Mailing List Archive

On Sat, 2003-07-19 at 13:18, Rob Hudson wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm planning on taking a fairly old box and making a MythTV server out
> of it. I'm in the process of making a shopping list, trying to find the
> right pieces that work with Linux.
>
> Here's my planned system so far:
>
> AMD-K62 500 MHz CPU
> 256 MB RAM
> 40 GB HD

Thats rather on the slow side as CPUs go. More on that later...

> Need to buy:
> TV Tuner card: LeadTek TV2000 XP Deluxe
> PCI Wireless card: Netgear MA311 PCI
> Video card with TV out: Suggestions?

As a straight tuner card, that one should work, though I don't know
about the remote. The NIC is well supported as well (natsemi driver
IIRC). I'm using a Geforce4MX 440SE and the Svideo out (via the
propriatary NVidia drivers) is great.

> Can anyone comment on the choice of cards and how well they are
> supported? If not well, maybe suggestions for others? I was looking
> for fairly inexpensive cards and linux support. I like the fact that
> the TV2000 has IR built-in, but haven't found too much online on the
> support of it.
>
> It's a slow processor by today's standards. My hope was that if the TV
> card can do the encoding in hardware, that'll free up some processing
> for the other tasks. I hope this isn't a bad assumption.

*If* the TV card could do the encoding in hardware, your assumption
would be correct. In this case it isn't, because it doesn't.

With a K62 500, I don't think you're going to be recording well. You're
better off going with a PVR-250 it seems.

Brian

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I'll second that. Either buy a faster processor (could get expensive,
because you'd probably need a new motherboard as well) or get the
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. It's about $125 if you find a good deal. Maybe
you can get a CPU + board for cheaper that has the horse power to do
software encoding. Your call.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Z [mailto:mythtv@ricerage.org]
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 1:38 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV shopping list

On Sat, 2003-07-19 at 13:18, Rob Hudson wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm planning on taking a fairly old box and making a MythTV server out
> of it. I'm in the process of making a shopping list, trying to find
the
> right pieces that work with Linux.
>
> Here's my planned system so far:
>
> AMD-K62 500 MHz CPU
> 256 MB RAM
> 40 GB HD

Thats rather on the slow side as CPUs go. More on that later...

*If* the TV card could do the encoding in hardware, your assumption
would be correct. In this case it isn't, because it doesn't.

With a K62 500, I don't think you're going to be recording well. You're
better off going with a PVR-250 it seems.

Brian

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For about $100 shipped you can get an athlon xp2000+ w/a motherboard
from www.bzboyz.com Then again you would still need to buy the tv tuner
card, but you would have better parts if you wanted to use it as
anything else. Like everyone else said, your call.


-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Scott Blomfield
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 5:19 PM
To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] MythTV shopping list

I'll second that. Either buy a faster processor (could get expensive,
because you'd probably need a new motherboard as well) or get the
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. It's about $125 if you find a good deal. Maybe
you can get a CPU + board for cheaper that has the horse power to do
software encoding. Your call.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Z [mailto:mythtv@ricerage.org]
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 1:38 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV shopping list

On Sat, 2003-07-19 at 13:18, Rob Hudson wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm planning on taking a fairly old box and making a MythTV server out
> of it. I'm in the process of making a shopping list, trying to find
the
> right pieces that work with Linux.
>
> Here's my planned system so far:
>
> AMD-K62 500 MHz CPU
> 256 MB RAM
> 40 GB HD

Thats rather on the slow side as CPUs go. More on that later...

*If* the TV card could do the encoding in hardware, your assumption
would be correct. In this case it isn't, because it doesn't.

With a K62 500, I don't think you're going to be recording well. You're
better off going with a PVR-250 it seems.

Brian

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At 04:18 PM 7/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I'll second that. Either buy a faster processor (could get expensive,
>because you'd probably need a new motherboard as well) or get the
>Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. It's about $125 if you find a good deal. Maybe
>you can get a CPU + board for cheaper that has the horse power to do
>software encoding. Your call.

http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=VG-WINTVPP2
$86

-WD
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That isn't a hardware encoding card is it? If so that wouldn't do any
good, hed still need a new mobo/cpu and at that price there are cheaper
tv-cards which are more than adequate.

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Will Dormann
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 11:17 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] MythTV shopping list

At 04:18 PM 7/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I'll second that. Either buy a faster processor (could get expensive,
>because you'd probably need a new motherboard as well) or get the
>Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. It's about $125 if you find a good deal. Maybe
>you can get a CPU + board for cheaper that has the horse power to do
>software encoding. Your call.

http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=VG-WINTVPP2
$86

-WD
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I was trying to figure out if this really was a PVR-250.

The specs make it appear to be a PVR-250 OEM, but nowhere on the page
does it say that it is a PVR-250... in fact, it is always referred to
PVR-II ... But if it was a PVR-250, it would have hardware encoding.

Will, are you sure this is a PVR-250?

Thanks,

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Miller [mailto:miller44@optonline.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 12:35 AM
To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] MythTV shopping list

That isn't a hardware encoding card is it? If so that wouldn't do any
good, hed still need a new mobo/cpu and at that price there are cheaper
tv-cards which are more than adequate.

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Will Dormann
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 11:17 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] MythTV shopping list

At 04:18 PM 7/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I'll second that. Either buy a faster processor (could get expensive,
>because you'd probably need a new motherboard as well) or get the
>Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. It's about $125 if you find a good deal. Maybe
>you can get a CPU + board for cheaper that has the horse power to do
>software encoding. Your call.

http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=VG-WINTVPP2
$86

-WD
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What are the differences between the WinTV PCI II and the WinTV PVR 250?
They seem to be distinctly different products. Are they both fully
supported under Linux?

--
Brian

>
>http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=VG-WINTVPP2
>$86
>
>-WD
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>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

--
Brian Hayward

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Thanks for all the replies.

I might take the opportunity to upgrade my desktop and use it as my myth
box. It's a 1GHz Thunderbird. That should work, right?

What do most people do for remotes?

-Rob
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I have a 1.2 Duron and using default settings (480x480) half the time I
Watch LiveTV, it has "puases" in it every 10-35 seconds. But then there
are times when I can watch live tv without any issues at all. *shrug*

From my experience, I'd say go with a faster CPU than a 1.2 Duron even.
I'm sure with tweaking, I can get it to run fine with that CPU though.

--
Brian

>Thanks for all the replies.
>
>I might take the opportunity to upgrade my desktop and use it as my myth
>box. It's a 1GHz Thunderbird. That should work, right?
>
>What do most people do for remotes?
>
>-Rob
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

--
Brian Hayward

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At 07:38 PM 7/20/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>I have a 1.2 Duron and using default settings (480x480) half the time I
>Watch LiveTV, it has "puases" in it every 10-35 seconds. But then there
>are times when I can watch live tv without any issues at all. *shrug*
>
> >From my experience, I'd say go with a faster CPU than a 1.2 Duron even.
>I'm sure with tweaking, I can get it to run fine with that CPU though.

I am running a 1.1Ghz Duron with a cheap ECS motherboard and 384 MB of RAM
and a PVR 250 card and it runs seamlessly on the newer versions. Pre-.10 I
was having the occasional jitter problem on live TV but recordings were
always great. Now everything is great. I'm still on OSS sound drivers too
and a GeForce2 MX board for TV out.

-Jeff


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Right, but I think he was going to EITHER get a 1.0 OR get a PVR-250, not
both. With your gf2 MX, how did you get around the black borders on your
TV screen?

--
Brian

>At 07:38 PM 7/20/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>I have a 1.2 Duron and using default settings (480x480) half the time I
>>Watch LiveTV, it has "puases" in it every 10-35 seconds. But then there
>>are times when I can watch live tv without any issues at all. *shrug*
>>
>> >From my experience, I'd say go with a faster CPU than a 1.2 Duron even.
>>I'm sure with tweaking, I can get it to run fine with that CPU though.
>
>I am running a 1.1Ghz Duron with a cheap ECS motherboard and 384 MB of RAM
>and a PVR 250 card and it runs seamlessly on the newer versions. Pre-.10 I
>was having the occasional jitter problem on live TV but recordings were
>always great. Now everything is great. I'm still on OSS sound drivers too
>and a GeForce2 MX board for TV out.
>
>-Jeff
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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>

--
Brian Hayward

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At 08:30 AM 7/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Right, but I think he was going to EITHER get a 1.0 OR get a PVR-250, not
>both. With your gf2 MX, how did you get around the black borders on your
>TV screen?

Proc are cheap and the 250 is such high quality and comes with a great
remote, its hard not to recommend it to someone buying parts to build a
system. I think my system was sub $500 in parts. I have black border on
the left, only minimally, so I've never bothered with how to correct it, I
don't notice any anymore...

-Jeff


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> On 20030721.0830, hayward@slothmud.org said ...
>
> >I am running a 1.1Ghz Duron with a cheap ECS motherboard and 384 MB of RAM
> >and a PVR 250 card and it runs seamlessly on the newer versions. Pre-.10 I
> >was having the occasional jitter problem on live TV but recordings were
> >always great. Now everything is great. I'm still on OSS sound drivers too
> >and a GeForce2 MX board for TV out.
> >
> >-Jeff
>
> Right, but I think he was going to EITHER get a 1.0 OR get a PVR-250, not
> both. With your gf2 MX, how did you get around the black borders on your
> TV screen?
>
> --
> Brian

I'm starting to see the value of getting both a better processor and a
tv card that can do encoding in hardware, now. :)

There's a $30 coupon right now from Outpost/Fry's...
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3427423#rebate

Is there any reason to spend the extra $90 or so and get the PVR-350?

Will MythTV work with digital cable systems?

I appreciate all the feedback.

-Rob

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