[Lancaster] My experience with MythTV

[Martyn Welch]

Rik Boland wrote:
> If one was going to record a TV programme on a computer apart from 
> needing a box with TV card in a linux distro and sound/graphic card what 
> else would you need?
> 

Hi Rik,

This very much depends, I can only really tell you what I have and 
suggest a bit of experimentation:

1) TV Card - I have a Hauppauge Nova-TD-500 (The "new" TD version not 
the "old"). I wouldn't necessarily pick this card again if I was to 
start fresh, Linux support for the "TD" still seems a little ropey. The 
advantage is that it has 2 tuners on one card, so I can record two 
things at once with one card. Note that this card encodes the TV 
broadcast to an MPEG stream. This is important as it saves a *lot* of 
work for the CPU.

2) Graphics - I use the one built into my motherboard. It's a VIA 
EPIA-EN12000EG motherboard that was bought especially for my MythTV 
setup. The graphics on this board (CN700, S3 UniChrome Pro) can do TV 
out via a s-video or composite connector. I use the s-video into a 
s-video to scart adapter for my TV. The sound is also fed into the scart 
adapter via a 3.5mm jack to dual phono lead.

3) Processor - I'm using a motherboard with a via C7 1.5GHz processor. 
As I;m using a TV card with MPEG encoding built into it this processor 
is fast enough for me to run the front and back end on the same box, I 
do have to limit the times that it can run some of the heavy background 
tasks (such as finding ad breaks), but it's just enough to allow me to 
watch a previous recording and record 2 other shows!

4) Hard drive - You'll want a big one if you are like me. I started with 
a 80G HD, but fast found I was filling this. MPEG videos take up a bit 
of room! I have a 250G SATA laptop drive, this is very quite, low power 
and has plenty of space. The important ones for me were low power (I 
want to be reasonably power efficient) and noise (the box sits under my 
TV, it's very close to silent).

5) RAM - To give you an idea, I have 1G of RAM in this machine, I could 
probably get away with a little less, but given the thrashing the HD is 
probably getting when at full load from MythTV, I didn't want it to need 
to be swapping as well.

6) Remote or wireless keyboard - I have both, an infrared remote for 
basic operation and a wireless keyboard with a track pad built in. The 
remote is good for basic TV functionality, though if the box isn't 
connected to your TV in your living room, this probably won't be that 
big a deal. The keyboard is great for a bit of debugging and for 
occasionally using the box a bit more like a PC. Again, if you don't 
mind a few training wires or it's not going to be used by a non-geek 
significant other, this might not be a requirement.

7) A good aerial - Depending on the quality of your signal, it will be 
important you have a good TV aerial. We live in a rather weak signal 
area, my aerial is *huge* with a mast amplifier. It's probably a bit 
over=kill, but I very rarely get any artifacts in the picture from a 
weak signal. I expect the artifacts have more to do with the odd large 
bird deciding to land on the aerial.

8) Software - I use Mythbuntu. It takes a bit of the leg work out of the 
setup. I also use Ubuntu and it's derivatives on most of my other 
machines, so it just makes sense to be, There are others like Mythora if 
you are more of the Fedora perversion, I mean persuasion. ;-)

9) Oh I almost forgot - a DVD player. I have one in my Myth box, this 
means I don't need a standalone DVD player under my TV as well.

10) Yes - one more. A TV license :-)

I went from 4 separate boxes under my TV:

- DVD player
- Video recorder
- Freeview box (which didn't get a signal at the time with the old 
aerial we had, but was a funky one which was connected to my network and 
could be used for really light web access and streaming music from my 
server)
- Sky box (purely used for the free channels, I'm not paying for more! 
The house had a satellite dish already attached)

To 1, my Myth box. 3 less remotes and a lot tidier. I haven't done the 
power consumption comparison yet - I've been meaning to do that, but I 
don't mind a modest increase given the added functionality and ease of 
use and tidiness.

My biggest suggestion would be to scrounge and borrow enough bits to get 
a simple approx 1-2G PC together, with a +20G HD. Use a monitor to begin 
with (TV out can be a pain to configure depending on the exact graphics 
card) and go and buy a "good" TV card. See what you can do, play around. 
MythTV can be a bit of a pain to configure, some of the terminology it 
uses is a little counter intuitive, but I does work quite well when 
setup correctly.

Hope that helps,

Martyn