I have a existing machine that records TV, but there is one issue that is the flickering when i hit the info button on the Dish Network receiver, or change channel with the Dish receiver, but veiw is almost clear after text has cleared. but it will flicker on and off after that. Is this a result of me using the system as a frontend and backend. Should i break it up or leave it as one system?

I'm also trying to make this machine future proof for HDTV. I have seen the Macro Image Technology MDP-130, which looks good and i was thinking of using this instead of the Hauppauge tuner that i have now, but it only does 1080i and i was looking for 1080p.

What is the purpose of the Macro Image Technology MDP-130DVI add on card?

New machine specs:

Case: OrigenAE S21T-B
Power Supply: ULTRA ULT31852
CPU: AMD Athlon 64fx 53
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700 NT
MotherBoard: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
Memory: Corsair TWINX2048 3200PT
Video Card: BFG Geforce 7800GS OC
HDD RAID: Hitachi Ultrastar A7K1000 1TB
BD-DVD±R/RW: pending on slot loading Blu-Ray burner
SDTV Tuner: Hauppauge A/V Cable Set
SDTV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE
HDTV Tuner: pending on 1080p capture card
OS: Knoppmyth R5E50

Anything can be change or taken out so let me know if im setting this up wrong.

The flickering problem is that your capture card is capturing everything at a default low resolution of perhaps 320x480. This is the default resolution set while installing the myth frontend.
You need to change this.

In the myth front end go to utilities/setup ->Recording (If this is not the right tree then navigate and find recordings .. it should be some where followed through setup)
then you will get 4 options
* Default
* Live TV
* Low Quality
* High Quality
for all of these 4 options change the resolution to the highest. What you are doing is that you are changing the capture resolution which is stronger and hence would give you better/consistent picture quality. You must be wondering that you have a problem with live tv then why is the setting called recording? Well myth tv is recording everything, then sending data through the capture process to your video card. So its also recording live tv using buffering Smile ...hence its the recording issue. Also your live TV is actually delayed by mythtv for a few processing seconds.
Anyways, after changing the settings finish the settings changes and go back to live tv... Wawawiiwa... you should say now!

Asta lavista...
Cando!

also see the below links for more details...
http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInstall
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-10.html
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO.html#toc10.2
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-10.html#ss10.5

Omg cando you are a god I cant be leave it. The box is working without flickering thank you so much!

Know if there is anyone out there to answer my other questions I would greatly appreciate it.

Did you say Wawawiiiiva!!!! ?

Pleasure is all mine!

Are your other questions posted...? This forum has got a lot of big brother!

1. I am looking to make my box future proof for HDTV; Where can i find a capture card that will give me the out put of 1920x1080p that im looking for?

I have seen the Macro Image Technology MDP-130, which looks good and i was thinking of using this instead of the Hauppauge tuner that i have now, but it only does 1080i and i was looking for 1080p.

2. What is the purpose of the Macro Image Technology MDP-130DVI add on card?

3. My current box is working as a F/E and a B/E should i break it up or leave it as one system?

4. Here are the machines specs that i want to be future proof should i change anything?

New machine specs:

Case: OrigenAE S21T-B
Power Supply: ULTRA ULT31852
CPU: AMD Athlon 64fx 53
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700 NT
MotherBoard: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
Memory: Corsair TWINX2048 3200PT
Video Card: BFG Geforce 7800GS OC
HDD RAID: Hitachi Ultrastar A7K1000 1TB
BD-DVD±R/RW: pending on slot loading Blu-Ray burner
SDTV Tuner: Hauppauge A/V Cable Set
SDTV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE
HDTV Tuner: pending on 1080p capture card
OS: Knoppmyth R5E50

I am not really sure about all your questions. But try googling about your capture card or ask any stores around in your city.
Also, before purchasing the capture card, make sure that you can get the right drivers from somewhere, otherwise you wont be able to use it with knoppmyth which is based on a Debian Linux Kernel. By the way, I have got a Pchdtv 5500 (http://www.pchdtv.com/hd_5500.html) which I still have to test out on my box.

And yeah, make sure your motherboard have enough PCI slots for all the cards.


I think the F/E doesn’t consume much processing speed or hard disk space …so B/E F/E can be on the same box and work fine.

As far as video capture goes, there is no such thing as a 1080p capture card, because there isn't enough bandwidth to broadcast in 1080p. All HDTV is broadcast in either 1080i (most common) or 720p (some sports stations), so a 1080i capture card is the best you can get. The only reason to get a TV that can handle 1080p is if you're planning on using a PS3 (or other 1080p-capable videogame system) with it, or if you're planning to use your media center PC for more than just watching TV. Even Blu-Ray/HD-DVD only uses 1080/24p or 1080/60i, which probably won't look all that different whether you actually run it in progressive scan mode @24 FPS or interlaced mode @ 60 FPS...if the video is distributed in 24p, the image you see will change the same number of times per second whether you watch in progressive-scan or interlaced. The only difference would be that in interlaced mode, it might display each pair of frames simultaneously for 1/60th of a second while switching between them, or in other words 24/60ths of the time there would be two frames displayed at once, and the other 36/60ths would show complete frames...not sure how your brain interacts with that.

What I'm using is an HDHomerun, which includes two HD tuners, and doesn't take up a slot in your PC, or even a USB jack...it plugs into your network. It only records digital TV, so you'll still need your analog tuner(s) to record anything that's analog-exclusive (public TV seems to run different content on analog and digital frequencies, for example, the local station here in Iowa has two digital channels with separate content + the analog station for three separate streams, and of course, if you're a cable customer you won't be losing analog for a long time). I've been running one for about 6 months now, it's a pretty nice tuner. It's actually the main reason I went for MythTV instead of using Windows MCE: the HDHomerun was made MythTV compatible before support for proprietary OSs/DVRs was added.

Of course, I also haven't compared prices in about 6 months...I see there are some ATSC tuners for as little as $72 each, so if you can find something inexpensive that's also Linux compatible you might be able to beat the $170 pricetag of the Homerun. At the time that I bought mine, though, the cheapest Linux-compatible HD tuner was $150 for a single tuner, so $20 for a second tuner was a great bargain.

It does require MythTV .20 or better, if you have that installed and have HDHomerun support compiled in (should be compiled in already, unless you compiled MythTV yourself), you probably won't even have to re-boot your computer to add the tuner, just hook up the homerun to your network, and run mythtv-setup to add it in.

Is there any way i can do dhcp and enter the encryption key for a Linksys WMP54G Wireless-G PCI Adapter?

and also i was reading about mythtv running on Ubuntu.

does anybody else think i should give this a shot is it even worth the trouble to try?