[mythtv-users] two and one

[hobbes at gnrac.net]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adam Hirsch" <mythtv at quakerporn.com>

> 1) I'm curious as to what brings people to try out MythTV.  Is it the geeky
> pleasure of building something oneself?  Is it wanting to be independent
> from TiVo's feature control or fate?  Is it cost?  Is it the extra features
> that one can't get from the commercial PVRs out there?

I started out wanting to build my own box to play mp3's through my stereo, 
along with NES/SNES/PS emulation to replace some of the older consoles crammed 
underneath my TV. After seeing some of the great looking stuff from Myth, I 
remembered the old bt878 card I had around and added TV to the list too.

> Spec'ing out a Athlon/shuttle/WinTV-PVR/IR box, I can't quite seem to make
> it cost less than a TiVo + a year's service, so I'm trying to figure out
> why it's still really alluring to me to try building one.  Figured asking
> why it's alluring to other people might help illustrate it.  

I love tweaking and fiddling with things too, and after comparing the features 
available (or possibly available soon) with the cost of some new hardware, it 
was a pretty easy choice for me to make. Compared to Myth, a Tivo's 
adaptability seems pretty limited to me- for example I'd like to do full house 
distributed video.

> 3) the technical question: I think the Shuttle cases are gorgeous little
> boxes, and am thinking of one as an all-in-one mythtv box.  Anyone had
> experience, good or bad, with using the onboard audio and s-video from
> shuttle in conjunction with mythtv?  (Specifically, audio: Realtek ALC650,
> video: VIA Savage8)  If I could get away with just putting a hauppage card
> in there and not needing a separate gfx or sound board, the machine begins
> to look nice and lean (and more importantly, cooler and cheaper).

I decided to go with a Shuttle SK41G, along with an AMD 2100+ and a generic 
bt878 card that I already had around. Saddly, real life stepped in, and I 
haven't gotten further past the initial install of Debian. (So I couldn't 
answer your 2nd question).

But the reasons I chose it were:
- It's small, very quiet, and looks nice
- Lots of integrated hardware limited the amount of new hardware I had to buy
- The combo of a fast IDE controller, USB 2.0, firewire, and digital audio was 
hard to find in the small form factor I wanted. 

One thing that bugs me a little bit- at the time, I was planning on putting in 
a second tuner at some point in the future. (One of the Matrox AGP hardware 
encoders) IIRC, video quality can be less than with software encoding, or the 
PVR250. So, if I had the chance again, I'd consider the Asus Pundit too, which 
has been mentioned on the list recently.