Latest revision as of 16:09, 2 May 2013

About me

While my first attempt to build a mythtv box was just 'another try of potentially funny software' I am currently using a fully customized box in my living room. Simply because using the old-fashioned TV with its own built-in tuner is like living in the middle ages :-)

The WAF is high, maybe too high :-| as my girlfriend now 'owns' the MCE remote for this system...

If you have any questions about my contributions to the MythTV wiki I may have some time to answer them: michel at vlet dot net.

About my contributions to the MythTV wiki

My contributions to the MythTV wiki started on this international MythTV wiki. Currently I am also active as a moderator on the Dutch MythTV wiki. The main contributions on this international wiki are about videocards (especially on the AtiProprietaryDriver and NVidiaProprietaryDriver pages I started. Furthermore I contributed to the pages about the TV capture cards from Hauppauge, Hauppauge PVR-150, Hauppauge PVR-500 and Hauppauge WinTV-Go.

Statistics

• Number of shows: 451
• Number of episodes: 2219
• First recording: Monday May 22nd, 2006
• Last recording: Tuesday January 31st, 2012
• Total Running Time: 5 years 8 months 10 days 7 hrs 49 mins
• Total Recorded: 2 months 21 days 23 hrs 12 mins
• Percent of time spent recording: 1%

About my boxes

My MythTV backend

Hardware

• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NS rev. 2.0
• Processor: AMD Sempron64 2600+.
• Memory: 2GB (1x1024MB + 2x512MB DDR400) Kingston ValueRAM.
• Videocard: NVidia GeForce2
• TV-Card: Hauppauge PVR-500 (using the IVTV driver)
• Disks (RAID-1):
  • 2x Hitachi 1TB SATA.
• Optical: Creative Labs 6x-speed DVD-ROM.
• Soundcard: on-board AC97 codec.
• Display: none.

Software

• Distribution: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 (codenamed wheezy, amd64 architecture)
• MythTV 0.26.0

My MythTV frontend

Hardware

• Mainboard: unknown.
• Processor: Intel Pentium4 2.4GHz
• Memory: 1GB (2x 512MB DDR266)
• Videocard: XFX GeForce 6200LE (Low profile)
• Disk: 40GB PATA.
• Optical: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7200A
• Soundcard: Asus Xonar DS 7.1 (Low profile)

• Input devices:
  • Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech Pro 2800 Cordless Desktop
  • Joystick: Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2
  • Remote: Microsoft MCE Remote Control revision #2.

• Display: LG 37LH5000 37" widescreen LCD television (connected to the frontend system using a DVI->HDMI cable)

• Sound: Pioneer DTS receiver (connected to the frontend system using a toslink optical cable)

Software

• Distribution: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 (codenamed wheezy, i386 architecture)
• MythTV 0.26.0

My test MythTV box (backend+frontend) which also serves as my desktop

Hardware

• Mainboard: Gigabyte M56S-S3.
• Processor: Athlon X2 4000+ dual-core.
• Memory: 4GB (DDR2-800, dual-channel)
• Videocard: NVidia GeForce GT610 with 1GB RAM, using the NVidiaProprietaryDriver.
• Disks:
  • System disk: OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB SSD
• Optical: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7173A
• TV-Card: Hauppauge HVR-2200
• Soundcard: Intel HD audio (onboard)
• Display: Iiyama Prolite T2451MTS (multi-touchscreen)
• Remote: BlackBerry Bold 9900 via FreeMote.

Software

• Distribution: Kubuntu 13.04 (Codenamed Raring Ringtail, amd64 architecture)
• MythTV 0.26.0

TV reception

As I live in the Netherlands, I have only choice between a few options. DVB-T is not available in Brielle, so I have to choose between cable and Satellite. I don't want to mount a satellite at my home, so cable is the option I choose.

Read more about UPC on this wiki, and you know why I have stuck with analogue cable via the PVR. And after all: the analogue signal quality is good enough here in our country ;-)