Mailing List Archive

>their system(s). What mistake did you make when selecting hardware?

My main mistake was the TV Tuner cards I bought - I got Pinnacle PC TV Rage
cards which have a tuner on which isn't supported by Linux. This might just
be the PAL version, and possibly just some versions, but it was a problem.

Fortunately, it wasn't a major problem because they work fine in Windows,
so I just did some swapping around and two BT878 cards out of a couple of
my Windows PCs and put them in the Linux one, but for other people it might
be a bigger problem.

The other mistake was listening to the people who say that Linux is easy to
use nowadays.... :-)

Having said that, MythTV is great, it's a shame there's nothing like it for
Windows so it doesn't take weeks to set up... (unless you're a Linux expert)
Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/

Once I gave up on my Radeon 7500 and started over, I had a seemless setup

My hardware

Shuttle SS51G
P4 1.6
256 MB RAM
GeForce FX 5200 Video Card
Haupaage WinTV

I also used the RF remote from the ATI video card

And I used RH 8 for my OS

Followed the instructions verbatum. Setup the backend and frontend on the
same box. Everything works great.

The only thing I do a little out of th ordinary is I have my live TV to
the local hard drive, and recordings are saved to an SMB share mounted
from my XP machine. While SMB is not as fast as NFS, it works fine.

-josephc


On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, James Campbell wrote:

> I am planning on building a MythTV box in the next month or so,
> and was interested in what current MythTV operators would change about
> their system(s). What mistake did you make when selecting hardware?
> Did you get RAM/CPU that wasn't fast enough, did you get a TV Card
> without overscan/underscan options in linux? Would you have split up
> your Myth box into two machines, one frontend and one backend?
> Essentially, I want to know what hardware you would get if you were
> starting over with the knowledge you now have. And if you would like to
> have some fun, what would your "Ideal" Setup be?
>
> James
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

>Once I gave up on my Radeon 7500 and started over, I had a seemless setup

What kind of problems did you have with the Radeon ? I need a
PCI-based video card, preferably with open source drivers, and the
'7500 looks great on paper. Note that I will not be using TV out, as
I use a video beamer.

Thanks,

JDB.
--
LART. 250 MIPS under one Watt. Free hardware design files.
http://www.lart.tudelft.nl/

TV-out was my big problem.

On Thu, 1 May 2003, J.D. Bakker wrote:

> >Once I gave up on my Radeon 7500 and started over, I had a seemless setup
>
> What kind of problems did you have with the Radeon ? I need a
> PCI-based video card, preferably with open source drivers, and the
> '7500 looks great on paper. Note that I will not be using TV out, as
> I use a video beamer.
>
> Thanks,
>
> JDB.
>

"it's a shame there's nothing like it for Windows so it doesn't take weeks to set up..."

http://www.myhtpc.net/

I'm not saying this is equal to MythTV... only that it is an interesting option for Windows users.
With a WinTV PVR card it works pretty well.

-Nathan

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Smith [mailto:paullocal@pscs.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 4:49 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ideal Setup



>their system(s). What mistake did you make when selecting hardware?

My main mistake was the TV Tuner cards I bought - I got Pinnacle PC TV Rage
cards which have a tuner on which isn't supported by Linux. This might just
be the PAL version, and possibly just some versions, but it was a problem.

Fortunately, it wasn't a major problem because they work fine in Windows,
so I just did some swapping around and two BT878 cards out of a couple of
my Windows PCs and put them in the Linux one, but for other people it might
be a bigger problem.

The other mistake was listening to the people who say that Linux is easy to
use nowadays.... :-)

Having said that, MythTV is great, it's a shame there's nothing like it for
Windows so it doesn't take weeks to set up... (unless you're a Linux expert)
Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/


_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

At 13:48 01/05/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>content-class: urn:content-classes:message
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C31012.47C73B60"
>
>"it's a shame there's nothing like it for Windows so it doesn't take weeks
>to set up..."
>
><http://www.myhtpc.net/>http://www.myhtpc.net/
>
>I'm not saying this is equal to MythTV... only that it is an interesting
>option for Windows users.
>With a WinTV PVR card it works pretty well.

Hmm, when I looked at myhtpc it looked to be just a front end to launch
other programs, eg WinTV2000 etc. Since Hauppauge's software is a pile of
**** that isn't what I wanted. I want something with a unified GUI across
all its features.

ShowShifter is the best thing I've come across for Windows for what I want
(standalone PC based PVR) and it has its own TV viewing software (which
works a lot better than WinTV) but doesn't support the WinTV PVR cards yet,
and only supports one card, has no built-in EPG, needs lots of 'clicks' to
get anywhere, not open source etc etc.

There are things I prefer about ShowShifter to MythTV (eg in MythTV it uses
MPlayer to view videos which has a totally different GUI to the rest of
MythTV) but I expect these will improve over time. The main problem (IMHO)
with MythTV is the setup issue, which is generally where Windows always
tends to beat Linux hands down (IMHO).

I have a TiVo box, and so far that is by far the best of the options (and
it's by far the cheapest option as well.. (£399 for the box & £199 for a
lifetime subscription = £600. My MythTV box so far has cost around £800-900
(OK it has more disk space))), but MythTV is more expandable, and,
hopefully, will become better than TiVo in the near future (whereas TiVo
isn't being sold or developed any more in the UK).


>-Nathan
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Smith [<mailto:paullocal@pscs.co.uk>mailto:paullocal@pscs.co.uk]
>Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 4:49 AM
>To: Discussion about mythtv
>Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ideal Setup
>
>
> >their system(s). What mistake did you make when selecting hardware?
>
>My main mistake was the TV Tuner cards I bought - I got Pinnacle PC TV Rage
>cards which have a tuner on which isn't supported by Linux. This might just
>be the PAL version, and possibly just some versions, but it was a problem.
>
>Fortunately, it wasn't a major problem because they work fine in Windows,
>so I just did some swapping around and two BT878 cards out of a couple of
>my Windows PCs and put them in the Linux one, but for other people it might
>be a bigger problem.
>
>The other mistake was listening to the people who say that Linux is easy to
>use nowadays.... :-)
>
>Having said that, MythTV is great, it's a shame there's nothing like it for
>Windows so it doesn't take weeks to set up... (unless you're a Linux expert)
>Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
>support@pscs.co.uk
><http://www.pscs.co.uk/>http://www.pscs.co.uk/
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
><http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/

Heres another new Windows based Media Box.

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=personalcinema

Does anybody know anything about it?


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Smith [mailto:paullocal@pscs.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 5:09 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Ideal Setup


At 13:48 01/05/2003 -0500, you wrote:


content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C31012.47C73B60"

"it's a shame there's nothing like it for Windows so it doesn't take weeks to set up..."

http://www.myhtpc.net/

I'm not saying this is equal to MythTV... only that it is an interesting option for Windows users.
With a WinTV PVR card it works pretty well.


Hmm, when I looked at myhtpc it looked to be just a front end to launch other programs, eg WinTV2000 etc. Since Hauppauge's software is a pile of **** that isn't what I wanted. I want something with a unified GUI across all its features.

ShowShifter is the best thing I've come across for Windows for what I want (standalone PC based PVR) and it has its own TV viewing software (which works a lot better than WinTV) but doesn't support the WinTV PVR cards yet, and only supports one card, has no built-in EPG, needs lots of 'clicks' to get anywhere, not open source etc etc.

There are things I prefer about ShowShifter to MythTV (eg in MythTV it uses MPlayer to view videos which has a totally different GUI to the rest of MythTV) but I expect these will improve over time. The main problem (IMHO) with MythTV is the setup issue, which is generally where Windows always tends to beat Linux hands down (IMHO).

I have a TiVo box, and so far that is by far the best of the options (and it's by far the cheapest option as well.. (£399 for the box & £199 for a lifetime subscription = £600. My MythTV box so far has cost around £800-900 (OK it has more disk space))), but MythTV is more expandable, and, hopefully, will become better than TiVo in the near future (whereas TiVo isn't being sold or developed any more in the UK).




-Nathan

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Smith [ mailto:paullocal@pscs.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 4:49 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ideal Setup


>their system(s). What mistake did you make when selecting hardware?

My main mistake was the TV Tuner cards I bought - I got Pinnacle PC TV Rage
cards which have a tuner on which isn't supported by Linux. This might just
be the PAL version, and possibly just some versions, but it was a problem.

Fortunately, it wasn't a major problem because they work fine in Windows,
so I just did some swapping around and two BT878 cards out of a couple of
my Windows PCs and put them in the Linux one, but for other people it might
be a bigger problem.

The other mistake was listening to the people who say that Linux is easy to
use nowadays.... :-)

Having said that, MythTV is great, it's a shame there's nothing like it for
Windows so it doesn't take weeks to set up... (unless you're a Linux expert)
Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users


Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/

At 10:29 02/05/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>content-class: urn:content-classes:message
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C310BF.9A7C88A4"
>
>Heres another new Windows based Media Box.
>
><http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=personalcinema>http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=personalcinema
>
>Does anybody know anything about it?

Looking at the video it looks like a lot of the other similar things that
are around for Windows (There are lots of them!) where they are plainly a
Windows GUI (small text, mouse needed etc). They have thought a bit more
about it than some others because the remote control includes a mouse
pointer controller....

I'm not convinced how easy this would be to control from across the room on
anything other than a massive screen.

Also, it doesn't say anything about the stuff that's nice about MythTV
(multiple tuners, integrated EPG etc). The EPG that the nVidia solution
uses is TitanTV, in a web browser - I'll leave that up to you to consider
how easy that will be to navigate using a remote control..


Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/