On Mon, 2007-03-05 at 16:34 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote: > On Monday 05 March 2007 15:06:33 Ben Scott wrote: > > On 3/5/07, Jon 'maddog' Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > So Jarod....as an owner of "HDHomeRun", could you enlighten us on why > > > someone would not just buy one of those and plug it into their low-end > > > Pentium box that has a lot of disk and a 100 Mbit/sec ETHERNET > > > controller as a "back end" to MythTV? > > > > I'm not Jarod, but I'd say that's an idea that makes a lot of sense > > in many cases. > > And Jarod mostly agrees. Point of disagreement: I wouldn't want a low-end > Pentium box doing commercial flagging and/or transcoding of HDTV material.
O.K. but it could certainly be a mid-range pentium, like one of those boxes that Showtime is selling. > > > However, if you're looking for a single box to do it all (like all the > > mass-market DVRs), then it might make more sense to use a traditional > > tuner/capture card. In particular, if you want to use an "appliance" > > type box in your AV stack, and you don't have or want Ethernet to be > > part of that AV stack. (Hard to imagine, I know, but I guess there > > *are* people like that.) > > Folks w/o a home network running an all-in-one box with dial-up for fetching > guide data certainly might not like adding Ethernet to the mix, though they > could just do a crossover cable between the HDHR and the myth box. I was thinking of having the Myth box have two ethernet cards. One for the connection to the HDHR and one for the rest of the network. > > > One possible issue (I'm not sure how real it is): With an HDHomeRun > > or other network-attached capture device, any network problems also > > become recorder problems. Sometimes home networks have cheap > > unreliable switches, or have spyware-infected Windows machines on > > them, etc. > > The HDHomeRun also requires a working DHCP server somewhere on the network to > get an IP address. So yes, you become dependent on a reliable DHCP server and > your network to record programs. Not a big deal for most geeks, but for mom > and pop... Also not a big thing with a D-link, Linksys or other "home" router. They all do DHCP. Does this need a "real" address, or just a NAT address? > > > > What do you see as the trade-offs? > > > > HDHomeRun: More wires. Maybe more network usage (which matters if > > you're 802.11 wireless only, which many SOHOs are). No need to open > > the PC case. Can put the HDHR someplace where a PC isn't convenient > > (e.g., on a wall in the basement where the CATV wire comes in to the > > house). > > > > Traditional tuner/capture card (in an expansion slot): Fewer wires. > > Can do an all-in-one box without network for AV (still need network > > for EPG, but that's minimal). You can stuff a bunch of cards in one > > box without worrying about if you $29 Ethernet switch from Wal-Mart > > can actually handle the load. If the network goes down, the DVR stays > > up. Ties the PC down to a location where a CATV wire is available. > > HDHR requires its own power adapter too, so if your myth box is on ups, you > may want the HDHR on ups too. I think some folks were looking at external storage, so this is just "more on the UPS". Besides, my Tivo is not on a UPS. If power goes out I don't record a TV show. Life goes on....unless it is the Red Sox in a world series game. > > > The HDHR possibly means an easier integration with MythTV, but > > really, it's just another capture device. It just happens to use > > Ethernet instead of PCI for attachment. A well-supported PCI card > > should be about the same in most case (but perhaps not all). Either > > mode (HDHR or card) support front-end/back-end or single-PC designs. > > >From a developer standpoint, the HDHR rocks, because you can easily point a > different system running a different code base at it without having to > shuffle cards around/have a duplicate. You could even have half your HDHR > allocated to your production system running the mythtv release code and the > other half allocated to a development system running the mythtv development > code. > When my HDHR comes in I am going to try to hook it up to my Koolu box and my laptop and see what it can do. Maybe this is a low-power thing that could be part of the "stay on all the time" syndrome. I could then bring it to a meeting and demonstrate that. I think it is worth studying, thinking about, etc. Maybe this is the conversation that should go to the general discussion list sooner or later. md _______________________________________________ gnhlug-org mailing list gnhlug-org@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-org/
