I have a lot of experience with FreeBSD, minimal Linux exposure.....
The Linux PVR concept is way cool, so I just have to build one.

I have an HD 3000 card on the way,
a geforce mx4000 card from one of my old boxes, as well.
OTA hd looks like the best way to get super high quality prime time tv,
I want to try that......

I will bullet point my questions, cuz I have a few.

* The HD 3000 will do hardware encoding for recording.
Is there much processor usage?

* If some cards like GeForce have hardware mpeg decoding, why is it that more than one source say that hd playback at the higher resolutions will task a 2.4 cpu?.

* Is there any better method for playback that is not so cpu intensive?
for example, does a pvr-300 have the capability to play back hd resolutions? If so would that mean very low processor usage?


My questions are about right sizing hardware without breaking the bank.
Faster is always better, yet a $400 processor for a hobby will leave me sleeping on the couch.

If I wanted to consolidate a pvr-300 and 2 hd 3000 cards in a single computer and do recording to all of them while I watched, sounds like I would need a 4 processor box, wouldn't that sound great in the living room?

Specific ideas about good, economical, performance would be great.

1.) Well yes/no it doesn't do hardware encoding it just grabs the stream from the air and writes it to disk. the thing is ATSC/HDTV is transmitted in MPEG2 so no encode action is necessary. the end result is that it doesn't take much proc power at all to record like you said.

2.) The nvidia cards have hardware motion compensation support in the form of XvMC the problem is it doesn't work well, so you end up having to just use Xv unless you are happy with your machine locking up on your randomly.

3.) No the only option for playback of hd at full resolution at this point is to throw lots of cpu at it. XvMC helps, but as I mentioned above is very prone to lockups.

well the thing is that pvrx50 cards and hdtv cards use almost no processing power to create the file, so the only thing using proc is playing back, and unless you are doing something really wierd you are generally only playing back one stream at a time, so you can really usually add just about as many hardware encode or hdtv cards as you want without cpu concerns. (well untill you manage to saturate the pci bus)

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I don't know where you've been buying your hardware but $400 for a 2.4Ghz processor is straight up highway robbery. I recently spec'ed out a whole machine with enough horsepower to do HDTV and the total with everything but the HDTV card was around $700, with the CPU only being around $200 of that.

If you haven't discovered NewEgg http://www.newegg.com/app/catalog.asp?DEPA=1 or MultiWave http://direct.mwave.com/mwave/index.hmx? or PriceGrabber http://www.pricegrabber.com/home_comp.php or .... it's time to wake up and smell the hot electronics.

3Ghz P4 Northwood cores run $192 to $250 since these run cooler and faster than the Prescotts they're more desirable. 3Ghz Prescott cores run $176 to $250 (both OEM and retail boxed with a HSF).

On the AMD side both the OEM and retail boxed AMD Athlon 64 3200+ chips are pretty much dead on $190, with the +3400 chips around $215, and the +3500 chips jumping to $270.

> I recently spec'ed out a whole machine with enough horsepower to do HDTV and the total with everything but the HDTV card was around $700,

tjc: is there anything in the small-form-factor world that has the horsepower?

It's just a shame that XvMC has so many problems. I get great playback with it on via my Athlon XP 2400s... until I have to do anything like skip forward, or until it dies spontaneously.

Sure. Both the top Shuttle and Biostar socket 478 offerings will take a 3Ghz or better CPU with no sweat. My workstation box is a Biostar IDEQ 200T with a 3Ghz P4 Northwood core CPU. And my current KnoppMyth box will take an Athlon XP +3000 and maybe even a +3200... Not to mention Athlon 64 based SFF, ... The big problem with the SFF boxes is the number of slots, usually one AGP and one PCI, so if you want two capture cards you're SOL.

You can also go with a microATX motherboard and case and get something reasonably small, and more expandable. There are boards out there that take an Athlon 64 in either socket 754 or 939, a P4 in either socket 478 or LGA775, ...

As for cases here's a microATX minitower that gets glowing reviews: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-154-016&depa=1
Granted it's not as small as an SFF but it'll house a far more capable machine and 14" tall is pretty reasonable.

Good info so far, thanks.....

I was exaggerating about the cost of hardware,
when I mentioned a $400 processor, I was thinking about having to be on the bleeding edge just to make hdtv work. It sounded as if folks were having bad experiences in general with the horsepower required to do htdv.

I have built tons of pc's for work and home, I understand the pricing, and what is good and bad. It seems implied, however, that a Sempron 2400 just is not going to cut it. I have one of those right now, no hardware investment. It is a bit dissapointing that there is no good hardware based solution for playback.

FYI: My last two pc's for my son and myself work Shuttle XPC's. I think they are just a little spendy. My son runs and XP 3200 and a Radeon 9800 video card. It does really well. Mine is tamer than that and has been as reliable as the huge Antec server box full of top end parts that used to set below my desk.