[H-GEN] Setting up a MythTV box

[David Jericho]

Brendan McCarthy wrote:

> The tv-out is built on to the motherboard, not the greatest quality,  
> but fine enough for me.


One thing a lot of people don't realise is that Component (YPbPr or 
YCbCr - take your pick) video is a bandwidth reduced version of RGB. If 
your projector or TV is capable of displaying SD or HD video from a 
component video source, it's a fairly simple circuit to remove redundant 
luminance information from an RGB signal. I saw a converter box at 
Jaycar last week some time, came in at around $45 IIRC and you could 
make the unit yourself for $10 in parts. The timings for X to generate 
SD or HD TV signals are easily found using Google.

> The Twinhaan card comes with a USB remote, that works well with linux  
> too, it looks like a USB keyboard, aside from sending some slightly  
> funky key combos for some buttons. I'm not sure if the OEM version  
> comes with the remote, since it wasnt available at the time.


I highly recommend a learning remote. They can be had for as cheap as 
$20 at Aldi, and Marantz has some very nice LCD touch screen versions at 
the $800 mark.

> Depending on the amount you're looking to record, a larger HDD is  
> probably in order. Most streams are > 1mb/second, so figure 4gb per  
> hour of footage. For long term archival i have a daemon that converts  
> the captured streams to xvid avi files with mencoder. I think mythtv  
> might have this functionality built in.


Remember to consider drive noise. Paul Gearon recommended a Samsung 
recently as it was whisper quiet with none of the typical high pitched 
whine. Take careful pick of your CPU cooler and other fans, and also 
with your DVD drive. Consider a two fan power supply combo, as they tend 
to be quieter.

Or just look at the fan less VIA Eden combos, low power so soft on the 
power bill when the unit is left on 24/7.

-- 
David Jericho
Senior Systems Administrator, Tucana Technologies

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