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Multiple hd tuner cards
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Author:  karlec [ Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:40 am ]
Post subject:  Multiple hd tuner cards
I am a newbie and was wondering how some specs on the forum described having up to 4 tuner cards? Can someone tell me how they would be connected if the MB only has 2-3 pci slots?
I am thinking about getting a PVR500 and two hd-5500 but the boards that I am looking at right now only have 2 pci slots.

Thanks for any help!
Author:  slowtolearn [ Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:22 am ]
Post subject: 
If they are referring to PCI tuner cards then obviously they have enough PCI slots in the master backend system, or they are using a slave backend setup - See http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page ... ckendHowTo . Otherwise, I have read on these forums that some USB tuners work with MythTV.

If you are only going to have 1 KM system, and that board only has 2 PCI slots, then you are limited to only 2 PCI cards (the PVR-500 has dual tuners on a single card)
Author:  cameraready [ Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:25 am ]
Post subject: 
You can configure a system with external tuners without using a single pci slot. Most are USB, but there is also the HD Homerun that uses ethernet.
Author:  karlec [ Thu Mar 08, 2007 9:11 am ]
Post subject: 
Are there compatible cards out there that can use the pcie slots (i.e. ...x1)? Would it be a better investment to get a couple of hd550 since they do hd and sd?
Author:  Martian [ Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:32 am ]
Post subject: 
At this point in time for a single system setup with only 2 PCI slots the best "bang for the buck" would probably be a PVR-500 and an HDHomerun. That setup will only use 1 PCI slot (the HDHomerun is ethernet based) and will give you 2 analog and 2 HD tuners all of which are very good quality.

The problem with the cards that do both HD and analog is that the analog capture is just a "frame grabber" they don't do hardware MPEG encoding so the quality just isn't as good. If you can live with lower quality analog then one of those cards may be a solution.

Martian
Author:  karlec [ Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:47 pm ]
Post subject: 
The configuration that I am thinking about will have both frontend and backend on the same machine, will the HDHomerun work on it?

I am thinking about the following:
XFX 7600GT fatal1ty
1Gb G.Skill SDRAM
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 X2 4800 2.5GHz
500G WD SATA
Logitech Harmony 880
latest release of KnoppMyth.

Thanks for your help. :)
Author:  Martian [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:13 am ]
Post subject: 
The HDHomerun will work fine with a combined fromt end / back end.

If you are seriously considering an HDHomerun you should head over to their website and do some homework. They have a very active community and forums: http://www.silicondust.com/forum/

I would also do a little homework on RAM compatibility with your ASUS motherboard. The ASUS boards are well know to be picky about RAM. Most ASUS boards seem to require 1.9V RAM - Do your homework!

Your proposed system looks good however it is a little overkill if it will only be used as a MythTV box. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you only plan to use the box for TV you could save a little money.

Best of luck to you!

Martian
Author:  bbear [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:12 am ]
Post subject: 
Martian,
I am in the process of rebuilding my ASUS M2NPV-VM based system as I found that I ran out of PCI slots.

I have just got a PVR-500 working and are considering adding a HD Homerun for the two HD tuners. Originally I bought an Airstar HD-5000-PCI before I realised it was no good for the SD channels since they were analogue, now in order to end up with two HD tuners it means I have to shelve what is otherwise a perfectly good Airstar card.

What I am not clear on however is how my Streamzap remote would work with this setup. The HDHomerun has an IR receiver and I read on the Silicondust forum that you can configure the remote to pass the lirc commands to the Myth box.

For my setup I was hoping to hide the HDHomerun inside my computers case as I already have the Streamzap receiver and wireless dongle hanging outside, it is getting to the point where I am going to end up with more outside the box than inside.

Do you know if it is possible to still use my Streamzap remote with the original Streamzap receiver to control my Myth box? Presumaby to do this the commands would have to go over the ethernet to the HDHomerun.

My other option is to shelve my micrio-ATX motherboard and go for an ATX which has more PCI slots and stick with the Airstar. It is is shame there are no pci-e capture cards supported in Linux otherwise I could use those slots on my M2NPV-VM, hopefully at some pint in the future there will be support for pci-e as I expect that eventually the PCI slots will disappear.

thanks,

Kevin
Author:  karlec [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:32 am ]
Post subject: 
Martian - Thanks for your responses.

I would be more than happy to save money, which part of my setup do you think is the overkill. I will be using my box for general computing as well (ripping music etc...) and would like for my HD viewing to go as smoothly as possible.

Also, I currently use Dish as my provider and their receivers do not have Firewire ports, what are my options as far as connecting the box to the receiver; They do however provide a USB port, can that be used?

Thanks for your help.

Karlec
Author:  Martian [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:41 am ]
Post subject: 
In response to bbear:

You will have no problems using you streamzap remote and receiver with an HDHomerun. All control commands to the HDHomerun are sent over Ethernet, no line-of-sight with the HDHomerun is required. In fact some people mount the HDHomerun in the attic so they can have shorter runs from their antenna. (You would of course need to make sure it didn't get to hot in this type of situation. I know it wouldn't last more than a couple of days during the summer in my attic.!)

You correct in the fact that the HDHomerun does have an IR receiver and it can be configured in LIRC. The HDHomerun will receive the IR commands from your remote and then pass them over the Ethernet to LIRC running on your Myth box. While this works the HDHomerun isn't a very attractive IR receiver so most people don't use it as such. Since you already have a StreamZap I can't think of any reason you would want to do this?!?!

I would NOT advise placing an HDHomerun inside a computer for thermal reasons. The HDHomerun is known to run a little hot and I'm pretty sure mounting it inside a hot computer case would not provide adequate ventilation. Do remember that there is no reason the HDHomerun even needs to be in the same room as your Myth box!

Hope this helps!

Martian
Author:  Martian [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 12:07 pm ]
Post subject: 
karlec wrote:
Martian - Thanks for your responses.

No problem, glad to help
karlec wrote:
I would be more than happy to save money, which part of my setup do you think is the overkill. I will be using my box for general computing as well (ripping music etc...) and would like for my HD viewing to go as smoothly as possible.

I am thinking about the following:
    XFX 7600GT fatal1ty
    MythTV doesn't need anywhere near this kind of power but since you indicated you also plan to use the system for other things it's probably a good "middle-of-the-road" choice.
    1Gb G.Skill SDRAM
    Be sure to check compatibility - I'd be very nervous if it isn't 1.9V rated...
    ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
    No need to go SLI unless you plan to add another graphics card down the road. If you do ever plan to go SLI be sure the board has the nForce 590 chipset and NOT the nForce 570. The 570 only supports 8x PCIe lanes in SLI where the 590 supports full 16x lanes in SLI!!!
    Athlon 64 X2 4800 2.5GHz
    Could drop down to the 3800+ and save a few bucks. This boils down to how much power you want and how much you want to spend.
    500G WD SATA
    Logitech Harmony 880
    latest release of KnoppMyth.
    no issues on the rest, although obviously you could go less storage and a less fancy Harmony remote to save a few $'s. But hey at least Knoppmyth is free!
karlec wrote:
Also, I currently use Dish as my provider and their receivers do not have Firewire ports, what are my options as far as connecting the box to the receiver; They do however provide a USB port, can that be used?

I'm not going to be much help here as I don't know anything about Dish however if you don't have a Firewire port I'm pretty sure there is no hope of getting anything HD off the box. I think the USB is just for programming etc... I don't think you can transfer any video content over it. You can try a search for "Dish" and see where that leads:

Best of luck!

Martian
Author:  bbear [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 12:18 pm ]
Post subject: 
Martian wrote:
The HDHomerun is known to run a little hot and I'm pretty sure mounting it inside a hot computer case would not provide adequate ventilation. Do remember that there is no reason the HDHomerun even needs to be in the same room as your Myth box!


I have a combined front-end/back-end and have it connected to the internet wirelessly using a Dlink USB dongle. I have been trying to avoid having to run Ethernet cables around my living room but I do take your point about not putting the HDHomerun in the computer case for thermal reasons.

I don't suppose that there is any problem with just putting the HDHomerun near my cable outlet (which is hidden behind my TV), that way it will just be a short Ethernet cable and won't be one more thing cluttering up the top of my Myth box. Does the HDHome run only need an Ethernet connection to my Myth box or does it need to be hooked into my home network for any reason?

I thought that I had found an alternative to my M2NPV-VM, an ATX motherboard from Gigabyte (Ga-M55plus-S3G (rev 3.0)) with four PCI slots, on-board 6150 graphics and high definition audio with S/PDIF in/out. Only problem is that unlike the M2NPV it doesn't appear to have any way of getting component video off the board for connecting up to my plasma. It looks like I am stuck with my M2NPV.

thanks,

Kevin
Author:  Shifty [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:32 pm ]
Post subject: 
karlec wrote:
Also, I currently use Dish as my provider and their receivers do not have Firewire ports, what are my options as far as connecting the box to the receiver; They do however provide a USB port, can that be used?

There is really only one way: Use an analog capture card (such as a Hauppage PVR-150/250/350/500) to record the output of your Dish box through coax cable. You would control the Dish box with some sort of IRBlaster. (There are lots of how-to's on setting up Dish w/ MythTV. Try google.) You cannot currently record HD content off of Dish or DTV to MythTV, as far as I know. When I purchased my HDTV I switched from DishNetwork to TimeWarnerCable for this specific reason.

If you're not entirely stuck on MythTV, you can mail off your Dish network box to a company like NextComm. They will modify your settopbox to add in a firewire port, which you then hook up to a Windows machine running their software. It will record HD channels, but is expensive, and its not Myth and not open source. Read more here @ avsforum or here @ their website.
Author:  karlec [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:21 pm ]
Post subject: 
1Gb G.Skill SDRAM
Be sure to check compatibility - I'd be very nervous if it isn't 1.9V rated...

I will do more research on this.


500G WD SATA
Logitech Harmony 880
latest release of KnoppMyth.
no issues on the rest, although obviously you could go less storage and a less fancy Harmony remote to save a few $'s. But hey at least Knoppmyth is free!

I already own the remote and the HD.

Thanks again!
Author:  Martian [ Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:01 pm ]
Post subject: 
bbear,

Obviously you will not want to try to run HD content over a wireless link so you will have to connect up the HDHomerun directly to your Myth box's Ethernet port. This will work fine however the HDHomerun relies on a DHCP server to assign it an IP address so you will need to run a lightweigh DHCP server on your mythbox to give the HDHomerun an IP address since it won't be able to see your main network.

There is plenty of information in the HDHomerun support forum (linked above) on how to set this up. I would look for a specific thread but the forum appears to be down at the moment.

I'm sure you will be able to find someplace to tuck away the HDHomerun out of sight!

Martian
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