Building / Buying a MythTV box

[jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org (Jarod Wilson)]

On Friday 20 March 2009 12:22:14 Greg Rundlett (freephile) wrote:
> I'm finally going to purchase the hardware to make my
> Myth(dora|buntu|TV) dreams a reality.  My goal is to have a free
> software Home Theater that does movies/photos/music/TV plus Internet
> browsing and email.  I'd even like to be able to use applications
> (e.g. gnucash) or games from the couch using a wireless keyboard and
> gyro mouse like the famous LinuxMCE video.  I don't have a big budget
> ~ $900 or so.  At that price point, the Monolith looks like a perfect
> match. http://monolithmc.com/techspecs.php  I guess one of the
> limiting factors is that I don't have an HDTV, so I'll need to add
> that (or monitor) to my list of things to buy.  I do have Comcast
> Digital Basic service (with a settop box).

Rather mediocre specs for the cost. You could do a LOT better BYO.

> I was thinking of getting the Dell Studio Hybrid
> http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studio-hybrid?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19,

Decent frontend box.

> or the System76 Koala Mini
> http://system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=83  They
> could serve as front-ends but neither of those has the tuner card nor
> the expansion space to add one + storage so I'd have to get a separate
> box for the backend.

Not necessarily. As Drew mentioned, there's the network-attached hdhomerun
as a dual-tuner option. There are also usb tuners and firewire connections.
My own studio hybrid frontend also serves as a slave backend, with two
tuners hooked to it -- a Hauppauge HD PVR via usb and a cable box via
firewire.

> I would build an all-in-one, but I am not a hardware geek and the
> choices seem limitless (meaning I'll mismatch components).
> 
> The eRacks people sell a nice-looking "studio" setup that you add a
> PCI tuner card to http://eracks.com/products/Quiet
> Systems/config?sku=STUDIO except that stretches my budget.  I
> configured an example setup as eRacks/STUDIO 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Dual
> Channel 800MHz, 1 TB SATA II Hard Drive, HDTV HD-5500 TV Tuner Card
> which comes out to $1565.00
> 
> If I assembled a system similar to the eRacks studio using parts from
> NewEgg, would I end up spending less?

Just about guaranteed, yes.

> Anyone want to offer
> suggestions or share their success stories?

I've got a core 2 quad with 3 tuner cards and a 4x 1.5T drive array in
my office in the basement that serves as my master backend and workstation.
Dell Studio Hybrid for my frontend and slave backend, prior to that, used
a Mac Mini for a frontend, but it didn't have enough kick for high-res
h.264 playback. The new Mac Minis are rather lustful though... nVidia
graphics that are supported by the new gpu-decoding-offload code in
mythtv trunk...

> Also, I was going to add a tuner card to a PC that I own, but I bought
> the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1800 which is a PCI-e card without realizing
> that my PC only has PCI slots.  Although the card can certainly be
> used in a new system, I'm re-thinking using my existing PC for the
> backend b/c it's only a 1.2GHz Athlon with 768MB of RAM with similarly
> old motherboard and only USB 1

Enough for most backend duties. A bit slow on commercial flagging and/or
transcoding, but still useful. Just not with the 1800, of course. ;)

> I'm undecided about whether it's going to be easier/better/cheaper to
> run a single unit with maybe a USB external drive attached or run a
> front-end that is small and pretty with a backend on the rack in the
> basement.  I do have a wire shelf rack in the basement with UPS and
> the house is wired with CAT5.

I'm definitely partial to small-and-quiet in the AV cabinet, storage
housed somewhere else where it can be as loud as it wants.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org