Mailing List Archive

I'm sure there's *tons* of info in the mailing list archives about both
of these barebone kits as they seem to be the two most popular. As an
Shuttle owner, I can say that the TV out works just fine under Linux, as
does the on-board audio. Setting up Myth on the shuttle was a fairly
painless process, and I collected some detailed notes about installation
available here: http://stealthboy.dyndns.org/~msherman/pvr_howto.php.
I have the SS40G, which is slightly different (mine has the SiS chips).


Saravanan Subbiah wrote:

> I am thinking of building myself a PVR with mythtv. I am now debating
> between these two bare bone m/c. I want to make it cheap. So I am
> planning to use the built in TV outs.
>
> How is the quality of the built in TV outs in these systems ? How is the
> linux support for these ?
>
> In what ways is one better than the other ? Which one would you guys
> recommend ?
>
> Is there anyother system that I should look into before deciding ?
>
> thanks a lot for all inputs.
> -Saravan
>
>

--
Michael J. Sherman | Software Developer | Digital Sandbox, Inc.
"There are 10 types of people in the world - those who know binary
and those who don't"

I own a pundit, and have built and debugged many a shuttle, so I'll try
to give them as equal credit as I can.

My guess is that you'd be happy with either system. The shuttle is a
little large and it's easier to get at the PCI slots. It's also
probably a little better for heat distribution around the drives (though
the heat from the drives then blows over the CPU heatsink). Linux
support for the shuttles is excellent. Haven't tested the TV out, but
I'm sure it's fine.

The pundit is probably the quietest PC case on the market at the
moment. When idle, the fans spin at 50-60 rpm's - slow enough that you
can almost read the text on the stickers. The CPU fan draws air in
straight from the outside, so it's going to get better cooling than the
shuttle. However, it blows this air straight into where the drives are,
so it's a tradeoff. The pundit also only has one IDE channel, so unless
you put in an ATA-66 optical drive (or ATA-100 if you can even find
one), your hard drive will be stuck at ATA-33. Linux support isn't so
great for the pundit, but then again, they have more features.
Basically, you have to compile your own ethernet driver (they include
linux code on the CD), and the flash card reader does not work (it *may*
work, but no one has been able to figure out how so far). Video out is
great, especially when using the latest vid drivers from
http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsis630.shtml (which you'd probably also
want for the SiS-based shuttles)

All in all, I like both systems. I personally prefer the pundit for a
myth box (mainly becuase it's quieter, and looks really nice next to my
sony tv - they match), but I wouldn't hesitate to choose a shuttle as my
next desktop machine (especially the new Intel 875 chipset one).

-Chris

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The other thing that you may want to take into account is that the newer
XPCs only have one pci slot (so far as I can tell, going by the
website). And the older XPCs have a slower bus/memory speed. It may not
matter for you. It made the decision for me.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Petersen [mailto:lists@forevermore.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:15 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Asus Pundit vs. Shuttle XPC SK41G

I own a pundit, and have built and debugged many a shuttle, so I'll try
to give them as equal credit as I can.

My guess is that you'd be happy with either system. The shuttle is a
little large and it's easier to get at the PCI slots. It's also
probably a little better for heat distribution around the drives (though
the heat from the drives then blows over the CPU heatsink). Linux
support for the shuttles is excellent. Haven't tested the TV out, but
I'm sure it's fine.

The pundit is probably the quietest PC case on the market at the
moment. When idle, the fans spin at 50-60 rpm's - slow enough that you
can almost read the text on the stickers. The CPU fan draws air in
straight from the outside, so it's going to get better cooling than the
shuttle. However, it blows this air straight into where the drives are,
so it's a tradeoff. The pundit also only has one IDE channel, so unless
you put in an ATA-66 optical drive (or ATA-100 if you can even find
one), your hard drive will be stuck at ATA-33. Linux support isn't so
great for the pundit, but then again, they have more features.
Basically, you have to compile your own ethernet driver (they include
linux code on the CD), and the flash card reader does not work (it *may*
work, but no one has been able to figure out how so far). Video out is
great, especially when using the latest vid drivers from
http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsis630.shtml (which you'd probably also
want for the SiS-based shuttles)

All in all, I like both systems. I personally prefer the pundit for a
myth box (mainly becuase it's quieter, and looks really nice next to my
sony tv - they match), but I wouldn't hesitate to choose a shuttle as my
next desktop machine (especially the new Intel 875 chipset one).

-Chris

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

At 04:42 AM 7/24/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>I am thinking of building myself a PVR with mythtv. I am now debating
>between these two bare bone m/c. I want to make it cheap. So I am
>planning to use the built in TV outs.
>
>How is the quality of the built in TV outs in these systems ? How is the
>linux support for these ?

The TV-out on the Pundit is pretty good. For an all-in-one, cheap
solution it works fine. Just use theWinischhofer sis drivers.

If you want better quality TV-out, I think a Geforce card will work better.
The CPU usage with XV is lower, and MythTV will support the Experimental
AV sync option.

-WD

> If you want better quality TV-out, I think a Geforce card will work better.
> The CPU usage with XV is lower, and MythTV will support the Experimental
> AV sync option.

How exactly do you plug a Geforce card into a pundit? It has no AGP
slot.

Speaking of tv-out on the pundit, does anyone know how to stretch the
output? I finally bothered to adjust the xpos/ypos stuff to center my
image on the tv screen, but there is still a small border on the left
and right hand sides, and an overscan on the top and bottom.

-Chris

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

>The pundit also only has one IDE channel, so unless
>you put in an ATA-66 optical drive (or ATA-100 if you can even find
>one), your hard drive will be stuck at ATA-33.

This is incorrect. In the past this may have been true, but for any modern
PC (including the Pundit) this is not the case. Your HD may slow down
while you are *simultaneously* using the optical drive on the same IDE
channel, but when it's not in use the HD will support speeds up to its
specifications.

>Linux support isn't so
>great for the pundit, but then again, they have more features.
>Basically, you have to compile your own ethernet driver (they include
>linux code on the CD),

Didn't have to do anything funky to get it to work with Gentoo. The
ethernet worked fine, right off of the bootable CD-ROM. (Otherwise, I
probably wouldn't have been able to install the OS!). I'm not sure how
other distros fare, though.


-WD

At 10:13 AM 7/24/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>How exactly do you plug a Geforce card into a pundit? It has no AGP
>slot.

Get a PCI Geforce. The AGP versions probably wouldn't fit too well. :)


-WD

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 01:21:18PM -0400, Will Dormann wrote:
> Your HD may slow down
> while you are *simultaneously* using the optical drive on the same IDE
> channel, but when it's not in use the HD will support speeds up to its
> specifications.
>

In this context, I have wondered, is there any advantage in going SCSI
for mythtv?

--
Lan Barnes lan@falleagle.net
Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616

People in the government, very much so in the Justice Department,
have been playing out a lust for information that is not consistent
with who we have been as a nation.
- Dick Armey

> In this context, I have wondered, is there any advantage in going SCSI
> for mythtv?

Honestly, there's no advantage of going with SCSI for anything these
days. I work for a company that builds high-end servers, and the SCSI
systems give us WAY more trouble than the IDE ones. Speed advantages
can be overcome by the new 10krpm ide drives, and though the drives
themselves may be more stable (it's arguable), scsi controllers
(particularly the u320 ones) are not. And then you have the whole cost
thing... If you want to get the "good" (ie. fast) system, go for the
10krpm SATA drives.

I'm still wary of the single-channel IDE. I experienced quite a bit of
video skipping when my optical drive was plugged in (never used), and it
went away as soon as I unplugged it.

-Chris

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

At 10:52 AM 7/24/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 01:21:18PM -0400, Will Dormann wrote:
>> Your HD may slow down
>> while you are *simultaneously* using the optical drive on the same IDE
>> channel, but when it's not in use the HD will support speeds up to its
>> specifications.
>>
>
>In this context, I have wondered, is there any advantage in going SCSI
>for mythtv?

Not really, no. The data being transferred to the HD is already
compressed, so the data transer and I/O requirements are not all that high.

As MythTV is concerned, a fast CPU and a good, solid PCI bus implementation
are more important than a high-end (expensive) SCSI disk unit.

-WD

P.S. In case I wasn't clear with my previous comment, the point was that
modern IDE controllers use distinct timings for the master and slave
devices. That is, your HD will run at full speed regardless of whether or
not your CD-ROM drive happens to be (only) ATA-33.

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 11:00:36AM -0700, Chris Petersen wrote:
> > In this context, I have wondered, is there any advantage in going SCSI
> > for mythtv?
>
> Honestly, there's no advantage of going with SCSI for anything these
> days. I work for a company that builds high-end servers, and the SCSI
> systems give us WAY more trouble than the IDE ones. Speed advantages
> can be overcome by the new 10krpm ide drives, and though the drives
> themselves may be more stable (it's arguable), scsi controllers
> (particularly the u320 ones) are not. And then you have the whole cost
> thing... If you want to get the "good" (ie. fast) system, go for the
> 10krpm SATA drives.
>
> I'm still wary of the single-channel IDE. I experienced quite a bit of
> video skipping when my optical drive was plugged in (never used), and it
> went away as soon as I unplugged it.
>

Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I wish (fervently) that I had a deeper
understanding of HW issues. What I hear you saying (you may correct me)
is that modern IDE is fully as fast as SCSI for mythtv (appliance) use,
but to get a multichannel MB and hang the drives on different channels.

Good to know.

--
Lan Barnes lan@falleagle.net
Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616

Building tomorrow, the night before, with yesterday's technology.
- Motto over frustrated engineer's desk

> This is incorrect. In the past this may have been true, but for any modern
> PC (including the Pundit) this is not the case. Your HD may slow down
> while you are *simultaneously* using the optical drive on the same IDE
> channel, but when it's not in use the HD will support speeds up to its
> specifications.

I just checked this with our main technical guy and he assures me that
this is still the case. I trust his opinion, since he often spends his
days debugging hard drive issues, and mentioned that we deal with this
particular issue in many of the servers that we build because the low
profile CD drives we use are only ATA-33, and often need to share the
channel with one of the server's main drives - forcing it down to the
slower speed.

The problem basically comes down to the fact that the master and slave
drives need to communicate with each other (so they know which info is
meant for which drive, presumably), as well as with the controller, so
they all have to speak the same language. Thus, if your optical drive
doesn't support UDMA, or doesn't support DMA, the controller can't speak
UDMA or DMA or whatever, and it reverts to a slower protocol.

Anyway, I'm sure there is technical documentation for this online
somewhere, but as I said, I've seen this first-hand in my own pundit.
The hard drive (and thus the machine itself) runs noticeably slower with
an ATA-33 cdrw plugged into it.

-Chris

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

> Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I wish (fervently) that I had a deeper
> understanding of HW issues. What I hear you saying (you may correct me)
> is that modern IDE is fully as fast as SCSI for mythtv (appliance) use,
> but to get a multichannel MB and hang the drives on different channels.

It's a rather confusing topic, especially since IDE is changing (moving
from parallel ATA to serial ATA) pretty quickly at the moment.
Basically, on a single-drive basis, SCSI is still probably faster.
However, on an enterprise level (ie. RAID cards), you can get IDE
systems that perform ALMOST as fast as SCSI systems, but cost
significantly less, and are actually more reliable.

Anyway, it's basically all overkill for mythtv stuff. ATA-66 should be
plenty fast for myth, since ata-33 is still faster than printing raw
video (though with myth needing random access for encoding, it's not
QUITE fast enough for myth). If you want to speed up your IDE, don't do
the master-slave thing, just put one drive on each channel. Or better
yet, use serial ATA (only allows one drive per channel, anyway).

-Chris

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

For a performance comparison on SCSI versus Serial ATA (Serial SCSI is not
covered), take a look at the July 21 2003 (Issue 28) issue of InfoWorld,
pages 28-32.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/07/18/28TCsatadrives_1.html?s=tc

The magazine article contains a chart that the online version of the article
does not contain. Compared to the four SATA drives tested, the
representative SCSI drive, a MAS3735NP, bested all of the serial ATA drives
in I/O operations per second for each of the tests conducted. Only under
sustained moderate and high loads did the SCSI drive show a price advantage
however, with the higher IOPS capability lowering it's overall cost per I/O
operation. The SCSI drive did have the highest sustained throughput of all
the drives. But for those of you thinking a SCSI drive would help to fill a
Gigabit pipe, the Max Transfer rate of the SCSI drive was still only around
600Mbit/Sec. The reference SCSI drive also had the highest price per
megabyte of all the tested drives.

Given the single user defintion of most of our entertainment systems the
price premium for a SCSI drive just doesn't make sense. It is a little
less I/O intensive on the main CPU than is IDE, but not enough that most of
us would realize it, given some of the other bottlenecks that we have to
deal with on the CODEC encode/decode front.

'Pulley

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Lan Barnes
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 2:21 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Asus Pundit vs. Shuttle XPC SK41G


On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 11:00:36AM -0700, Chris Petersen wrote:
> > In this context, I have wondered, is there any advantage in going SCSI
> > for mythtv?
>
> Honestly, there's no advantage of going with SCSI for anything these
> days. I work for a company that builds high-end servers, and the SCSI
> systems give us WAY more trouble than the IDE ones. Speed advantages
> can be overcome by the new 10krpm ide drives, and though the drives
> themselves may be more stable (it's arguable), scsi controllers
> (particularly the u320 ones) are not. And then you have the whole cost
> thing... If you want to get the "good" (ie. fast) system, go for the
> 10krpm SATA drives.
>
> I'm still wary of the single-channel IDE. I experienced quite a bit of
> video skipping when my optical drive was plugged in (never used), and it
> went away as soon as I unplugged it.
>

Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I wish (fervently) that I had a deeper
understanding of HW issues. What I hear you saying (you may correct me)
is that modern IDE is fully as fast as SCSI for mythtv (appliance) use,
but to get a multichannel MB and hang the drives on different channels.

Good to know.

--
Lan Barnes lan@falleagle.net
Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616

Building tomorrow, the night before, with yesterday's technology.
- Motto over frustrated engineer's desk

At 11:22 AM 7/24/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>I just checked this with our main technical guy and he assures me that
>this is still the case.

Well, then we'll just have to agree to disagree then. This could
*possibly* be the case with some mis-behaved or ancient drives, and/or a
brain-dead EIDE controller, but as a general rule there should be no
problem with having the HD and CD-ROM device on the same controller. Make
sure you've got a good 80-conductor cable, but also take a look at
jumpering. I've heard of some devices "perferring" master/slave as opposed
to cable select and vice-versa.
Anyway, check this Seagate doc. It clearly indicates that ATA/66 and
ATA/33 devices can share the same cable, each operating at their own max
speed.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ultra_ata_66.html#8

On my Pundit system, I have an ATA-33 optical drive and an ATA-100 HD on
the same controller. hdparm -t shows that the *sustained* transfer rate
for the HD is over 40MB/sec. I'm not sure of a way to test burst speed
offhand, but regardless, if the sustained rate is over 33MB/sec I'm sure
the drive is not being downgraded to ATA-33 speed due to the optical drive.

Maybe I should tack on a "YMMV" to my statement, but to flat-out say that
an ATA33 optical drive on the same cable will slow your HD down to ATA33
speeds is wrong.

-WD

I trust his opinion, since he often spends his
>days debugging hard drive issues, and mentioned that we deal with this
>particular issue in many of the servers that we build because the low
>profile CD drives we use are only ATA-33, and often need to share the
>channel with one of the server's main drives - forcing it down to the
>slower speed.
>
>The problem basically comes down to the fact that the master and slave
>drives need to communicate with each other (so they know which info is
>meant for which drive, presumably), as well as with the controller, so
>they all have to speak the same language. Thus, if your optical drive
>doesn't support UDMA, or doesn't support DMA, the controller can't speak
>UDMA or DMA or whatever, and it reverts to a slower protocol.
>
>Anyway, I'm sure there is technical documentation for this online
>somewhere, but as I said, I've seen this first-hand in my own pundit.
>The hard drive (and thus the machine itself) runs noticeably slower with
>an ATA-33 cdrw plugged into it.
>
>-Chris
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>

Just finished basic install on Pundit (Pundit / PVR250) -All and all it was
pretty painless (about 4 hours), however a major gotcha is that there are no
NIC drivers in stock RH9 install disks. A simple workaround is to use a
standard pcmcia NIC for installation and kernel upgrade, then install the
Broadcom drivers.

There is still a question of how functional SPDIF is and as far as I know,
flash media reader is not supported.

Video out (I am using S-Video) is pretty clear. Much better than my GeForce2
card's

I took off the stand and put the unit on it's side (fan up) and it looks
really nice on top of Sony DTivo (also silver), except the blue power light
is a bit too bright for my taste.

-M

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael J. Sherman" <msherman@dsbox.com>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 6:21 AM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Asus Pundit vs. Shuttle XPC SK41G


>
> I'm sure there's *tons* of info in the mailing list archives about both
> of these barebone kits as they seem to be the two most popular. As an
> Shuttle owner, I can say that the TV out works just fine under Linux, as
> does the on-board audio. Setting up Myth on the shuttle was a fairly
> painless process, and I collected some detailed notes about installation
> available here: http://stealthboy.dyndns.org/~msherman/pvr_howto.php.
> I have the SS40G, which is slightly different (mine has the SiS chips).
>
>
> Saravanan Subbiah wrote:
>
> > I am thinking of building myself a PVR with mythtv. I am now debating
> > between these two bare bone m/c. I want to make it cheap. So I am
> > planning to use the built in TV outs.
> >
> > How is the quality of the built in TV outs in these systems ? How is the
> > linux support for these ?
> >
> > In what ways is one better than the other ? Which one would you guys
> > recommend ?
> >
> > Is there anyother system that I should look into before deciding ?
> >
> > thanks a lot for all inputs.
> > -Saravan
> >
> >
>
> --
> Michael J. Sherman | Software Developer | Digital Sandbox, Inc.
> "There are 10 types of people in the world - those who know binary
> and those who don't"
>
>


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