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Update - Mythtv seems less efficient than Mplayer at displaying HD streams - without XvMC I get 72-86% CPU usage when recording and playing back HD simultaneouslt, so an A64 2800+ or Sempron 3100 should be OK, but slower Semprons may require XvMC

This is all with the default settings - I may be able to lower CPU usage by tweaking things...

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Hi all,

I just did a fresh auto-install of R5a30.2, scanned channels in setup, and it's working both for recordings and LiveTV!

The only thing I had to do out of the ordinary is I had to manually start mythbackend, even after a clean reboot and running the configuration script.

I had previously done a couple of partly working installations with really early R5s, and one with the problematic R5 in the 20s, an almost working FC3 install, and a problematic FC4 install (I can't get the /dev/dvb/adapter0 devices to create with 0660 or 0666 permissions, they always get reset to 0600 on reboot) on this box, so I'm really excited to have a non-problematic installation finally! (LiveTV never worked before, or segfaulted Mythbackend)

My setup is:

DFI K8M800-MLVF Socket 754 Micro ATX w/ 1AGP, 3PCI, Firewire, and onboard Unichrome Pro B (I will try this in non-XvMC Unichrome mode with the onboard video later, since that's known to not work at higher than 1024x1024 on Unichrome Pro B)

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ socket 754 I got it a while ago, but I think you could easily get away with a slow sempron based on my previous CPU usage measurements.

ThermalTake Silent Boost K8 all-copper heatsink w/ slotted side fan - VERY quiet for this CPU, and barely warm at all when under heavy load

2x512MB PC-3200 DDR (I think Samsung - unbuffered, non-ECC)

Geforce FX 5200 AGP 128MB card, I forget which manufacturer, RGB, DVI, S-video out (I'm using the RGB right now)

Lite-On 167T DVD-ROM (region free) I may switch it out to an NEC 3540A burner if I decide to burn stuff

SuperFlower SF-101 S micro ATX desktop/tower case (sadly discontinued)
In desktop mode it has a horizontal fully accessible 5.25" bay, a vertical external 3.5" bay, and a hideaway front aidio, 2USB, and Firewire (only pass-through to the back for the Firewire, no motherboard connection It has 2 Notebook drive bays and 1 3.5" bay. I may use the floppy bay for a second 3.5" HDD. The included power supply is noisy, so I'm going to swap for a Seasonic Micro SFX 300w supply

pcHDTV 3000 - well known, I'm sure...

Various old hard drives - I'm probably going with a large PATA Samsung or Seagate for my final drive.

I will be adding two of of an Air2PC 0.2 or Fusion 5 lite and or Kworld Studio TV Terminator (analog TV/FM card) in the other 2 PCI slots later.

I haven't tweaked video modes or tested CPU usage yet, but I used to run in 1600x1200 on previous partial installations:

Under FC3 with the Nvidia 6xxx drivers and XV with mplayer, I got a peak of 70% CPU usage playing back a 1080i .ts test clip, which went down to 65% when I put in a Soundblaster PCI (ALSA couldn't deal with the Via 8237 sound at the time)

Under FC4 with the 8186 Nvidia drivers, I got 50% CPU on the same clip although I had accidentally disabled the onboard sound. and it left a garbled mostly green area on the desktop where the video overlay had been when I exited.

I'll post more info as I do more tests!

-GregorM