I know a lot of people are installing Knoppmyth on leftover computers that have any thousnads of combinations of parts. BUT, I also know there a lot of people that want to build low cost boxes SPECIFICALLY for Knoppmyth. So, why doesn't the forum make a definitive hardware setup that would work out of box, and not be too expensive (sub $400?) Now, I know the whole point of Linux and OpenSource etc is being able to tinker with everything, but when it comes down to it, what we all want is functionality, right? I would make this list myself, and i've been trying to actually, but as im new to the 'scene', ive become daunted with the amount of hardware that is present. Anyone up to the challenge?

Chris

check out the hardware section of the forums I posted my config there, and if you remove the leadtek card and just go with the pvr250 it should work "out of the box"

what if I replace the leadtek card with the pvr350? would that still work? thanks for the reply

chris

Yes, replacing the leadtek w/ a 350 will work. The only thing that isn't supported "out of the box" on the 350 is tv out.

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

hmm...so what steps would I have to take to initialize tv out, as without that, the whole thing would be kind of useless. Again, thansk for answering my questions, especially since im sure they've been asked MANY times before...
Chris

this is the hardware setup you posted earlier, correct?

Chaintek 7nif2 motherboard with nforce2 chipset onboard lan, sound, and video(with tv-out).

hauppage pvr250 hardware encode tv tuner.

western digital 200GB 7200rpm 8Mb cache Hard drive.

Athlon XP 1700+

512MB DDR Ram

would I be pretty safe using any motherboard that used the nforce2IGp + MCp chipsets? Also, how is the tv out on the chaintech? Thanks AGain

yup that's my config, and you have cut off the leadtek part so what you have listed there will work out of the box. I can't even guarantee that you will be ok with the chaintek untill there's an easy way to disable local apic. At this point it's just a crap shoot with the nforce boards, and I got lucky. I am satisfied with the tvout from the onboard video, but I am not hugely critical, I mean I didn't expect dvd quality. It has a few color problems which I corrected with the XV controls. From what I've heard the pvr350 is by far the best svid output, but it is a rather complicated ordeal to get that working. Just search for it there are some step by step posts on this board, but they are rather long so I won't copy them here.

I thought a lot of the Home Theater enthusiasts at avsforums built HTPC's specifically so that they could get the best DVD quality possible for their systems. Why is it that they get the best DVD quality for their theaters, and the best praise I've ever read for a MythTV box is "I'm satisfied" or "it looks pretty good"?

If you're going to use your Myth box to watch DVDs as well as all the PVR stuff, shouldn't their be a way to output to a television that is just as good if not better than using a standard DVD player?

well if you are going to be connecting to an hdtv then you can get a scan converter and set up the proper modelines and that should give you very good picture, but the scan converter costs $100+. I guess it's all in what you want.