N Dugas wrote: >Steve Adeff wrote: > > >>On Monday 09 January 2006 14:00, N Dugas wrote: >> >>>After having Myth running for about 6 months, I and thinking of changing >>>how I have it set up. Right now, both the front and back ends are on >>>the same box which has a PVR-350 tuner. What I'd like to do is this: >>> >>>Make my current Myth box a backend only but also add a firewire >>>connection to my DCT-6412. I then plan on setting up another Myth box >>>as a frontend only. My understanding is that the frontend has lower HW >>>requirements. >>> >>>Hardware config for my current Myth box (to become my backend) is: >>> >>>Mobo: A7N8X-E Deluxe >>>CPU: Athlon XP 3000 >>>RAM: 1G Dual DDR >>>Video: ATI Radeon 9550 w/ 256M >>>Disk: Seagate 200G >>>Lan: D-LINK DWL-G520 Wireless NIC >>>Connected to my 26" Samsung LCD HDTV. >>> >>>I have at my disposal (to use/swap into this box if needed, based on >>>feedback): >>>GeForce FX5500 w/ 256M >>>Seagate 200G >>>Extra 512M Dual DDR stick >>> >>>For my new frontend: >>>Mobo: MSI KT4V-L >>>CPU: Athlon XP 1800 >>>RAM: 512M >>>Video: Whatever is left, ATI Radeon 9550 or ATI Radeon 9550 >>>Disk: Seagate 200G >>>Lan: D-LINK DWL-G520 Wireless NIC >>> >>> >>>Will this work? >>> >>Are you planning on doing HD? If not, your current BE/FE machine is more than >>adequate to handle the PVR350 and DCT6412. >> >I'm hoping to do HD since I've got a handful of HD chanels. I've been >hearing that the Nvidia card should be able to do it if I enable XvMC. > > ATI's drivers don't support XvMC. Rumor has it they're "working on it" (and have been for literally years). So, go with NVIDIA on the frontend.
Also, take Fred's advice--the frontend needs to be the more powerful system (especially if doing HDTV). If you're using hardware encoders for SDTV (i.e. Hauppauge PVR-x50's) or digital video capture cards (i.e. DVB or ATSC (US HDTV)), the backend just has to dump data to disk. The commflagging and transcoding are the most processor-intensive parts on the backend but don't have to be done in real-time. Also, you can have your other Myth machine (that you use as the frontend) do some/all of the commflagging/transcoding. Also, my dedicated backend has a 2MB PCI graphics card in it. I may go up to a spare MX440 just so I can use the AGP port and free up a PCI slot (stupid doesn't-support-AGP-1X motherboard won't let me use my Riva TNT 8MB). A 9550 is a bit of a waste of a video card on a backend, so if you have a cheaper card that fits the board, you can save the 9550 for a different system. (I don't even start X on my backend.) Mike _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
