[GLLUG] MythTV specs

Richard Houser rick at divinesymphony.net
Mon Nov 30 21:05:03 EST 2009


On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Richard Houser <rick at divinesymphony.net> wrote:
> Oops.  Forgot to include everyone else.
>
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 8:56 PM, Richard Houser <rick at divinesymphony.net> wrote:
>> I've been running MythTV for around five years now.  What you want is
>> going to vary based on your other goals for the machine, your
>> recording frequency, how many TVs you want to support, and your
>> available signal sources (recording from OTA, Cable, Satellite, etc?).
>>
>> Assuming you want to use this for OTA/Clear QAM HDTV:
>>
>> AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3 Athlon X2 (absolute minimum, Phenom x3 or x4 highly
>> recommended) 65 watt chip (or equivalent undervolt model)
>> 4GB RAM (personally, I went 8GB and run KVM on the same box)
>> Minimum two modern hard disks (for load), recommend Western Digital
>> 1.0TB Green (if you also want this for file storage/redundancy,
>> consider using part of 4 drives with raid 5)
>> Nvidia video card supporting VDPAU and HDMI (many of these work with
>> onboard graphics, onboard is better as you'll still have an SPDIF
>> channel free)
>> Gigabit Ethernet
>> Supported HDTV tuner (DVICO Fusion7 Dual Express, pcHDTV, etc.)
>>
>> I'm not a fan of the single-purpose distros.  I'm running 0.22
>> instances on Mandriva 2009.1 and 2010.0 at the moment.  I'll probably
>> be off the last of those 2009.1 installs in the next couple weeks.
>> The OS upgrade is trivial, but my MythTV installs were quite old and
>> needed some updates to use all the newest features like storage
>> groups.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 4:13 PM, vanek <vanek at acd.net> wrote:
>>> Ranti Junus wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello All,
>>>>
>>>> I'm thinking about setting up MythTV and have read their documentation
>>>> on their website.
>>>> I wonder if any of you have MythTV and willing to share your HW specs
>>>> and which OS do you use?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> thanks,
>>>> ranti.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Ranti,
>>>
>>> I've been thinking of putting a mythbox together and here's what I've come
>>> up with. You may find some of this useful in your build. Hold on -- this is
>>> going to be a long one.
>>>
>>>
>>> MOTHERBOARD
>>>
>>> MSI 785GM-E65 AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
>>>
>>>  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130233&cm_re=msi_785GM-_-13-130-233-_-Product
>>> This board has all the ports that you may need for a myth box, including
>>> HDMI and optical audio.
>>>
>>> It has one peccadillo, however. Cool'n'Quiet doesn't work on this board with
>>> BIOS Version 2.3. MSI has promised that the next version of the BIOS (2.4)
>>> will fix this. I would probably hold off buying this board until they
>>> release this version of the BIOS, or expect to have to reflash the BIOS
>>> after building the mythbox. Based on past experience, the new BIOS will come
>>> out within the next few weeks.
>>>
>>>  http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=bios&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1864
>>>
>>>
>>> Note: this board can handle late-model TVs well but may have trouble with
>>> older sets that don't have HDMI. If your set does not have HDMI then you
>>> would need to get either an A/V receiver (that can convert the HDMI signal
>>> to component or composite or s-video), or a discrete video card. If you
>>> should go down the s-video route, be careful about video cards that say they
>>> can output s-video. Some of those cards require you to jump through hoops to
>>> get s-video working. If your TV supports HDMI, try to stick with that input
>>> (unless you have a Philips HDTV -- some of them have trouble with audio over
>>> HDMI -- in which case you would probably want to use an A/V receiver).
>>>
>>> I don't know whether this board is capable of supporting CableCard
>>> (encrypted QAM). You would have to run something like
>>> http://www.dougknox.com/vista/ocurbioschk.htm to check this capability.
>>> Encrypted QAM does not interest me because it requires paying both a cable
>>> bill and a cablecard bill and OTA gives me everything I need, but if
>>> encrypted-QAM is important to you then a number of suggestions in this email
>>> should probably be disregarded. In fact, I'd probably just purchase a Tivo
>>> if I needed encrypted-QAM since that would probably be cheaper.
>>>
>>> Here is a review of the board:
>>>    http://www.silentpcreview.com/article967-page11.html
>>>
>>>
>>> CPU
>>>
>>> You don't need anything fancy as long as you aren't building a game machine.
>>> AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core
>>> Processor - Retail
>>>    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103688
>>> If you don't mind spending more on the CPU, you could get a CPU that has a
>>> 45W thermal design power (TDP). But the AMD 240 will suffice as long as the
>>> box is adequately ventilated.
>>>
>>> If you have more than $58 to spend on a CPU then you may want to check out,
>>>    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2466-2.html
>>> (but these CPUs are over-kill for HD tv).
>>>
>>>
>>> MEMORY
>>>
>>> There are few memory bargains since we are in the middle of the switchover
>>> from DDR2 to DDR3 and Windows 7 just came out and the Christmas season is
>>> putting a strain on supplies. When a bargain is advertised it usually sells
>>> out quickly. Memory is over-priced right now, so unless you are lucky enough
>>> to find a decent price for memory I would wait until after Christmas to
>>> purchase or possibly scavenge old memory you may already own (you don't need
>>> much).
>>>
>>> This board comes with 128 MB sideport memory, which means only 128 MB
>>> additional memory needs to be stolen from system memory to support hd video.
>>>
>>> If you only need this box to perform HTPC duties then 1 GB ram is all that
>>> is required. (Apple gets away with just 256 MB in their box.)
>>>
>>>
>>> HDD
>>>
>>> I list three drive choices at three sizes: 0.5TB, 1TB, and 1.5TB.
>>>
>>>    SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
>>> Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
>>>    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181
>>>
>>>    SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
>>> Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
>>>    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
>>>
>>>    Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB SATA 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Hard Drive
>>> ST31500341AS
>>>    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00066IJPQ/ref=s9_simz_gw_s1_p23_t2
>>>    This drive used to have firmware problems but they have been fixed.
>>>
>>>
>>> HD TUNER/ENCODER
>>>
>>> Hauppauge 1229 WinTV-HVR-2250 White Box for System Builders Dual Hybrid
>>> PCI-E TV Tuner Board
>>> The Linux driver for this is brand new and only handles clear-QAM and
>>> digital (no analog). Since analog is old technology this shouldn't be a
>>> problem.  Even if you are still receiving analog signals these channels are
>>> rapidly being converted to compressed digital because broadcasters can fit
>>> up to three digital channels on one standard-def channel (depending on how
>>> much they decide to compress the signal). If you want a fascinating read on
>>> which signal has the best picture quality (digital vs standard-def, ota vs
>>> cable), check out this thread:
>>>    http://utalk.att.com/utalk/board/message?message.uid=105507
>>>
>>> Because this driver is brand new it may require futzing with the kernel. If
>>> you are not comfortable with doing that then this tuner is probably not a
>>> good idea. "White box" means it doesn't come with the standard remote, which
>>> is good because there are better remotes.
>>>
>>> Note: this tuner does not support CableCard (if that is important to you).
>>> CableCard support is only required if you want to connect to a cable
>>> connection and legally decode encrypted QAM channels. This support is not
>>> necessary for OTA.
>>>
>>>
>>> VIDEO
>>>
>>> No discrete video card required. The integrated HD 4200 is sufficient as
>>> long as you don't need to use this as a game machine.
>>>
>>> There are several AMD drivers that can be used with this GPU. The
>>> proprietary driver is probably more stable than the open source driver. If
>>> you need to stay with all open-source then this board may not be right for
>>> you.
>>>
>>>
>>> AUDIO
>>>
>>> Integrated audio Realtek ALC889 chip. This is a high-end, consumer-level
>>> audio chip that may require installing ALSA and pulse-audio from SVN since
>>> this chip is kind of new.
>>>
>>> The motherboard supports 2-channel LPCM on the HDMI cable (not 7 channel!),
>>> but that's what 99% of all PVRs do as well so this isn't that big of a deal.
>>> It's pretty much the equivalent sound that you would get from Tivo (except
>>> Tivo is THX certified). There is very few media that can do 7-channel audio
>>> (some blu-ray titles). If you have an A/V receiver it can decode 2-channel
>>> stereo into Dolby so that it seems like you have 5.1 channel audio.
>>>
>>>
>>> REMOTE
>>>
>>> Note that all remotes mentioned here are infrared, which means that
>>> line-of-sight usage is required and max range is about 30 feet. If you need
>>> a remote that can work through walls then you will probably want an RF
>>> (radio frequency) remote, which are two to three times more expensive.
>>>
>>> was $21, now $32  Adesso ARC-1100 - Remote control - infrared
>>>    Note: you will probably have to do some work to get this remote to work
>>> with mythtv, but you will probably end up with a more satisfactory viewing
>>> experience if you decide to expend the effort. If you don't like tinkering
>>> with config files, however, there are better choices.
>>>    http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Adesso_ARC-1100
>>>
>>>  http://www.amazon.com/Adesso-ARC-1100-Remote-control-infrared/dp/B000XVNJRM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258210773&sr=8-1
>>>    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16823166095
>>>
>>> If you are looking for a simple IR remote that is guaranteed to work with
>>> Linux,
>>>    http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/hardware/streamzap-pc-remote-control.html
>>>
>>>
>>> OS
>>>
>>> If you want to see what OSs people are using, see,
>>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/engine?do=post_view_flat;post=409105;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;list=mythtv
>>>
>>>
>>> XBMC
>>>
>>> If you want to run both XBMC and MythTV side by side check out,
>>>
>>>  http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/linux-tutorials-guides/33370-myth-tweak-switch-between-myth-xbmc-via-remote.html
>>> AND
>>>    http://blog.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=49583&page=2
>>>
>>>
>>> FLASH
>>>
>>> If you decide to access Flash sites such as hulu or youtube, flash may
>>> occasionally hiccup. Don't worry, the flash player is being updated so that
>>> it uses the GPU for hardware acceleration.
>>>    http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/
>>> You can get a beta flash player today, but it's probably too unstable for
>>> everyday use. I would stick with version 10 until 10.1 comes out of beta and
>>> plan on updating this driver when it becomes available.
>>>
>>>
>>> FRONT-END EXTENDER
>>>
>>> If you want additional low-cost front-ends, check out,
>>>
>>>  http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-silent-standalone-xbmc-media-center-on-the-cheap
>>>        [Revo works with mythtv, too]
>>>
>>>  http://lifehacker.com/5406563/build-a-cheap-but-powerful-boxee-media-center
>>>
>>>
>>> CABLE / SET-TOP BOX (STB) / CABLECARD
>>>
>>> Note I didn't mention anything about controlling a cable set-top box. For
>>> that, you'd need either an IR blaster or program your remote to blast both
>>> myth and cable codes, but I'm not going to get into this.
>>>
>>> The tuner recommended above does /not/ handle cablecard. What that means is
>>> that you wont be able to decode encrypted cable channels. A tuner that can
>>> accept cablecard is about 3X more expensive and requires installation by
>>> your cable company. Cable companies are required by law to provide a subset
>>> of stations without encryption, however, but you'll probably get a better
>>> picture by using an over-the-air (OTA) signal.
>>>
>>>
>>> ANTENNA
>>>
>>> If you live within 25 miles of your broadcasters, I recommend the
>>>    Winegard SS 3000 Indoor UHF/VHF Antenna
>>> I pick up one station that is broadcasting 38 miles away with this little
>>> antenna.
>>>
>>> If interested, you local broadcast locations can be located at
>>> http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
>>>
>>>
>>> HDMI CABLE
>>>
>>> If you need to purchase an HDMI cable, inexpensive cables work as well as
>>> expensive cables since the signal is completely digital.
>>>
>>>
>>> There, that wasn't so hard.  :)
>>> HTH,
>>>
>>> Lou Vanek
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> linux-user mailing list
>>> linux-user at egr.msu.edu
>>> http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user
>>>
>>
>


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