I'll start off by saying I'm a newbie here and this is my first post. I've long wanted to do some sort of PC-based A/V project and when I first saw the Windows XP Media Edition PC's hit the market I thought I'd have one right away... then I did a little research and found out about MythTV and then Knoppmyth... Now the quest is on to do this with very little monetary output and get back to my "roots" at building my own PC. It's been quite a while since I've built my own, but being in the IT support field by trade, I'm not in the least bit worried about that part. Linux however, is very new to me.

I thought I'd see what I have laying around to experiment in building my own HTPC with. I have a few PCs, but the best hardware equipped PC I have is a Dell Optiplex GX270 Small Form Factor machine. Obviously, being a small form factor unit, I'm starting off by limiting myself big time...

It's adequately equipped, but expansion will be tough:
Pentium 4 2.4GHz Socket 478
Intel Extreme Graphics onboard video (I know...)
On board sound (again with the onboard stuff)
512MB DDR RAM (gotta check again... not sure of speed)
40GB Maxtor HDD - small yes, but then I'm just experimenting right now.
1 PCI and 1 AGP Expansion slot - but limited by the SFF case - can't get a "full-width" card into the slot unless I want to leave the case open... that wouldn't look too pretty though.

I'm not too worried about cooling at this point... just want to see if I can actually do this. When I feel I've gotten the hang of it, I'll start off building a nice back-end with hand-picked parts.

For now though, the GX270 it is... at least I'd like it to be...

I looked around this forum (haven't looked at any other MythTV/PVR forums yet) for any info from anyone that's built one of these on a GX270, but came up short.

I've installed Knoppmyth with very little problem, but haven't really tried anything out yet. Sound appears to be working, at least through the system speaker... haven't connected any external speakers yet.

"Multi-media Video card not detected" on boot-up. Anyone have any experience in getting an on-board Intel Extreme Graphics setup working? I'm still searching for info on this, but otherwise, haven't really delved into troubleshooting this yet.

Obviously, my biggest worry right now is expansion. I searched for some comparisons and experiences with USB2 tuners here, and on the Knoppmyth and MythTV wiki's, but didn't find a whole lot of info on these. Can anyone recommend a USB based TV tuner that will still perform well with a 2.4GHz processor and do some MPEG2 encoding on the "card" instead of the processor. Is it even possible for the work to be off-loaded onto the "card" in a USB format? I would eventually like to run dual tuners if the system can handle it.

At some point, I will hunker down and start hand-picking components to build a decent backend machine, but right now, I'd like to try to see if I can actually get this machine to work. I'm in the midst of selling my house and looking for a new one, so, I'm trying to hang on to every bit of cash I have... if you've ever purchased a house, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Thanks in advance for any opinions or recommendations. This is a great site with a lot of useful info. When I do go to build my back-end machine, I don't expect to have any major issues at all thanks to the information I've found here.

-Lee

I have installed KM on GX260, GX280, and a GX520 in testing...

I think 270 uses Intel i810 chipset too

Change /etc/X11/XF86Config-4



refrence

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8561

Instead of a USB tuner, may want to see if you can find a happauge PVR-150 1/2 height PCI card tuner. Inexpensive and great SD quality. I have heard they make 1/2 height cards, but have not found researched where to buy.

Looks like it autodetected the i810 chipset. Not sure why I see that error at boot up. I'll have to dig into this more later.





You know... I think I've seen one of these somewhere. I vaguely remember the price being around $78. It was described as a PVR-150 "Low Profile." I didn't really think anything of it at the time. Now I'll have to figure out where it was I saw that.

Thanks for the head-up on that one.

-Lee

Hi,

Dell also has an adaptor that opens the machine to handle a x50 card nicely. May want to check to see it is available for the GX270. On the 620, It plugs into the pcie & pci slot as a rizer then lays over to give you the one normal slot.

Some of the Dell models did have issues with 24 bit, if so drop the depth to 16.

Since you are just starting, be prepared to make more than one attempt at installing. (Practice makes perfect In the end since this is a learning project, you may want to end up with a dual boot with edubuntu (if you have kids) or ubuntu (for older more sedate) and KM.

Only takes a small ~5 gig partition and both live nicely together.
Mike

Are you getting the error "unsupported video mode.... choose one of these modes..." ?

If so when I install from the install CD type "tv" in the prompt, that will setup to install at a diffrent resolution and avoid the unsupported mode. If you are talking about the "no multimedia controller" in one of the linux boot messages that flash by, that probably isn't too big a deal.

Hi,

Going along with spalVl and the startup video error, I believe that as root, you may also edit the /etc/lilo.conf file
nano /etc/lilo.conf

and make the first line be
vga=normal

ctl x y return to save and exit

Then do
lilo -v
to reload the file. Your next boot / reboot should clean.

Mike

Thanks MJL - I might give the dual-boot a try. I definitely plan to re-install so that I can document my own steps.

Warwick, RI huh?? I almost moved there a few years ago. You don't work for Brooks Pharmacy, do you?

-Lee

That's the one I'm getting.

-Lee

Newegg has the "low profile" Hauppauge PVR-150 for $69.99 right now if anyone else is interested in one of these for a "slim" or "small form factor" machine.

-Lee

Try Mike's suggestion,



Will be easier than my suggestion of reinstall.

Hi ComputerHouse,

Circuit City has the 150 "normal size" on sale this week also ~$60 after rebates. If there is a rizer for the 270, you could later upgrade to a 350 .

No Brookes, but lord knows I drop enough at the other one each month..

If I recall correctly, you will have to run alsamixer to unmute a couple of items. Not sure how R5C7 handles those for the install and I won't have the oppertunity to test that for several weeks.

Once it is up, it is quite stable, I have had an A16 & A26 being hammered on for well over six months. Took me a little tweaking to make it do what I wanted which is 24 hour record, in 30 minute files, as an endless loop on a 250 gig drive, (auto expire, 368 recordings) I have it do a reboot once per week to rebuild the record schedule.

Until you get the card, you should be able to make the rest of the features just plain fly with the best. There are some cool videos you pull to tune your codecs, http://revision3.com/systm/mythtv/ is a starter

Mike
Mike

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions. Everything appears to be configured as you suggested. I still see that message fly up the screen on boot-up, but it doesn't seem to be affecting anything...

Not sure when I'll have a chance to pick up a tuner card, but I'll probably start with the half-height 150 and go from there.

For now like Mike suggested, I'll make sure everything else is working.

Thought I had a DVD playback issue last night. I popped in the DVD, already installed all the necessary tools to play. The DVD played but very, very choppy. I researched issues for like an hour, compared suggestions to my settings only to find everything was set correctly.

Turns out, I think I hit the down arrow on my keyboard while the movie was playing... The movie was playing in slow-motion. D'oh!
Backed out, restarted Gone in 60 Seconds, and watched the Eleanor chase scene on my 17" LCD Monitor. Picture looked perfect and no loss of sound sync. (Although it was very lacking on the PC speaker)

So, it looks like so far, so good... next thing to do is check sound.

Thanks again!

Lee