Allo,

I am starting off with a small system and when the $$ comes in will upgrade to a faster backend and make this my frontend.

I have a small Compaq Deskpro EN
Intel PIII 866
256RAM (Upgrading to 512? Should I go more)
DVD Recorder 16X
40gig HDD (Want to upgrade to SATA 350gig)
It is a intel chipset Motherboard and Intel Ethernet Intel Audio.
Currently runs ok, No Tuner and I use the Koppix X11 as a desktop for now.

I am from DownUnder, and is wondering what TV Tuner is best with Knopmyth
HD3000 i have not seen here in Australia, and i dont think the mother board will do?!?!
Hauppauge?
Divco?
I would want the card to do decoding onbaord rather that the CPU as for my low speed config.

Should I rather just settle for a PVR x50? Standard Def? for now and use it in the future as a second tuner in my backend system...

You have things backwards, it's the FE that needs more processor power, and that CPU doesn't have anywhere near enough juice to decode HDTV for playback from all reports.

that is what i thought.....
Back to the drawing board.

I dont have a TV. at all.
Thought this will kill two flies at once......Well guess not...

well that rig would work for testing. It is plenty for recording at least dvb or any form of digital broadcast.

and it will playback sd just not hd. It should record hd fine as all that takes is writing the stream off the air to disk. not processor intensive at all.

and you could always go ahead and try to playback hd, but you'll most likely end up with a slideshow.

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

Xsecrets

Thanks for the bit of encouragment

I was thinking to go SD for now.....and as mentioned will use it for front end system when the cash flows in

I'm in Sydney and have been testing KnoppMyth on a Compaq Deskpro EN SFF 933 with the DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Plus low profile card.

Just add r5a16 CD - 20min later you have an almost working system. The DVB-T card needs the kernel patched. I use a script to make the "patching" job easier, it also takes quite a long time to run, see Greg Frost's thread*. Then you really do have a working system!

Watching SD TV works fine (pause, rewind, OSD, EPG, etc) with this basic system (i.e. only the onboard graphics capability). Recording works a treat as well, HDTV seems to record OK, but I don't yet have a front end I can watch it on!

I've also had tried the card in a PIII700. Live TV did not work very well, but recording was fine. I was using an ATI 9250, without patching the latest drivers. With the extra kick from a well supported graphics card (nVidia 5200 seems to be flavour of the month), I'm sure even this old CPU will let me watch Live SD TV, so your PIII866 should be fine.

FWIW I have ordered the TechniSat AirStar 2 DVB-T to test out as well. It is meant to work out of the box with Linux, so hopefully I will find out this weekend!


*Greg Frost's thread = http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4527&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
DViCO FusionHDTV Plus = http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/Eng/Products/DVBTPlus.aspx
AirStar 2 = http://www.technisat.com/?site=produkte/produkteview.php&kid=1,29&pid=1352&reload

ThornyDevil....

THANKS
That is such good news, i was really down about this, and the DViCOis a popular card to.

Will give it a bash.....

Well, I am in Sydney too.

I have a PIII 500 as my backend with 384mb RAM and an Avermedia 771 DVB card.

When running this as the Backend and Frontend I can watch and record SD tv without an issue at all, however HD is a little choopy.
This is sooo very close to working though it isnt funny.
CPU usage on live tv watching and record doe snot exceed 75% onthis machine.

When i run this machine as backend only, and run a frontend on a PIII 733 again I can watch live tv and record/playback without issue at all. AT ALL i say

With the separate frontend, the backend uses less than 10% CPU (might have even be 5%, cant remember)

I am replacing my digital antenna at the moment and havent tried HD live tv with the separate frontend, but my bet is that I will get away with it.

Next step is to whack more than one DVB tuner in

Andrew

unless your hd is much lower resolution than here in the states you will not be able to play it back on a machine under 2G. well not 1080i anyways. 720p can be a bit lower.

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

Xsecrets

What you get on the HD channels in australia varies from channel to channel. I think channel 7 actually calls 576p high def!.
Also the channels that do 1080i typically do 1440x1080i instead of 1920x1080i. It depends on how many sub channels and radio channels that the broadcaster wants to cram into the transport.