It works now! I took advice and replaced my vid card with an FX5200 and it works great! Thanks for the help all! Tried GBPVR, SAGETV, MediaPortal all on Windows XP, several versions and none of them worked right, crashed, froze, slowed down, lost sound... KnoppMyth was the only one which was reliable but the image quality was crap with my old vid card, now it's great and I'm making good use of the setup, recorded lots, watched lots, always reliable and faster than the Windows solutions I tried. Very happy.

I do have a couple of questions, concerns:

I broke the cable (receiver?) that plugs in the back of my WinTV PVR-150 so I can't use my remote (which worked fine before). WinTV website makes no mention of a replacement cable thingie I could buy. They do sell the remote at a reasonable price. Would it come with that cable? I tried emailing WinTV but they did not give me a reply.

I could not manage to share files with my other computer (WIndows XP) with the instructions I found on the boards and Wiki. Linux commands are chinese to me. What I did was find and burn a Knoppix DVD version which has tons of neat programs and utilities I can understand and use (web browsers, star samba server, samba neighborhood, file management, Konqueror, Open Office, games, tons of stuff). It's great, pop the DVD in, restart the media computer, click on the start samba icon from the menu, answer a few questions and I can see the volumes of the media computer on the network neighborhood on the Windows computer. Just copy the files I want over.

Any thoughts about a KnoppMyth DVD version? It would be great to install all those useful and easy programs along with MythTV, would make the installation for newbies like me a lot easier.

Again, thanks for all the help and the really great application, enjoying it very much!

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My original post was:
I'm stuck! I've been trying to find some comprehensive information somewhere but no luck. I know little to nothing about Linux unfortunatly.

My hardware specs:
Athlon XP 1800+
512 Megs Ram, 30 Gigs HD
WinTV PVR-150 (not the MCE)
Radeon 7000 video card
Mobo: ECS K7S5A (me thinks)

I ran the knoppMyth CD, followed the steps, got to a point where I have access to the program guide, I can tune channels, but the image and sound are choppy, slow and low resolution (software encoding?).

From what I read, there seems to be some kind of driver installation to do next (IVTV?) for both the video card and the WinTV, but unfortunatly it's all chinese to me (tar.gz cd/usr??? log on as root user???)

Anyone know of a link where I can get some installation information for what I need to do that does not assume I am familiar with Linux jargon and commands?

I looked, searched for hours, just getting me more and more confused. So frustrating to be so close to completion, MythTV looks awesome.

Thanks for your help!

Have a look at this page over at the wiki, it will give you a good point of reference to start from.

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=LinuxTips

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Girkers

Not software encoding if you've got a PVR card. I'd guess it's the video card. What driver are you using? You really need one with accelerated "video" (as in TV video) playback support. This means an Nvidia card with their linux drivers, a better ATI card with their drivers, or the SiS builtin motherboard grapics with their driver.

If I were to replace my card with and NVIDIA 5200 for instance and reinstall would KnoppMyth automatically install the correct driver for it? Is there a video card that is automatically installed properly?

Also, is the WinTV PVR-150 automatically installed properly?

As far as the Radeon 7000 is concerned, I did try it in Windows with a couple of PVR programs and the video quality was fine, recording too. WinTV 2000 (TV watching program bundled with PVR-150) worked fine all the time. I did tend to have reliability problems with mostly the sound with PVR programs.

Thanks for your help

Yes, a KnoppMyth install would select the correct driver for that card. The nvidia 5200 is very well supported by KnoppMyth. Other nvidia cards may or may not be as well supported by the nvidia drivers, however. I have a 6600 for which I had to revert back to an older version of the drivers (6629) to get it to work. (Disclaimer: I still have to try the very latest drivers (the 8... series drivers, so those may work fine, I just had "blank screen" problems with the 7174 drivers). But the 5200 shouldn't be a problem, based on the many success stories in these forums.

Check out the Tier 1 postings for known good hardware that's easily setup. I've read a LOT of good advice regarding graphics cards in that area.

Thanks for the good tips.

Is it possible that the sound card would be an issue? It seems to work well otherwise. It's an AOPEN cheap card based on a 8738 chip (very common). Dunno if I should go with something by Creative instead, I've got many PCI 128's by Creative I could try.

Thanks again, think I'll get a different video card to begin with

Try the Aopen first there have been big problems with the pci128's in the past.

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

Xsecrets

Yes, it's a very well supported card. The only issue I've had is with modelines and there are plenty of examples of those around.

Yes.

I believe that the problem is that ATIs linux drivers don't support TV output on them.

Thanks for all the help and sound advice!

I cannot believe I missed this... Why would there be a KnoppMyth DVD version? Everything that is needed fits on a CD. Putting additional programs on a DVD would be bloat that isn't needed. With KnoppMyth, I have specific goals in mine. Building a DVD version isn't one of them.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

I agree wholeheartly with cesman on this one in that KnoppMyth is designed with a particular use in mind, he is not trying to make the Linux Media Centre Edition.

There are people on this board such as mjl that use there KnoppMyth installation for other tasks and the installation process he uses is very simple.

Could I suggest you learn how to use apt-get.

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Girkers

I also agree that you should prioritize the core application. I again want to express my appreciation for knoppmyth, works great for me. Dont get me wrong, this is not a post critical of your work in any way.

Just wanted to share my experience as a Linux novice. I dont want so much to learn the mechanics of it as I want something functional and reliable. In that regards your priorities are correct.