[mythtv-users] Dream System .... almost

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Friday 21 November 2003 12:17, Mark Gardner wrote:
> Ok... I've had quite a bit of Linux experience but in some regards I
> still find myself no better off than a newbie except for the fact
> that I can usually find the documentation that I need.
>
> Here's the Existing Hardware that I have
> PIII 550
> 256 RAM
>
> No Video
> 40 GIG HD
>
> The sole purpose of the machine will be to run myth TV.  After
> checking out freePVR and a few others I have decided (well my wife
> decided) that MythTv has the best feature set for us.
>
> So my question is what is the best distribution to run MythTv on, and
> What is best Video Card to Run.
>
> In the near future I'll be getting a new MOBO with a 1.3 PROC. So the
> video card needs to be good but not necessarily compatible with the
> PIII MOBO


Hmm, so many variables when choosing hardware, but if I were you, I'd 
probably keep the PIII-550 and use the cash I would've spent on a cpu/
mobo + memory (assuming you were going to leave the PIII machine intact 
w/memory) and spend it on a PVR-350 and a big(ger) hard disk.  If it's 
going to be a dedicated Myth box, you might not even need a video card 
except temporarily while you're setting the system up (depends on your 
mobo; some BIOS/mobos won't boot if they don't detect a video adapter).  
After that, Myth (and X) can use the PVR-350's TV-out.  The scuttlebut 
is that the picture quality on the PVR-350's TV-out is better than any 
video card you could get.  Since all encoding & decoding would be done 
in hardware, the PIII-550 should be more than able to handle things.  
The only problem you might run into is playing DVDs, as the major 
players (mplayer, xine, ogle) don't support the PVR-350's decoding yet 
AFAIK, but they likely will in the not-too-distant future.

Oh, and if your current mobo is based on any of the Via KT-XXX chipsets, 
ignore everything I've said, as there are chipset "issues" that prevent 
the PVR-x50 cards from existing peacefully in such systems.

That's my $0.02.

-JAC