Hi all

Another Aussie here based in Riverstone, NSW. I have been interested in MythTV for a while now but haven't done anything about it. This week however I decided to look into it further and installed Myth (without TV cards) on my Suse 10.1 box to see what was there. I am trying to convince my wife that building a box would be a good idea but the reponse I get isn't exactly overwhelming. What I would like to do is build a proof of concept box to whoo her with and hopefully get the go ahead to proceed further, probably after I see what the tax return is like.

The machine I am looking to use is one of my old IBM xSeries 200 eServers that is a 933Mhx PIII with 384Mb ram. I am hoping my nVidia FX5200 and SBLive 5.1 cards will fit into it. I plan only to use the record capability of Myth. We currently have Foxtel Digital via satellite and analog FTA as TV inputs, but I would probably look at digital FTA cards in this process (we do have a digital capable aerial on the roof).

What I am after is info relating to the cheapest cards available for my proof-of-concept test to have the ability to record both from Foxtel and FTA digital TV. Any suggestions?

Also, I am confused with the connection of the PC to our main stereo system and TV. We have a Blaupunkt 78CM TV with 2 SCART inputs and an AV input of video-left-right. Sound is handled with an old Denon DRA-550 and a Yamaha DSP-1 surround system with a M-35 4 channel amp for the surround speakers. Hooking all this up is confusing...

While I am here, what cabling should I use to route the TV signals into both the Myth box AND the TV.

Sorry for all these questions, this is my first foray into the world of PVR's and I just want to get a good WAF level

Thanks in advance

Cheers
Bruce

Hi Bruce,
To capture the Foxtel stuff you will need an analog card. I dont know if you would be able to capture Foxtel and FTA through a single card. Most cheap analog cards are pretty crap, stick with something decent like a PVR150 for analog.

I haven't done it myself yet (hopefully soon) but I would go with digital FTA rather than analog. Some of the digital cards are cheaper than a decent analog card.

For the PC to TV connection you should be able to send S-Video from the nVidia to a Scart adapter. At the proof of concept stage you could just use the composite (single yellow RCA video connection) input, but it wont look as good as svideo.

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Paul Turpie
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<--Is your location in your profile? Why not?

My 20cents worth (excluding GST) I would suggest a Hybrid card which has both Analog and Digital tuners. These have a number of advantages as they only take up one PCI slot and more cost effective. Whilst I personally have no experience with these tuners, an example is http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Products/hdhybrid.aspx which is A$169 from Umart online.

Not only would you get the Digital FTA you can use the analog input for your foxtel box. You may also want to look at getting an IR blaster, this will allow your Myth box to change channels on your Foxtel box.

As to connecting your computer to your stereo this will depend on your system, whilst you have provided some info you r sound system it is not enough. If you could provide links to the stuff this will give people a better idea of your system and the connections they have.

Could I also suggest to improve the WAF get a remote controller and make sure it works and set it to record her favourite shows so she doesn't miss them, such as Deparate Housewives and Medium.

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Girkers

If you get one of the dvico full cards that has svideo/composite video input, You should be able to do DVB and your foxtel (and I think both at the same time). Although I was never that thrilled about the quality of the composite captures that I have done.

Thanks for the replies

I'll check out those cards and see how I go. I am about to start reorganising PC hardware to get a Myth box out of it all. After that is done I will go grab a card or two and start the install. Between all the machines I have an 18Gb 160Mb SCSI, 40GB, 20GB,

I keep throwing out hints on recording things. There are a few shows on SBS that we have missed because we either forgot, they clashed or the video was already recording something. I casually hinted that with a PVR this wouldn't have happened. Got a better then average response from that one My wife isn't actually into any of the usual shows but does spend some time on the E channel. Other than that our tastes are pretty similar.

I am not really bothered about the stereo side of things yet, the POC will hopefully give me time to sort that bit out.

Cheers
Bruce

G'day Speedway

For what its worth my wife was pretty much unimpressed with my Mythtv project until I showed her the music and gallery parts of the system with a wad of mp3s. Now she enjoys the music, gallery and using the live tv and recordings component. I still need to set the recordings for her but she's learning. So be persistent and good things will happen.

Also, I have an analogue aerial hooked up to the tv as a backup for her should Mythtv fail so she can still watch tv.

Cheers