5:35 PM

Post #12 of 51 (8632 views)

Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>>
>>> If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
>>> why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
>>> http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
>>> Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
>>> back at the same time.
>>>
>> I don't fully concur. The hardware conversion to mpeg2 would be a
>> definite advantage on that system IMHO.
>>
>
> You mean in terms of CPU usage? I haven't actually tried recording
> with a dumb capture card on anything that low-end, but my 2GHz Sempron
> happily records from two dumb tuner cards and plays back at the same
> time.
>
What are you capturing at resolution/codec/bitrate wise. Personally I've
never been happy with the RTJpeg based captures. MPEG2 off the PVR cards
looks a lot better. Perhaps i'm more fussy about the quality of the
video than other people on the net. I personally feel that the current
attempts at HDTV are too low quality wise. The 1080i and 720p footage
i've seen is still too blocky due to artifacts. Something in the 2-4000
range might persuade me which is the sort of resolution they are using
for digital cinema.

Steve

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RE: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

david.zanetti at catalyst

Feb 22, 2006, 5:35 PM

Post #13 of 51 (8607 views)

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 14:29 +1300, Craig Box wrote:
> >> - IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer
> >> them)
> >
> > I ended up picking a USB HID IR remote, and remapping the buttons to
> > my universal. It works real well, and avoids all the lirc madness.
>
> Does it fake keypresses? Where'd you get it from?

Being USB HID, it _is_ keypresses. It's not fake, because it's no
different than a USB keyboard (which is also HID).

Works even in the console. :)

The unit I've been using is a Shuttle one, but it not tied to Shuttle
hardware at all. The remote doesn't have quite enough buttons (and the
mouse on it is a HID mouse, which isn't really useful for Myth in some
ways), but if you're mapping on to a universal it's pretty good.

http://www.ascent.co.nz/ProductSpecification.aspx?ItemID=116365

--
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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

mail_lists at stevencherie

Feb 22, 2006, 5:37 PM

Post #14 of 51 (8626 views)

Craig Box wrote:
>>> - IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer
>>> them)
>>>
>> I ended up picking a USB HID IR remote, and remapping the buttons to
>> my universal. It works real well, and avoids all the lirc madness.
>>
>
> Does it fake keypresses? Where'd you get it from?
>

Yeah i'm also interested in a good HID remote unit.

My NMedia case has an IR port that shows up as an HID device but i've
never managed to find the correct Universal remote mode for it.

Steve

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RE: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

Feb 22, 2006, 5:47 PM

Post #15 of 51 (8608 views)

>The unit I've been using is a Shuttle one, but it not tied to Shuttle
hardware at all. The remote doesn't have quite enough buttons (and the
mouse on it is a HID mouse, which isn't really useful for Myth in some
ways), but if you're mapping on to a universal it's pretty good.

http://www.ascent.co.nz/ProductSpecification.aspx?ItemID=116365

I also use the shuttle PN31 remote, after spending a very long time
looking for a nice remote solution.
It just works with no drivers, see the instructions at
http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=ShuttlePN31Remote on how to set
it up.

Toby

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 5:55 PM

Post #16 of 51 (8619 views)

On 2/23/06, Steven Ellis <mail_lists@stevencherie.net> wrote:
> What are you capturing at resolution/codec/bitrate wise.

576x576 MPEG4 @ 4400 bitrate (quality min/max 15/2). Interlaced DCT
and motion estimation on. Audio is 44.1kHz MP3 quality 3.

I find the picture acceptable. It's not as good as Sky direct (not
suprising given the extra A->D->A conversion), though not far off.

> Personally I've never been happy with the RTJpeg based captures.

I thought MPEG4 looked better and went with that. I haven't tried a
PVR-150, but I can't see it making a huge difference. Recording off
Sky or FTA analogue is always going to be pretty average quality-wise.

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 6:07 PM

Post #17 of 51 (8609 views)

On 2/23/06, Simon Green <swgreen@gmail.com> wrote:
> From what I was told by Sky[1] earlier this year, only MySky boxes
> will handle 5.1 sound. The other decoders don't have the outputs for
> it. It seems like Sky won't be providing non MySky decoders if you 5.1
> sound. HDTV is still years away for them too. Pity. Foxtel in Aussie
> offer both 5.1 and HDTV on standard decoders.
>
> Really object paying $500 for surround sound (and don't intent to!)

Right, but they're not broadcasting in 5.1 so the 5.1 capability of
MySky is currently completely useless. They're saying they'll start
broadcasting 5.1 on selected channels (presumably just the movie
channels) once Optus D1 is up.

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

mail_lists at stevencherie

Feb 22, 2006, 6:27 PM

Post #18 of 51 (8603 views)

Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Steven Ellis <mail_lists@stevencherie.net> wrote:
>
>> What are you capturing at resolution/codec/bitrate wise.
>>
>
> 576x576 MPEG4 @ 4400 bitrate (quality min/max 15/2). Interlaced DCT
> and motion estimation on. Audio is 44.1kHz MP3 quality 3.
>
> I find the picture acceptable. It's not as good as Sky direct (not
> suprising given the extra A->D->A conversion), though not far off.
>
>
Given the way that sky don't always honor the correct resolution on
their DVB-S streams to save on bandwidth I don't blame you.
>> Personally I've never been happy with the RTJpeg based captures.
>>
>
> I thought MPEG4 looked better and went with that. I haven't tried a
> PVR-150, but I can't see it making a huge difference. Recording off
> Sky or FTA analogue is always going to be pretty average quality-wise.
>
>
Whats the CPU loading like with on the fly MPEG4 encoding. I did live
MPEG4 capture a couple of years ago on an athlon 2k, and would get
occasional frame drops which really annoyed me.

Done some recent comparisons of Analog FTA on the PVR-150 on the Default
settings of 4.5M average and 8M max against some FTA DVB-T streams that
average around the 4-5M mark and I must admit they are reasonably close
quality wise. The biggest benefit with the DVB-T stream is the lack of
ghosting. Mind due my TV1 & 2 reception is excellent as I have great
line of sight of the transmitter.

DVB stream issues are they don't let the bit rate peak enough on high
motion, and the low audio bitrate.

Watching shows off the DVB-T stream or PVR-150 sure beats VHS, and in
the case of the DVB-T stream almost comes close to DVD quality. Sadly I
don't think DVD is close to good enough as I mentioned earlier.

Still overall i'm happy with the PVR setup again because it sure beats
using a VCR.

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

Feb 22, 2006, 6:32 PM

Post #19 of 51 (8599 views)

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 14:35 +1300, Steve Hodge wrote:

> D1 replaces B1 they don't have the bandwidth for HDTV. Speaking of D1,
> anyone heard anything about the change over? Like when, and how are
> Sky going to handle it? I know they're installing MySky with dual
> LNBs, presumably for this reason, but what about the rest of us?
>

D1 will replace B1 at 160 so no changes for that, D2 is going to 156 to
replace C1. (B1 and C1 will be moved, one probably to 152, the other
possibly to 164 (A3), and A3 might end up as toast)

The dual LNB's are probably going to be for emergency failover (which
Sky is paranoid about now) and or sharing channels with foxtel on D2.

Except the for the location of D1 and D2, most of this is guess
work/theory by me.

:D

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RE: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

Feb 22, 2006, 6:41 PM

Post #20 of 51 (8606 views)

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 14:35 +1300, Steve Hodge wrote:

> D1 replaces B1 they don't have the bandwidth for HDTV. Speaking of D1,

> anyone heard anything about the change over? Like when, and how are
> Sky going to handle it? I know they're installing MySky with dual
> LNBs, presumably for this reason, but what about the rest of us?
>

Sky rang me up the other day and said they had to come around for
routine maintenance.
The sky tech changed the LNB, I didn't think much of it at the time but
perhaps its tied up with the changeover.
Apparently if you call them out for anything they replace the LNB during
the visit.

Toby

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

Feb 22, 2006, 6:49 PM

Post #21 of 51 (8623 views)

> D1 will replace B1 at 160 so no changes for that, D2 is going to 156 to
> replace C1. (B1 and C1 will be moved, one probably to 152, the other
> possibly to 164 (A3), and A3 might end up as toast)
>

s/C1/B3/g
s/156/152/g

Got carried away sorry.

:D

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

stevehodge at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 6:54 PM

Post #22 of 51 (8609 views)

On 2/23/06, Steven Ellis <mail_lists@stevencherie.net> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > 576x576 MPEG4 @ 4400 bitrate (quality min/max 15/2). Interlaced DCT
> > and motion estimation on. Audio is 44.1kHz MP3 quality 3.

> Whats the CPU loading like with on the fly MPEG4 encoding. I did live
> MPEG4 capture a couple of years ago on an athlon 2k, and would get
> occasional frame drops which really annoyed me.

At the above resolution on my Sempron 2800+ (actually a 2400+
overclocked to 2GHz) I get about 45-50% idle just recording (~40% CPU
usage by mythbackend). It varies slightly with content and this is for
sport which is about the worst. I'm also watching top via vnc so there
is probably a bit of usage there. If I watch the recording at the same
time I get 25-30% idle (~12% CPU for another mythbackend thread). This
is a combined frontend/backend. I set it up so that I could record
from two dumb capture cards at once, but can't quite also watch one of
them. Now we've moved house and the new place has no UHF aerial so I'm
only using one of the capture cards so I've got CPU cycles to spare.

> Done some recent comparisons of Analog FTA on the PVR-150 on the Default
> settings of 4.5M average and 8M max against some FTA DVB-T streams that
> average around the 4-5M mark and I must admit they are reasonably close
> quality wise. The biggest benefit with the DVB-T stream is the lack of
> ghosting. Mind due my TV1 & 2 reception is excellent as I have great
> line of sight of the transmitter.

Anyone know how the TVNZ DVB-T stream compares to TVNZ DVB-S stream?
Is it the exact same stream?

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

mail_lists at stevencherie

Feb 22, 2006, 6:56 PM

Post #23 of 51 (8636 views)

David Zanetti wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 14:29 +1300, Craig Box wrote:
>
>>>> - IR Keyboard + dongle to get past LIRC hassles (or at least defer
>>>> them)
>>>>
>>> I ended up picking a USB HID IR remote, and remapping the buttons to
>>> my universal. It works real well, and avoids all the lirc madness.
>>>
>> Does it fake keypresses? Where'd you get it from?
>>
>
> Being USB HID, it _is_ keypresses. It's not fake, because it's no
> different than a USB keyboard (which is also HID).
>
> Works even in the console. :)
>
> The unit I've been using is a Shuttle one, but it not tied to Shuttle
> hardware at all. The remote doesn't have quite enough buttons (and the
> mouse on it is a HID mouse, which isn't really useful for Myth in some
> ways), but if you're mapping on to a universal it's pretty good.
>
> http://www.ascent.co.nz/ProductSpecification.aspx?ItemID=116365
>
>
Any idea on the code page for this device when using a universal remote,
or did you have to use a learning mode?

What i'd really like is a USB HID device that I can plug into the MB
headers and case mount. Or better yet the codes for the one that is
already mounted in my case.

Steve

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Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

friedcrumpet at gmail

Feb 22, 2006, 7:25 PM

Post #24 of 51 (8616 views)

On 2/23/06, Steve Hodge <stevehodge@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/23/06, Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz> wrote:
> > Steve Hodge wrote:
> > > If you're only recording from Sky Digital you don't need the tuner so
> > > why not get a dumb video capture card instead of a PVR150 (e.g.
> > > http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH6594)?
> > > Certainly 1GHz Athlon should have no problem recording and playing
> > > back at the same time.
> >
> > I don't fully concur. The hardware conversion to mpeg2 would be a
> > definite advantage on that system IMHO.
>
> You mean in terms of CPU usage? I haven't actually tried recording
> with a dumb capture card on anything that low-end, but my 2GHz Sempron
> happily records from two dumb tuner cards and plays back at the same
> time.

My first box was a 1Ghz Duron. It was able to record and playback (ala
liveTV) with a dumb capture card, albeit only at SVCDish resolution
(480x576), and only with the RTJPEG codec. I also could not use MP3
encoding, as that would use too much CPU. Obviously my capture files were
quite large but it suited at the time. There wasn't any headroom for CPU
spikes, and occasionally I'd have problems in this area.

I now use a Athlon 2100XP which can record two mpeg4 streams (at the above
SVCD resolution) and playback at the same time with enough headroom for the
occasional spike in CPU usage.

As an aside, I probably could have used the MP3 encoding this time, but I
found the quality to be too bad to use. Too many MP3 artifacts, even on the
most high quality recording setting. What's the general consensus around
here about the quality of the MP3 encoding?

Re: Help spending my brothers $5K on MythTV [ In reply to ]

zilla at paradise

Feb 22, 2006, 7:47 PM

Post #25 of 51 (8630 views)

Quoting Steve Hodge <stevehodge@gmail.com>:

> Personally I've got a RF keyboard (BTC9019URF) - works really nicely.
> But if you go with RF make sure what you buy has decent range - a lot
> stuff intended for desktop use has 2m range which is generally not
> enough for loungeroom use.

I also have one of these and recommend it. The inbuilt mouse doubles as a
joystick which is good if you like MAME and the range has never been an issue.
Plus the side handles are great for couch-based use. Battery life has been good
too.

I haven't bothered to program the extra multimedia keys along the top up though
- have been meaning to get a copy of Acme compiled and try that.... Maybe
someone has a keymap already? :-)

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