I'm planning out a myth backend/file server system for my home network. My ideal outcome is a system that will accept media from any networked system and serve it out in addition to its role as a pvr.

I have relatively no experience with the PVR end of things. My list of questions is as follows:

1)
My cable provider (Cox) has provided me with a motorola set-top box for digital cable. I will be upgrading to their HD set-top receiver in short order, which I assume will be another motorola set-top. In regards to IR blasters, it's my understanding that if I wanted to record one HD stream, and watch another real-time stream at the same time, I would need to ask for 2 HD set-top boxes from Cox. I would then need 2 serial ports available, and 2 IR-blasters taped to the fronts of the boxes, correct? To expand my 1 serial port mobo to 2, I'm looking at usb>serial adapters.

2)
How many tuner cards would I need if I wanted to have myth handle 3 total streams simultaneously: 2 HD and 1 SD.

3)
Which tuner(s) would be recommended? I do not plan on using any antennas. Just want to record what comes out of the set-tops and the SD cable. If this isn't enough info to make a recommendation, what info is needed?

4)
Would this sort of hardware be able to pull off my goal?:

Backend:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Processor
MB: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
Ram: 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
HDD: 2x500GB WD 7200Rpm SATA

Frontend:
CPU: Same as above
MB: GIGABYTE GA-73UM-S2H LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7150 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Ram: 1GB
HDD: none(attempting a diskless minimyth install using boot from flash device)

Any help is appreciated.

Unfortunately I have bad news right at your question #1.

You cannot record a HD signal from an HD cable box unless the HD cable box has a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port AND if that port is active. AND even then it may only let you record a subset of the channels that you're getting on the cable box.

If you record via Firewire, you can also channel-change via Firewire (no need for IR blasting) and you don't need a tuner card (the set-top box is your tuner and you transmit the data to your system via Firewire). You do of course need FireWire on your motherboard or add it via a card.

There is no way I know of to capture HD via MythTV and a set-top box's component or HDMI outputs.

You could use a HD tuner card (or the HD HomeRun external box) and connect your cable directly to these cards (no set-top box required), BUT you will only be able to record unencrypted channels. Often these are only your local channels; the vast majority of the digital cable channels won't be recordable in this way.

I guess I would say, if you want to record three streams (2HD, 1SD), I'd get a HD HomeRun and a PVR-150. Then you could use the 150's IR blaster to change channels on a single cable box and record all those channels, and the HD Home Run to record whatever's available in the clear on your cable system.

AFAIK, depending on the STB provided you can record over firewire - Search the forums for your specific STB.

Browse the Tier 1/2 forums. Also see
http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=WhatCardYouUse
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Tuner_Card

Don't know about minimyth on flash, but the specs look fine to me. I would search the forums to make sure nobody has any specific issues with the motherboards you are planning to use.

EDIT: OK, good, looks like ceenvee703 took care of 1 and 2 /EDIT

Howdy,

Regarding the minimyth install, why not go with a diskless frontend via NFS? I don't follow the minimyth development but there might be a compatibility problem between different versions of mythtv with the two installs? Just a thought.

Regards,
Kirk.

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