On Sat, 2005-10-22 at 23:18 -0400,
FoulDragon@aol.com wrote:
> I've got a spare machine, and my VCR just fell and broke. So I'm
> thinking "new VCR $40, TV card $30 and then running a knoppix-with-
> mythtv sort of thing". But I have some basic questions.
>
>
> 1. Do I *need* a network and downloaded schedules, or can I just use
> it by specifying start- and stop-times like an old-fashioned VCR?
> Networking the box is out of the question (having an old desktop with
> no front bezel in the room is already enough of a sacrifice)
----
to me the thing that makes it most usable is the ability to network and
get the schedules automatically as the myth controls give you a
selection guide - somewhat like channel 62 on Cox but this allows you to
easily select what to record
----
>
> 2. How will performance be? Since I'm gonna get the cheapest card I
> can find, or possibly scavenge a BT878 card from my box, the TV card
> will be unaccelerated.
----
Personally - I think that using a back end without hardware processing
is a very low performance thing and likely to cause disenchantment but
it does work, it just consumes the processing power
----
>
> 3. What's the best setup for the hardware? Will I lose too much
> memory by using a bootable CD? I thought there were a few bootable
> mythtv discs now. Can any of these be used to migrate to a hard-disc-
> based install?
----
I'm not aware of it, you could possibly do this with a front end but it
would seem impossible to do as a backend system.
----
>
> 4. Is it fool-proof? Got people here who aren't exactly techie.
----
not foolproof - lots of help from list and some good guides
----
>
> 5. If I were to get something like an external numpad (like they made
> for laptops), would it provide enough controls to serve as a wired
> remote? Wireless remotes are a hassle.
>
> Hardware:
> Duron 1600 - 256M DDR2100 - 80Gb Maxtor drive (DMA-133, 7200rpm),
> Radeon 7000 with TV-out, ECS K7S5A mobo with its sound.
>
> What I know of performance: In Windows 2000, a Duron 1600 rig with
> 512M of memory and the Avermedia pack-in PVR software produced decent
> MPEG-2 recordings, with about 20 percent of the files going bad,
> likely due to 100 percent load created by the task (switching the rig
> to an A64 3200+ fixed it right up. :D) Clocking the machine at 1980
> (FSB=165) produced a crash about once a day, so its effects on the
> files couldn't be evaluated well.
----
I hate to be negative and think that you should try it because once you
get into it, you will undoubtedly figure it out and whether it's useful
to you. If the choice is which is going to work better for your $40, the
VCR is likely to do a better job. If getting your toes into the water as
it were for the technology, then the vcr isn't a choice at all.
Craig
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