[PLUG] MythTV on the small and cheap.

Anderson, Rob (Global Trade) Rob.Anderson at nike.com
Wed Apr 21 09:29:01 UTC 2004


> On Tue, 20 Apr 2004, Anderson, Rob (Global Trade) wrote:
> > This is a common strategy. I follow the MythTV list and users report
> > great success with PVR-250 and PVR-350 cards. However, you 
> are planning
> > to use an AGP (I assume) video card to display to a 
> computer monitor.
> > This is not exactly the setup that most people use with 
> these high end
> > PVR cards so I'm not sure how successfull you will be on a 
> low powered
> > machine.
> 
> I can't understand why not!  I've yet to see a television that has
> anything like the clarity and crispness of even a moderate computer
> monitor CRT.

When you display the compressed video on a computer monitor, rather than through the TV out on the card, does the video decompress using hardware or software? I'm not sure, and that's why I don't know if this difference would result in a performance hit. Can anyone clarify this for me?

> 
> I guess we're talking about people who watch lots of 
> broadcast or cable
> television... I really just want to display and capture VHS 
> in addition to
> playing the hundreds of divx movies I have collected and ten or twelve
> DVDs I own.
> 
> > > I happen to have a PIII-450 sitting idle in my living 
> room that would
> > > seem perfect
> >
> > I probably sold you that system :) Remember about a year 
> and a half ago,
> > you picked up a box and two 17" Viewsonics in Beaverton. 
> Then I gave you
> > a ride and we talked about wiki, Ward Cunningham, and cycling.
> 
> Ah, no... but it's hooked to one of your old monitors!
> 
> That box and one of the monitors was passed on to a friend (happily
> running Debian in a non-tech environment, thankyouverymuch).
> 
> Good to put the name to the memory.
> 
> > > with the right card (the playback right now is choppy).
> >
> > I think this machine might be too slow for what you intent to use it
> > for.
> 
> Well, I was going to get a card with hardware MPEG decoding, 
> but that's
> not going to do diddly for the divx.
> 
> > I would try to get at least a 700Mhz box for this. Of 
> course, it can't
> > hurt to try. I first setup my MythTV box on a dual P2/300 
> with a bt878
> > tuner card, just to see if I could make it work. Once I got 
> it running I
> > bought a Dell 400sc P4/2.4Ghz 640MB RAM and it smokes.
> 
> How was your success with the dual P2/300?  Just asking for a 
> benchmark.

With the low end tuner card (no hardware compression), I got about 1 frame per 3-4 seconds. Piss poor performance, but it did work, and that's all I needed to know. Of course, that was watching live TV (compressing and decompressing simultaniously). And the video card in that box has about 4MB RAM, which would contribute to the poor perfomance greatly. It would have probably done much better with a PVR-250. Even a descent video card would have made a big difference.

> 
> > > Is there a hardware decoder that will do DiVX and DVD as 
> well?  Or is
> > > that all of a piece and I'm drawing artificial distinctions?
> >
> > I currently don't use my myth box to play DVDs because my 
> myth box does
> > not have 5.1 audio out, and I have a kick-ass sound system 
> with a DVD
> > player.
> 
> Well, come on... a digital audio output card isn't really 
> much money at
> all.
> 
> I may end up having to go with the "powerful box, cheap card" 
> approach.
> (Realistically, I may have to go with the "pay rent, no box" 
> approach.)
> 
> I'm actually kind of thinking that I don't need MythTV.  The 
> features are
> very TiVo oriented and I just don't watch television.  I just 
> need simple
> capture and playback and have no need to do them simultaneously.

I would say, skip the MythTV unless you want Tivo functionality. If you don't need simultanious capture and playback you can get by with a lot less in terms of hardware. I have no idea about divx. If you are just capturing video from VHS tapes and don't need the tuner for TV, you might consider getting a hardware motion JPEG capture card, like the old Miro DC10 or Iomega Buz card. I just saw a Buz card on eBay for $5.

> So, let's say I wanted to build something that had some of the design
> aspects of the original iMac in that the CRT and computer 
> were in the same
> case.  There would be massive electromagnetic interference, 
> right?  Keith?
> 
> I want to put a mediocre monitor into an old TV chassis and 
> build a PC in
> the back.  There's plenty of room in the case, but a) I'm afraid of
> electrocuting myself and b) I fear the whole thing would just 
> burn itself
> out.
> 
> J.
> -- 
>    -----------------
>      Jeme A Brelin
>     jeme at brelin.net
>    -----------------
>  [cc] counter-copyright
>  http://www.openlaw.org
> 
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