Like the subject says I need help setting up a backend only box that can record two programs at once. All programs will be recorded from digital tv boxes (controled with IR blasters). The hardware I'm going with:

Celeron D 320 (2.4 GHz) (is this fast enough for 2+ streams?)
Asrock P4I45GV (Intel 845GV)
512MB Ram
300+ Gig HD
Integrated video/audio/lan

I need two capture cards that can do AUDIO and video (the board only has 3 PCI slots and I may want to add a THIRD card in the future). I also need two IR blasters for controlling the cable boxes. Recorded programs to be sent over a 100Mb network to no more than two PCs at the same time. No live TV, only recorded programs.

I don't care about HDTV and stero sound would be nice, but it's not absolutely necessary. I'm more interested in hardware that is stable and well supported by Myth TV rather than having lots of features. Any advice appreciated.

With using dual PVR-250s this box should be overkill. I have something similar as a combined frontend/backend with dual PVR-250s and it has no problems keeping up. Sometimes under heavy load (dual recording and transcoding/commflagging) displaying a TV recording can get a little chop but nothing significant.

With 2 bt878 cards, I this might work but it would be tough.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

you pretty much have to go with the pvr250's, because unless you get the certain happauge v4l card that supports btaudio you'll have to have a sound card for each tuner, and I think btaudio is only mono, but I could be mistaken about that. Also those cards that support btaudio are almost as much as a pvr250.

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

Xsecrets

I'll 2nd the PVR-250s.

However, if you do still want to go cheap, you could look for deals on the ATI TV Wonder Pro cards. Best Buy was running some deals recently to get them for $30 after rebate. Those should work with btaudio if I'm not mistaken.

My first setup started out with 1 ATI VE card, then 2, and finally 3. With the extra sound cards it took up all 5 slots in my box. Shortly after I got all of it running, I dumped all my VL4 boards and now have 3 250s recording shows for me. The picture quality beats the heck out of the ATI VEs I was using. Either way you go you should be ok with the hardware you have to run it. My Athlon XP 2400 never choked.

Later,
Gonz