[mythtv-users] What's the practical limit on capture cards?

[Roger Heflin]

Eric Mesa wrote:
> The following is for a master backend system I wish to build.  I already
> have a combo front/backend using the Hauppauge 500 MCE dual tuner.
> 
> Let's say I had this board: (
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131200 ) which, as
> you can see supports Core 2 Duo.  It also has 4 PCIe slots and 2 PCI slots.
> Now, I want to be able to record ATSC and QAM, so let's say I choose these
> cards ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116016 )
> and ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116009 ) so
> that I can fill all 6 slots.
> 
> So with a Core 2 Due processor, would it be possible to have a six tuner
> setup?  Anyone on the list actually have this many tuners in one box?
> Issues you encountered?
> 
> Thanks,

So long as all of the capture cards have hardware encoders, you will run out of 
slots before you run out of cpu power, a full ATSC stream is only about 
2MBytes/second which even 10 at the same time is pretty simple for just about 
any recent desktop machine to handle.

If they don't have HW encoders (or receive already encoded mpeg2 streams) you 
will run out of cpu with a lot fewer cards.

                           Roger