I now have a fully dedicated MythTV box running in my living room. Here’s its lovely specs: dual Hauppauge PVR-150 for input (that’s two channels simultaneously) with a remote, a 256 Mb PCIe 16x video card with component video out to my TV. The box does has a hi-def 7.1 sound system, but I don’t have a sound system to handle it, so it’s just doing the regular two-channel audio. The box runs on an Pentium 4 3.06 GHz (With HyperThreading) and a half gig of DDR2 RAM (running single-channel). It has a 250Gb SATA drive for storage (approximately 200 hours). Also, it boasts an 18x DVD burner for ripping and burning DVDs thanks to MythDVD and MythArchive. The system itself runs on Ubuntu 6.10 and MythTV 0.20 with a working lirc input for remote control usage. Also, I have MythWeb installed on the box for (secured) remote access.
In addition to being a dedicated Myth box (frontend for the living room and only backend), the box also doubles as the new server through DynamicDNS. I need to finish moving everything over to it (as it is replacing my normal computer as the main outlet for the web because it is hard-wired onto the network (hence, no problems with wifi), but it will contain all of my public SVN repositories, as well as hosting working copies of all of my projects. Internally, it will be my testing server for my offline replicas of the sites that I maintain (for backups and testing). I have also configured everything so that my own personal computer (which is running a Debian install) also serves as a frontend to the MythTV box, so that I can access and watch things from the Myth box.
Lastly, I have wired my living room electronics so that there is an additional cable connection to my VCR and TV, allowing me to record 2 channels on the Myth box, while also watching or recording a third on the VCR. I may re-wire it so that I can have a fourth output to the TV so that I can record to the VCR while also watching on the TV. Yes, that’s major TV watching, which I doubt I’ll never do, but it’s a possibility, mainly for completeness’s sake.
Tag Archive for 'mythtv'
i want to build a MythBox. Looking at the harware requirements/suggestions, it would cost under $500 (price is mainly the TV tuner card) to record one show and watch another… Why get TiVo (which is $200 plus the subscription) when you can build a MythBox ($100 - $500, depending on need, sales, equipment, etc) without any kind of subscription. This is the setup i’m looking at:
MicroATX motherboard and case (to keep space requirements to a minimum) with an Athlon64 processor (even though a P3/P4 will also work). 512Mb of RAM, 100Gb SATA hard drive (although IDE is acceptable), a 128Mb video card with TV-out. Sound and ethernet are on-board (and, since this box will be next to the router, no wireless is needed). A Wireless keyboard and mouse will be around for direct access. It will sport two WinTV PVR-150 tuner cards (with its own hardware decoder to move that processing off of the CPU) with a remote. MythTV also has a plugin that consists of serveral emulators (MAME for the arcarde games, NES and SNES) as well as a DVD ripper and RSS reader. The more i think about it, the more i think this box will not only be a MythBox, but also the publicly accessible web server (which is currently running on my own computer) and router/firewall for the rest of the home network (i.e. DHCP server).
For under $500, it will be a good deal (in the long run) because (1) no TiVo subscriptions, (2) reusable, (3) powerful enough to perform its job without bogging down (and the Athlon64 chipset has the PowerNow throttling ability), (4) expandable (having 1-3 extra PCI slots means having 1-3 more tuners…and that means recording up to 4 shows at once while still playing “live” TV….also having another SATA port means having room for another hard drive, as well as being able to upgrade the current 100Gb one), and (5) OpenSource, active development (more goodies in the future).
Talk
thainamu
Chris Martin
Wilson, Rick, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad
christopher, Jeffrey Rodriguez
pfunked, christopher, pfunked
Jasen