Hi I am thinking of setting up a Myth box but am a little unsure of the spec of systems I am going to need?

This is what I want to be able to do. a backend server with 4 DVB T.V cards and 400+ GB of space and 2 front-end pc's plugged into 2 different TV’s I am unsure of the spec needed for recording 2 and watching 2 or recording 3 and watching one ? , I can’t find any info if this is possible I have only seen people setup with 3 DVB cards


Any Help would be great


Thanks

As DVB cards are already in the correct format you don't need to decode the signal. So it should be ok to have as many DVB cards without placing adverse amounts of stress on your cpu. I've only two cards but there has not been any problems for me when, for example, recording two shows and watching a dvd simultaniously. Or watching a previously recorded show and recording on both tuners simultaniously. My system is a all in one front end backend atm.
For reference:
AMD Sempron 2600
Abit NF7-S mobo
512mb pc2700
350 Spinpoint hdd
Nova-t DVB cards (x2)
Soundblaster live
Pioneer DVD-Rom

Bottom line: it should work no problems as long as your processor is quick enough. But these days I htink you would struggle to buy an underpowered processor.

Whoa, put the brakes on.

Ok, what you need to determine first is whether the DVBs are hardware encoding or software encoding. I know of some DVB-s cards (budget) that do ALL software encoding, thus more drag on the CPU. If you are going this route, you are going to want to have at least a P4 3 gigger with a gig of RAM.
If they are hardware encoding, then you should be safe with a P4 1 or 2 gig (or AMD) with 500M - 1gig of RAM.
I am happy with my AMD Athlon XL 2500 at 1.2 gHz and 500 M of RAM. Now, I have the Hauppauge PVR 250 and it only uses 12-20% of CPU, even when recording!

On the other hand, if you want to do transcoding and watching TV at the same time and recording something else, then you will want to go with some more beef like a P4 or AMD 2 or 3 giggers.

Hope this helps,
Mike

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough... for DVB-T cards the signal doesn't have to be decoded because it's already an MPEG2 stream. This according to http://www.dvb.org/about_dvb/history/index.xml is a standard. If it's a satellite and subscription based it may well need decoding as the provider encodes it.

Well there you are...
btw I'm in Europe... so it's free tv I'm talking about...