Re: [SLUG] <Take 2> MythTV = Media Centre ++

[Rev Simon Rumble <simon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This one time, at band camp, Alex Samad wrote:

> so how does the setup work, does mythtv transcode everything to mpeg2 ?

DVB-t (digital terrestrial) is already MPEG-2, so I doubt he bothers 
transcoding anything.

> I am currently using an xbox with xbmc on it, works well, except for the
> newer mp4 (h264) file, then there doesn't seem to be enough horse power
> to handle it.

These kind of fanless machines don't tend to have enough grunt for 
anything other than the formats they support.  There _are_ chipsets that 
do the algorithms needed for the mp4/xvid generation of codecs, but I 
believe none of the boards are supported under Linux.

Since this is a bit of a show-and-tell, my setup.

I bought an IBM dual 1 gig Xeon server off eBay for a couple of hundred 
bucks.  That's my backend, running Debian, with a terrabyte of SATA 
drives in it for storage of video.

Three capture cards, two PCI random ones I bought from Dick Smith, 
another is a Freecom USB one.

Frontend is a fanless Via EPIA ME6000 with half a gig of RAM.  OS is 
Minimyth that boots from CF (http://minimyth.org/) and remote is a 
StreamZap.

At some point I'll buy a shiny new HD telly, in which case I may upgrade 
the front end to something that needs fans, but I'll stick it in the 
same cupboard as the server and run DVI either direct or over the Cat6 
to the lounge room.

Unfortunately the whole setup is out of action right now, pending 
running cables under and around the new house.

-- 
Rev Simon Rumble <simon@xxxxxxxxxx>
www.rumble.net

The Tourist Engineer
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