Hi all,
I've been reading a great deal here, at myth -usrs, and avsforum and am gearing up for my first Myth box. I've been using a WinXP/MyHD-based system connected to a Samsung DLP for about the past 18 months with generally good results. However, there have definitely been some stability/reliablity issues (which my wife hasn't been too happy about), so I've been pretty excited about MythTV to work as a fairly transparent appliance (hopefully). Moreover, the FE/BE architecture is very cool, since ultimately, I'd like to distribute to 3 FEs around the house.

For the time being, I'd like to build a combined FE/BE based on KnoppMyth with the following goals in mind:

1) HDTV only (or ATSC only, at least). I plan on putting in 2 pcHDTV3000 cards for pulling down OTA HD streams. Don't care about anything else as a) I don't have cable and b) all NTSC broadcasts are available in ATSC in my area at this point. Seems like 0.17 supports this card pretty decently, from what I've seen.

2) Maximum out-of-the-box compatibility. I'm totally new to both Linux and MythTV, and while fairly technically inclined (built numerous systems before, enjoy tweaking, etc), I've read many horror stories about drivers/dependencies, etc. That is, of course, why I've chosen to begin with KnoppMyth.

3) DVI output at Samsung DLP native resolution (1280x720p). This was trivial with the Win/MyHD setup, and it seems like a fair number of people here have good modelines for the Sammys, so I hope it to be not much of an issue. However, I've read some less-than-comforting DVI stories around here.

4) Connectivity to Windows machines on my network. I've run Knoppix off of CD a few times, and it seems like this shouldn't be a problem.

Here's the current system I have in mind (based a lot on KnoppMythWiki hardware and particularly here, since her goal (HD, Samsung DLP hookup) seemed quite similar.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!

Asus P4C800-E DELUXE mobo
P4 3.0E
Chaintech Nvidida GeForce FX5200 (fanless, seemed like the way to go)
Kinston DDR400 512MB (x2)
pcHDTV 3000 (x2)
WD WD2000JD ( x2) [200 GB, 7200, 8 MB buffer, SATA] Not sure about SATA support?
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW ND-3520A
Antec SLK3700-BQE "Quiet Series"

cheers,
dave

Motherboard looks OK, be aware that you'll have to fiddle with the config settings for volume control since the PCM control in the Intel chips sets is only on and off.

CPU looks fast enough for HDTV. A 3.0C would run cooler if you can still find one.

RAM looks fine, although half that would be plenty.

Video card looks OK, although I've seen some comments about difficulties doing 1080i with Nvidia chippsets on a DVI connecion, so you may want to triple check that.

Nice quiet., roomy case, might be a tad overwhelming unless you can hide it behind something.

DVD drive looks OK.

HD could be an issue. WD drives can be loud, just ask Xsecrets. SATA can also be problematic, at the very least you'll have to do some fiddling at install time. Consider getting a cheap smaller IDE drive for the root (/), swap and /cache partitions and dedicating the 200Gb drive to the /myth partition, or just to /myth/tv.

Looks good to me, but I'd go for more disk space. Get the largest disks you can afford. I like the 300G Seagate ATA drives. They're about $150 on sale at Fry's and they have a 5-year warranty. They're also very quiet. You can't have too much disk space when you're chewing it up at 8G per hour!

_________________
Do you code to live, or live to code?
Search LinHES forum through Google

tjc, Liv2Cod - thanks for the helpful replies.

1) 1080i won't be an issue for me, so long as it will do 720p well. I have read about some of the 1080i over DVI issues, though.

2) Seems like people favor Seagate for quiet HD. Definitely true that more space is always better, particularly with HDTV. Appreciate the fry's reco. Should I not bother at all with SATA? To be honest, I just kinda like the idea of getting rid of the IDE cables, but if it's going to be an issue, I'd rather not deal with it.

3) Case - I guess everything is relative. Right now, I have this bad boy sitting underneath my DLP, so the Antec case I'd posted would actually be a significant reduction in both size and noise. My current beast has 4 total fans. I guess I've never really been bothered by the ambient noise; I know a lot of people go to extreme lengths to minimize this.

Thanks again for the once-over.

cheers,
dave

I've got two WD drives. Both the same model. One spins silenty, but the other one is loud as heck, loud enough that I ripped it out even before installing the OS on the machine I bought it for.

Bought them both at the same time, too.

I recently pulled that drive back off the shelf. Nope, still super noisy. Wait, what's this...

Turns out the 2nd drive (I mentioned it was bought new, right?) has a small dent (more a divit) in the top plate.

Ugh. I guess the noise should have been big warning sign.

-brendan

On my machine /dev/hda reports itself as a "WDC WD800JB" and I've never noticed it being particularly obnoxious. On the other hand I've heard many reports of them being loud and running hot.

What does "Fiddle with it" mean, some settings in myth, BIOS settings,
compile a new kernel ?? I'm getting ready to get a knoppmyth system started, and was looking at this MB. Better to get a seperate sound card ?





I haven't kept up on the Intel marketing, what's the difference between the P4 3.0E & 3.0C

Fiddle with... As in play with the sound options under the setup menu. There aren't all that many... Basically to get the system to do it's PCM volume control in software by reducing the amplitude of the signal it sends to the chip.

3.0C is a 130nm Northwood core, 3.0E is a 90nm Prescott which is not only infamous for running hot but also for being slower than the older Northwood at the same clock rate...

Thanks, I was focused on the 1MB L2 cache, and was not aware
the Northwoods were still in production. Found it at newegg.
Less heat - less fan noise !

I would watch out for sata. If it's BIOS compatible, then it should work, but if it's a sata chipset of some sort bolted into the mobo as a pci device, then you should be careful. I'm not sure how well Linux currently supports the different sata chipsets. Someone else may have to provide an update on this. Normally, if you have both sata and ide interfaces on your mobo, you can figure it out pretty easy by trying the sata an a knoppmyth install. If it works, then go for it. If not, you may want to hook the disk up to the ide with one of those pata to sata dongles.

In my experience, I've found that it's less frustrating to get a piece of hardware that is known to work and use that as your myth platform instead of using somehting off the shelf. Having said that, if it's laying around and you find that it seems to all work, then add it to the hardware list under tier 1 - 3.

Good luck.