[mythtv-users] Nebula DigiTV advice

Stephen Longhurst steve at longsteve.com
Thu May 6 05:59:09 EDT 2004


Hi,

I've been setting up a MythTV machine myself using Gentoo recently.
Below are the things I had to thing about, I hope they are of some
use.

> I am planning on putting a mini-ITX Gentoo-based MythTV box together in
> a few weeks and was just wanting to check that my choices of hardware 
> were good.
I would recommend getting a motherboard that will work with
lm-sensors, so you can do things like monitor the temperatures inside
and case.  That gives you a nice feeling, especially if you're putting
the system into something small what might get hotter than normal.
However, there are some patches you need to apply to a 2.4 kernel
i2c subsystem in order to get lm-sensors and bttv working together
(details here http://delvare.nerim.net/i2c/), but if you try a 2.6
kernel this won't be a problem.

Also try and find a motherboard that supports a BIOS alarm wakeup
feature.  This means that MythTV can shut the machine down, but set an
alarm that will wake it up again before the next scheduled recording.
The Abit IC7-G I have works using nvram-wakeup, but it needs to be
rebooted before a wakeup setting will take effect.  This requires a
somewhat inelegant solution of GRUB config switching and automatically
rebooting and shutting down, but it does work!  It would be better to
find a motherboard that works with ACPI or nvram-wakeup and doesn't
require a reboot for the settings to take effect.

> Having googled and looked through this mailing list, I was thinking that
> the Nebula DigiTV card would be the one to go for (I am in the UK and so
> will be able to make use of the free-to-air digital signal). it seems
> that the DigiTV card works ok under Linux (using the 2.6 
> kernel...correct?).
I've got the DigiTV working fine using Gentoo with a stock 2.4.26
kernel with patches from www.bytesex.org, bttv 0.9.15 and linuxtv-dvb
1.1.1. I was having some problems getting it to play happily with a a
PVR-250 and PVR-350, until last night when things magically seemed to
work! I had to make sure the ivtv drivers for the pvrs are loaded
first, then the dvb drivers afterwards.

I like the DigiTV because it has a passthrough RF connector, so my
aerial lead goes into the card, then out again and into my Digital TV.
I can turn this to a different channel than the card, and thus record
one digital channel whilst watching another.

> Has anyone had any luck getting the remote control to work?
I've not yet tried, but it comes with an All-In-One learning remote,
so it should hopefully be programmable to perform all manor of
actions.

Cheers,

       Steve

-- 
Stephen Longhurst
steve at longsteve.com



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