[mythtv-users] New MythTV user

[Shawn Asmussen]

Torsten Schenkel said:
> Am Mo, den 05.01.2004 schrieb Shawn Asmussen um 05:43:
>>
>>
>> Unfortunately, my first appearance here is in the middle of a heated
>> debate that hopefully won’t turn into an all out flamewar… I’m not
>> usually so argumentative, but if you happen to push one of my hot
>> buttons…
>
>> But, on to actual technical stuff…
>
>> I noticed the ‘review my stats’ email somebody put up, so I thought
>> I’d put up a description of how I’m planning on configuring my box and
>> see if anybody saw any particular issues with it.
>
>> I ordered a Dell 400SC, since Dell had it on sale pretty cheap. I
>> could have got it for $300 shipped, but I upgraded to the
>> hyperthreading configuration for an extra $100. I figured $400 was a
>> pretty good deal for a machine that has HT. There’s not much of a
>> video card, but since I’m putting in a PVR-350 for the output, I
>> figured “Who cares, anyway?”
>
> Hmm, what I've heard from DELL machines is not on the quiet side. With
> HT you can't even do a lot about it, since it need the airflow. A
> replacement PSU would be ~20% of the machines total, so not an issue.
>

I thought of that, and checked out the 400SC before I ordered. Since the
400SC is on sale frequently, and is fairly powerful, it is a popular
machine, and has it's own FAQ. I found this entry in the FAQ.

Q: Is the 400SC loud?
A: Definitely not. With a little ambient noise in the room, I can't even
tell if the computer's on or off without looking at the power LED. If the
room were completely quiet, you might be able to hear it... if you put
your ear right next to it!

Of course one person's idea of quiet might vary from the next person's, so
I guess I'll have to wait and see what I think of it after it arrives.

>> Specs:
>
>> Pentium 4 2.4 GHz - 800Mhz FSB (I upgraded to the 800Mhz FSB to get a
>> CPU with hyperthreading)
>>
>> 128MB memory (I can add more later, but it’s too expensive to get it
>> directly from Dell)
>
> Too less, it will work, but you will need swap, and that's loud again.

Yeah, I figured as much. The only reason I didn't order more is that it's
about twice as expensive to order the memory from Dell, as it is to get it
from a 3rd party later and add it myself. A memory upgrade will probably
happen very shortly after I get it. I just figured I'd check out the swap
usage after I got the software installed to get a better idea of exactly
how much memory I needed before I did the upgrade. How much is typical in
most people's MythTV setups?

>
>> 40GB hard drive
>
> That's a little bit too small, especially with high-res mpeg2
> recordings.
>

Yeah, but as mentioned below, I'm only going to add a 2nd drive for data
storage after I get the system up and running.

>> Onboard NIC
>
> No problem
>
>> For the TV tuner, I’ve orderd a WinTV PVR-350. The machine and the PVR
>> card are both scheduled to arrive this week.
>
> Good choice, but especially then the HT is total overkill.

Yeah, I figured that I didn't absolutely need the extra horsepower, but
since it was available relatively inexpensively, I'm thinking
expandability. I'll probably end up running MythGame on it also, and
possibly MythDVD, so the extra CPU could come in handy for transcoding
also. Leaves plenty of room for whatever I end up wanting to do with it.

>>
>> My plan is to start with the basic configuration above, to get the
>> system working. I’ll probably be using either Fedora, or Mandrake but
>> I haven’t decided which way to go now that RedHat is dropping support
>> for their basic product. I’ve been a RedHat user for many years now,
>> and I still haven’t quite figured out what distro to migrate to on all
>> of my boxes yet. The OS will go on the 40GB internal drive, and while
>> I’m getting the system up and running, so will the stored programs.
>> Once I’m up and running however, my plan is to add a SATA drive (The
>> 400SC has onboard SATA), and keep the programs on a separate drive/bus
>> from the OS. Also, that will leave the secondary IDE channel freed up
>> for a DVD burner upgrade later.
>
> OK,
>
>> While I’m getting the whole thing setup, I’m planning on just
>> connecting to my network via the onboard adapter, but once I’m happy
>> with the way it’s setup, I want to move it into the living room, and
>> at that point I would like to put in a PCI or USB wireless adapter and
>> connect that way. Has anybody run MythTV over a wireless network, and
>> if so how well did it work? I figure that 802.11b might be a little
>> bandwidth restrictive if I were to add a second front end sometime in
>> the future, but I’ll be going with 802.11g, which should hopefully be
>> fast enough. That’s just conjecture on my part though, so if anybody
>> has any actual experiences with this, I’d appreciate hearing about it.
>
> 802.11g should be enough. But is there no possibility to run cables?
>

Well, cables aren't absolutely out of the question, but they would be very
undesirable. It's not my house, so putting in outlets, and actually
running cat5 through the walls isn't an option, and there is a baby, a dog
and a cat in the house, so having cables strung through the hallway isn't
an attractive option either. I'm going to setup wireless anyway for my
laptop, so I was thinking that it might be a convenient way to go for the
MythTV box in the living room also.

>
> Torsten
> --
> Walkthrough: MythTV on Epia with PVR350 using Debian:
> http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough
>
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Shawn Asmussen