So my HD3000 is apparently on its way. Now I have to figure out what the heck to do with it.

Right now my R4V5 setup is working great. Master backend has two PVR-x50s in it and does have one more slot available for the HD3000. Remote frontend is a Shuttle-based system also with a slot available. I am hesitant to "rock the boat" and disturb the current setup to any great degree.

I'd be more than happy to install the HD3000 into the Shuttle and use it strictly as a tuner. I can always get it going with MythTV (either in the master backend or setting up the Shuttle as a slave backend) when that path becomes easier or less hardware-intensive. Anyone know whether this would be possible? The PCHDTV website certainly sets the bar pretty low when it talks about system requirements.

I have read the threads (particularly liv2cod's threads here, as well as the threads on mythtv-user) that make it sound that incorporating HDTV playback into MythTV requires some serious hardware, something my Shuttle currently lacks (nForce2 motherboard with Athlon XP 2400+ CPU, using onboard video). I've also seen suggestions that you can get by with lesser hardware with a different distribution. Gentoo, for instance... but I would imagine getting pretty screwed pretty fast if I messed with Gentoo.

Are there any KnoppMyth-based HOWTOs out there on getting this card working? I would be happy to commission one.

Thanks.

I don't think there are any howto's on the pchdtv 3000 yet as the first of us are just now getting the card. but it should be similar to the 2000, but will need new drivers which will make things not quite plug and play. I imagine you'll see a bit more talk about these cards in the coming weeks as some people get a chance to start working with them. I know my pchdtv 3000 just arrived a couple days ago, and from my work schedule it looks like it may be up to two weeks before I can spend the time needed to get it going. Unfortunately/fortunately most of my efforts will probably be spend on making it work better/easier with R5.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I've tried to compile the modules against R4 w/o success. The modules compile w/o issue with R5.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

youno.. after reading cesman response the natrual question.. WHICH ALL GOOD forum memebers no NOT TO ASK is.... drum roll.

No! Don't ask it! I just bought a HD3000, for cryin' out loud!

I didnt ask it.. im just playing I am a few weeks from buying my hd3000

Let me just say... RECORDING using the pcHDTV card is duck soup. It has negligible impact on my combined FE/BE system. VIEWING the resulting file is the real heavy hitter. BUT, if you're not trying to view at 1920x1080i resolution you can probably get by with your Athlon 2400 just fine.

The decoding problem is summed up by this fact: To decode a full HDTV stream at 1920x1080i, you're taking a 20M bit/sec stream (the MPEG2 source) and expanding it to a 1.5G bit/sec stream. That's why the processor and other systems get so bogged in playback. (The best DVD rate, 720x480i, gives us less than 250M bits/sec. or about 1/6 the work of HDTV's largest resolution.)

I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know...

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I imagine that most people interested in the HD3000 are also subscribed to mythtv-users, but in case not... one of the developers just posted the following interesting comment about future driver development:



So there's hope for us Athlon folk yet?

I spent the afternoon trying to get my HD3000 working with my new HTPC (2.8GHz P4 (non-HT, 533MHz FSB), 1GB PC1066 RDRAM, Radeon9700 Pro, HD3000), without success.

KnoppMyth installed smoothly, after I discovered the "hit the SHIFT key every few minutes" trick during the installation. I managed to use apt-get to update and install all the MythTV modules I wanted, and things looked quite nice on my plasma...except for HDTV input. The card wouldn't work.

I tried compiling and installing the latest drivers from pchdtv.com, but once I did, the machine started freezing during boot, with a GPF after complaining that the tuner had already been defined.


I tried installing FC3 instead, and getting things working by hand. The card does, in fact, work, as I was able to get xine-hd to work (after a fashion). Still couldn't get MythTV to work with the card, however.


At this point, I've resigned myself to waiting until someone a bit better-versed in all things KnoppMyth to get their system working with an HD3000, and post the details to the forum.

There have been at least some success stories in the linux users mailing list. Check out this thread: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/93327