1st Phoenix BSD... MythTV

[Bill Jonas]

On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 11:30:40PM -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>    Are you a MythTV user?  Are there any MythTV users/developers in the AZ
> area?

You can count another fairly new one.  I built mine last month after the
24-hour Mythbusters marathon on Discovery.  I used a motherboard and CPU
combo from Fry's as an excuse and a starting point.

  * ECS 848P-A7 motherboard (Fry's Electronics)
  * Pentium 4 2.66GHz CPU (Fry's Electronics)
  * 1GB Kingston ValueRAM KVR400AK2/1GR (Fry's Electronics)
  * WinTV-PVR-500 dual-tuner, dual-encoder TV tuner card (mwave.com)
  * MSI NVIDIA GeForce MX4000-T128 video card (mwave.com)
  * SilverStone Lascala SST-LC17 HTPC Case, Black (SST-LC17B) (pcalchemy.com)
  * Seasonic 300W Super Silencer, SS-300AGX, Silent PSU (pcalchemy.com)
  * Streamzap PC Remote (pcalchemy.com)
  * Western Digital WD1000BB 100GD hard drive (already had)
  * LITE-ON DVD±R/RW, DVD+R Dual Layer drive (already had)

I found out the hard way that S-video-to-composite adapters, while of
simple design
(http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/svideo2cvideo.html), are
extremely hard to find and tend to be overpriced when they are
available.  However, this is obviously not a Myth problem.

I seemed to have a little trouble with the front-end freezing when I
tried to delete programs through the GUI, but I think this was due to
bad batteries in my remote.  Also, the PVR-500 apparently has some
compatibility issues due to differing chipsets at this point in time,
but mine is working great.  If two tuners proves insufficient, I might
pick up another one.

Mythbusters is so much better without those American Chopper commercials.

My wife is already talking about a larger hard drive for the system, so
I think I can consider it successful so far. :-)

-- 
Bill Jonas    *    bill at billjonas.com    *    http://www.billjonas.com/
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door.  You step
into the Road,  and if you don't keep your feet,  there  is  no knowing
where you might be swept off to."  --  Bilbo Baggins