[mythtv-users] Introduction & Questions

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003, at 13:58 US/Pacific, Todd D. Woodward wrote:

> My name is Todd Woodward, and I'm in Oregon, U.S.A. By way of 
> introduction let
> me tell you my current situation in a long, boring and tedious message.

Jarod Wilson, Seattle, WA. :)

> Here are the capabilities of our ideal PVR system (although getting 
> there in
> steps in just fine):

MythTV can do everything you're after, and then some.

> After doing some homework reading here and there (including Mark 
> Cooper's
> excellent how-to)

Actually, Mark Cooper only maintains the pvrhw site. He hasn't written 
a HOWTO that I'm aware of. One of the new co-admins did write one 
though (that would be me)...

> here is the system I'm thinking of starting with using MythTV:
>
> ASUS Pundit
> 2.6Ghz Celeron
> 512Mb RAM
> WinTV PVR 350
> 200Gb HD
> CD-RW/DVD-ROM
>
> This is a starter system (est. between $600-$700), so this system will 
> only
> record one program at a time, and can't burn DVD's. However, it can be 
> upgraded
> to include an additional PVR 350 and a DVD burner as the system proves 
> itself
> and as money becomes "available".

A very solid starter system. Don't get an additional 350 though, that's 
a waste of money. For the second card, get a 250 (or the OEM version 
off eBay). And only get the first 350 over a 250 if you intend to use 
the 350's TV-out.

> Being more of a BSD, UNIX, RISC kind of guy, I have a few questions if 
> y'all
> don't mind:
>
> * Is the Celeron powerful enough for such a system, or would a full P4 
> be
> better? (I would think it would be enough considering the offloading of
> encoding/decoding tasks to the PVR 350. But what about MPEG-4 codecs 
> that the
> PVR doesn't handle?) Is the Celeron enough if my proposed system is 
> both
> frontend and backend together in one system?

A Celeron 2.6 is plenty. Especially if you're using a hardware encoder 
card like the PVR-350, and even more so if you intend to use the 350's 
onboard decoder/TV-Out. For reference, I was running a dual tuner 
system with one hardware encoder and one software encoder on an Athlon 
XP 1700 without any problems.

> *Am I right in concluding that the Pundit's front panel memory card 
> reader isn't
> working right in Linux yet or in MythTV?

Correct. The issue is the lack of Linux support for the card reader, so 
it isn't something MythTV can do anything about just yet, I believe.

> * AAC isn't supported yet?

As in AAC audio files, playable via MythMusic? No, I believe they are 
not yet supported (unless I missed something in the 0.12 release notes).

> * I would assume that a MythTV based system would work just like a 
> DVD/CD
> player...Stick in the CD, press play, and away you go, right?

More or less. You have to load up either the MythMusic module for an 
audio CD or the MythDVD module to watch a DVD, then press play.

> * Is the process of creating/burning VCD's and DVD's handled through 
> MythTV?

That's the ultimate goal. I'm not certain anymore how far down that 
path things are just yet though.

> Thank for taking the time to consider and answer my questions...I'm 
> excited
> about what MythTV has to offer and hope I can contribute to it's 
> development and
> growth.

Welcome to the party!

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
     http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
MythTV, Red Hat Linux 9 & ATrpms documentation:
     http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250
MythTV Searchable Mailing List Archive
     http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/
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