I am doing almost exactly the same thing this summer...and am pretty new, so take my comments with a grain of salt. That said, here are some of the considerations I've done.
1. For the video card: I've decided on my main front ends to use FX 5200 with DVI outputs (I intend to connect to HD TVs). They are 5-10 bucks more expensive, but I think that I'd prefer the flexibility. 2. I decided to use the video card for TV out and went with a single PVR-500MCE (which is two PVR-150's on one card). I got it to work pretty quickly using Jarod's Fedora instructions and a thread from this list (I haven't tried it with Knoppmyth, yet.) 3. There was some comments about incompatibility with VIA based Motherboards in the MythTV readme. It may all be gone in the latest version, but I decided to play it safe and only use nForce-based motherboards. In fact, I've been pleased with this combo from Tigerdirect for $79 AR: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1166612&Sku=MBM-7NJL6-XP2900 (you'll still need a CPU fan with this. Be careful picking it. It is the noisiest component of my system.) 4. Consider both Jarod's Fedora installation HOW-TO and Knoppmyth. I've experimented with both. The Fedora flavor takes a long-time to install, while knoppmyth takes less than an hour. I have had a very stable Fedora based system doing Standard Def MythTV. Knoppmyth seemed to be less stable, but I was trying HD with it and didn't take the time to "tweak" it, yet. I think you are right on with cost. I have now purchased two systems for mythTV. My HD BE/FE combo cost $650 (incl case) while my SD BE/FE combo cost $660 (w/ a more expensive quiet case). Hope this helps. Rob --- John Hanauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My proposal, any advice, thoughts, comments, > questions would be appreciated. > > My basic assumptions was 80 hour TiVo is 300 with 1 > tuner and lifetime > subscription is 300. So, operating budget was 600 > plus some slack > because of not paying tax. > > WinTV-PVR-150MCE newegg.com $70.00 > WinTV-PVR-350 ajump.com $174.00 > ASUS V9520-X/TD/128 Geforce FX5200 128MB DDR > newegg.com $44.50 > ASUS A7V600-X Socket A (Socket 462) VIA KT600 > newegg.com $59.50 > AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 333MHz FSB newegg.com > $103.00 > WINTEC 512MB DDR SDRAM (PC 3200) Unbuffered > newegg.com $37.82 > WD Caviar SE WD2500JD 250GB 7200 RPM SATA150 > newegg.com $124.00 > > $612.82 total. > > I realize that the PVR-350 is unnecessary if I've > got a video card > doing TV-out, and I could probably save a lot of > money not having it, > but I've heard playback for MPEG-2 is just awesome > with it. So I > might still in the end scrap the PVR-350, save 70 > bucks, and get a > PVR-150. > > -John > > PS: I have an old case to throw all this in. > _______________________________________________ > mythtv-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users > _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
