[mythtv-users] New User System Setup Questions

[Cedar McKay]

>
> 1. I currently use medium settings on tivo to record programs and have
> no problem with that. Does anyone know the medium setting resolution
> on tivo? If so, approximately how many hours in MythTV could a 80gb
> hard drive use? (Assuming 70gb available after MP3 and OS)
>


googled for this. Can't vouch for accuracy:

Tivo:
Best Quality
544x480
5800.00 kbps
None

High Quality
480x480
3500.00 kbps
SVCD

Medium Quality
352x480
2600.00 kbps
VCD

Basic Quality
352x480
1470.00 kbps
VCD


Many people record at 640x480 which outshines even Tivo's "Best 
Quality". I personally use 480x480, 3300 kbps (scaled) and mpg4 quality 
setting of 2-12. I couldn't personally tell this apart from 640x480, 
but maybe my tv isn't good enough (though it looks great to me!). By 
the way, "scaled" means that if you set mythtv to record at 3300 kbps 
at 640x480, then back off to 480x480, the bit rate will be reduced 
proportionally. Upshot is that if you are recording at 480x480 you are 
not really doing 3300 kbps. Anywho, the end result is the picture looks 
awesome, much, much better than my friend's Tivo at "medium". You will 
not be disappointed. Oh, my files weigh in at 1.1 Gig per hour.



Your question about recording and watching at the same time: I couldn't 
tell what exactly you meant. So I'll just tell you how it is. Mythtv 
can record one stream per tuner card. It can also play one stream at 
the same time  (assuming you have backend and frontend on one machine. 
"Live" tv is really just recording a stream, and then playing the same 
stream right away. So while your tuner is recording a stream you can a) 
watch that stream (ie "live" tv), or b)watch a different, prerecorded 
stream. Finally, if you have two tuners you can record two streams at a 
time and watch one of them, or a different prerecorded stream. That 
make sense? My *guess* is that a 2ghz celeron could handle two tuners, 
but I'm not sure.

Finally, easy factor: If you are careful to pick motherboards, nics, 
sound cards (or a motherboard with those built in) tuners, and graphics 
cards carefully they will all pretty much just plug and play. And the 
software is pretty easy to install if you carefully follow the docs at 
www.mythtv.org/docs/ and you *read every word*. If you don't do enough 
research (the lists are a good place to start) before you buy, you will 
have to slam your head against the biggest hurdles that people seem to 
run into when installing mythtv, namely hardware issues. The four 
biggies seem to be sound cards without full duplex support, graphics 
cards without xv support, tv-out issues (I use and external converter 
that works great) and tuners which auto-detect as the wrong type. Look 
over the lists, pick what people have been having good luck with, and 
go to town.


best,


cedar