[mythtv-users] Any benefit of additional backends?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 05/26/2007 07:22 AM, Jake Vickers wrote:
> I have a P4, 2.4G Celeron backend, with 1G of RAM, a 160G HD, a
> PVR-150, and a PVR-500.
> One of my frontends is a Via MII-10000 with a 60G HD. Would there be
> any benefit in making this unit a combo fe/be unit, or would it give
> me issues with watching TV? Mainly asking out of curiosity rather than
> any need of anything. 

I help maintain a system with an Athlon XP 2000+, 512MB RAM, 500GB HD,
and 4xPVR-250's, and is a combined frontend/backend, and that also runs
a web server, FTP server, and a bunch of other junk (that the owner
doesn't want to set up another system to run).  It works great and has
recorded 4 shows while playing back another.

I have a system with 4x pcHDTV HD-3000's, but it's split up into 2
dedicated backends (Athlon XP 2400+ and Athlon XP 2000+).  The only
reason it's not one backend is because my power supply couldn't handle
all 4 HD-3000's.  The only reason I'm using dedicated backends and a
dedicated frontend is because I wanted a very powerful frontend I could
take down whenever I wanted without affecting recording.

A combined frontend/backend running 3 or 4 PVR-x50's won't be a
problem.  For HDTV there are other concerns (i.e. it takes my system >
40 minutes to flag a 30-minute episode of the Simpsons), so having 2
not-so-powerful backends improves flagging performance when I have
multiple recordings occurring.

Mike