[aclug-L] Re: MythTV et al (was Re: Ideas for June Meeting?)

[Noah Romer <klevin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2005-06-11 at 17:41 -0500, Jonathan Hall wrote:
> I see a lot of discussion now about MythTV... I'm thinking of jumping into
> this world before long.  Actually, I've installed MythTV using my old WinTV
> 401 card, just to play with.  Haven't really used it seriously.  But I'm
> thinking of buying some hardware in the upcoming months with this in mind.
> What are some good usable-minimum hardware requirements for a frontend?
> I've read of people using X-Boxes for this... has anyone on this group done
> that with any success?  Or have any other hardware recommendations?
I'd generally avoid motherboards that use VIA chipsets. This probably
isn't an issue with the WinTV 401, but the WinTV cards with on-board
MPEG-2 encoders generate huge amounts of interrupts on the PCI bus. It
turns out that VIA chipsets don't deal very well with this volume of
interrupts; except, perhaps, the very latest ones (I've heard mixed
reports about them). There's a continuing stream of messages on the ivtv
(linux drivers for the WinTV PVR series) mailing list.

A month or so back, I decided to get a WinTV PVR 250 and put it in my
desktop system (I don't have a TV anymore and don't even have room for
one in my current space). Discovered the hard way that the VIA KT266A
motherboard I've used for the past few years tends to get quite cranky
(lockups and whatnot). I finally found a version of the ivtv drivers
that will (for reasons no understands) keep my system from locking up.
However, I have about a 70% chance, after a cold boot, of not being able
to use the WinTV board, as it freezes up after about 2 seconds of use. I
tend to not turn my system off when I get the magic vapors to cooperate.
-- 
Noah Romer          |"Everyone is more or less mad on one point."
klevin@xxxxxxxxxx   |                   - Rudyard Kipling
PGP key available   |
by finger or email  |

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