Hi everybody,
I am trying to spec out a pvr system. I want to be
able to record tv,
play back, do live pause, watch dvds, etc. and use the
remote to
operate
it. The box will be connected to TV only, with no
monitor attached;
hopefully no keyboard & mouse either. Ideally it
should be a tivo on
steroids.
Here are the specs I have to work with:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
512MB RAM
40GB HD (plus possibly a second 120GB HD)
DVD-ROM
DVR+/-RW
10/100 NIC
on-board 5.1 sound card & speakers
running Debian or Mandrake -- not sure yet
TBD: video card, tv capture card.
Here are my questions:
1. What codec should I use? I want it to be fairly
high quality and
compatible with everything, so I'm thinking either
mpeg2 or divx. I am
willing to spend more CPU cycles to get better quality
(after all, it
will be a dedicated media box). I have never heard of
rtjpeg, so I
don't
think I'll use that.
2. What is the CPU utilization when encoding in that
format? What about
decoding?
3. Is it worth getting a hardware encoder
(specifically Hauppauge
PVR-250)? What's the CPU utilization then? If not,
which card do you
recommend?
4. There are two options for tv-out:
- TV capture card with TV out (such as Hauppauge
PVR-350) with no
video card (I'm assuming I don't need a video card
then)
OR
- plain TV capture card + video card with TV out
(Nvidia GeForce MX
or
an old ATI Rage II).
I am leaning towards the second option since this
would allow me to
connect a monitor for debugging and what not. Which
one would you
recommend?
5. Where does the sound go? The TV out outputs only
video, so I'm
assuming I still need speakers when playing back a
recording. But what
about live tv? My tv has only RCA inputs and no
outputs.
6. How well does the remote work? It's quite important
for a dedicated
media box.
any other suggestions are welcome.
thanks in advance,
Eugene
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