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PostPosted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:34 pm 
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I'm looking to move from an old XPMCE system to building a new MythTV syste, but I'm looking for some advice. I have a system that could be rebuilt for a myth TV box. Here are the specs.

CPU: AMD Athlon 7850
MB: Abit NF-M2S Nvidia 6100 Chipset
2GB RAM
500GB HDD
Soundcard: Soundblaster Audigy 2.

Any reason this hardware might not work?

I think I'll need to buy a new vidcard. Suggestions are to get an Nvidia 7series or higher for VPAUD. I have a Hauppage PVR-150, and I think I may add a Hauppage HVR-1600 and 1800.

I'd like to know if there is a reason to buy a video card with HDMI, my Display has either HDMI or VGA, whats the benefit of getting HDMI, or is it more trouble than it is worth?

I'm really interested in the Multirec feature, but I'm not clear if this is only for ClearQAM in North America or if it can be used with OvertheAir ATSC Broadcasts as well.

Is there any easy way to find out if my cable provider offers channels in ClearQAM? (Time Warner Cable,Columbus,Ohio)

Any other hurdles I should watch out for?

Thanks


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 5:48 pm 
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The hardware looks OK. Jump in and try it.

For HDMI versus VGA. It depends on your screen. HDMI theoretically does a much better job, but many displays handle VGA pretty well too. If your current card looks acceptable to you I wouldn't buy a new card JUST for an HDMI connection.

One big benefit for HDMI is that it can carry audio and video, but in practice that doesn't work so well on Linux PC's like a mythbox. If you're going to connect over HDMI make sure your TV has a separate audio in for PC's. (LG TV's all seem to have this.)

Finally your HDMI input on the TV doesn't mean you need a video card with an HDMI out. A simple adapter can convert a DVI out on a Video card to HDMI. There's still no audio on that HDMI Connection, but the digital video works just fine. At this point DVI is the standard connector on new video cards, so no worries there. just make sure the TV can handle a connection from a PC. Some TV's "just work" others cause headaches. Search the forum and Google for your TV model.


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 5:51 pm 
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Location: Elgin, Illinois
If you got a card with HDMI, then you could output video and audio over the same cable, and better quality video at that. But I am not certain that Linux does the audio over HDMI well, or it depends on the card. You should do some research into that.

Depending on your display, you can get 1080p with HDMI were as VGA can still get the resolution that high, but it is converting from digital to analog and back to digital, so at higher resolution you may get some artifacts.

But since I can only use composite cables, I am not that familiar with a direct digital setup until I get a new TV.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:22 pm 
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Location: Arlington, MA
Should work OK. For capture cards/devices I'd probably look at the HD5500 or the HDHomeRun. If your video card has a DVI-D connector and enough bandwidth it should work. I'm using a FX5200 card with a DVI to HDMI cable to drive a 1080i display with no trouble to speak of.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:27 pm 
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Thanks Guys. I'm really trying to make sure I have the right hardware for the "it just works" experience. Any reason a CPU/RAM/Mainboard would be stoppers to that? It looks like selecting a Good Tuner and VDPAU compatable vidcard are key.

The question about DVI/VGA v. HDMI came up becuase my TV supports HDMI and VGA, and I had some odd behavior when I tried an DVI-HDMI cable, display was shiffed about 6 inches of screen and I coudn't figure out a fix (this was on an Old MCE box and I haven't researched muhc since) I understand that it is more of a hassle to set up piping SPDIF audio to the vidcard and out through HDMI. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you NEED HDMI for any reason? BluRay? Any HiDef Content? I don't Imagine I'll encounter too many problems with HDCP on Linux but I wanted to ask. I take it there IS an advantage with HDMI over VGA though. I'm likley to buy a new vidcard for VDPAU and I wasn't sure if it was worth trying to get one with HDMI as well.

I'll probably buy at least one digital tuner to take advantage of multirec, but I'm trying to decide how many HiDef sources I have.

Anyone know a good way of Identifying how many ATSC OTA Multiplexes there would be in a local area, or on my cable provider?

Ultimately, the objective here is to to to identify hardware that will "Just work" before I buy. But will CPU/MoBo play a big role in making/breaking a Mythbuntu Install? Looks like Capture cards and vidcards, and possibly soundcards especially in the case of HDMI, are what you need to pay the most attention to

I'll have one mATX board to work with, and I;m running out of slots fast. I expect the Audigy2 to be better than most built in audio, with that and a new vidcard I'm down to one PCI and one PCIe for tuners.

I looked at the HD5500 or HDHomeRun, but I'm looking for internal cards, and it wasn't immedeiatly clear how many tuners there were on those. I've had good luch with Hauppauge, and they seem well supported. Plus their website has a really good description of how many tuners and of what kind is on each card. I'm open to suggestions though!


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:03 pm 
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Location: Arlington, MA
deamon_knight wrote:
I looked at the HD5500 or HDHomeRun, but I'm looking for internal cards, and it wasn't immedeiatly clear how many tuners there were on those.

- HD5500 is an internal PCI card with one tuner. However it can often record two or more streams from the same transport.
- HDHomeRun is a small external device with two tuners and IR remote support (with simple config changes your Hauppauge remotes will keep working). It can record one stream per tuner.
deamon_knight wrote:
I've had good luch with Hauppauge, and they seem well supported.

Their HD cards are not as well supported yet, at least to the best of my knowledge.

Oh as for "Why use HDMI?", it's because standard VGA doesn't have the bandwidth for full resolution. For anything around or above about 1280x1024 you need a DVI or HDMI digital interface.


Last edited by tjc on Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:06 pm 
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Location: Perth, Australia
I believe that the HDHomerun is also due to have multirec in myth 0.22. I've seen the patches recently in svn, but no confirmed release target for the patch.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:09 pm 
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Location: Arlington, MA
You also don't need VDPAU for HDTV, the FX5200 does full 1080i with just XvMC.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:46 am 
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deamon_knight,

Upgrade your video card to something nVidia with VDPAU support if this box will do frontend duties. Go HDMI to your TV if possible. The nVidia drivers typically do a fine job getting your resolution and alignment correct. If not, there are adjustments you can make manually.

For capture I would recommend the HDHomeRun for OTA and clear cable. Yes, multirecord is currently in svn (only really useful for HDHomeRun with cable). For a high def cable or satellite box, I recommend the Hauppauge HD-PVR. It works great, but unfortunately it is only supported in svn right now (which is available in R6 if you are the extremely adventurous type).

I assume you already know that you will be sacrificing the user interface "bling" factor when moving from MCE to myth. The best parts of myth IMHO are the backend, web interface and TV watching parts of the frontend. You will surely be disappointed in MythVideo if you previously used MyMovies. If you install R6 (beta), you can always use xbmc-svn for movies.

That's my 2 cents. Enjoy!


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:34 am 
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well, I'm moving from XP MediaCenter, and this will be a combo backend/frontend. It looked like MythTV has all Windows MCE had and more (aside from free EPG) plus multirec & HD support, which are the features that really interest me. I understand that I have the CPU power to Process HD content, but I expected to be compressing MPG-2 content to something smaller, I thought this a feature too but now I'm less sure.

As for Capture cards I thought that the Hauppauge HVR-1600,1800 were supported in MythTV, essentially out of the box. Am I wrong about this?


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:19 pm 
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Location: Calgary, Canada
deamon_knight wrote:
As for Capture cards I thought that the Hauppauge HVR-1600,1800 were supported in MythTV, essentially out of the box. Am I wrong about this?


Yes and no. I run a 1600 on R5.5 and just had to do a couple of small steps needed to get it going. (A huge improvement over R5F27 which needed a whole wack of manual steps.) My understanding is both cards are fully OOTB in R6; unfortunately I just haven't had any time to fiddle with the preview.

BTW I reluctantly ran MCE for a couple of months before the 1600 drivers were sufficiently developed to be usable on a production system. MythTV takes more time to setup (less so thanks to KnoppMyth/LinHES) but does way more stuff! Commercial skip, no recording restrictions, publish to ipod, recording schedules, etc. MCE is fine and simple to setup but it is no match for MythTV in the feature department.


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:14 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 8:30 pm
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I guess I had read here

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge

That HVR-1600 & 1800 were in the latest Kernels. Is that not correct or am I oversimplifying?

Thanks


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