1 Been a while since I reported on progress with my PVR setup. That's mostly
2 because I've been beating my head against the wall instead of making any
3 real progress. In summary, ivtv cvs-latest and latest mythtv cvs just aren't
4 happy here... there are persistent problems with choppy audio and video and
5 lots of prebuffering pauses no matter what hardware combinations I try. So,
6 I decided it was time to put all the complex plans aside and put a simple
7 config together for the family room.
10 <a href="http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html">KnoppMyth</a>
11 r4 CD and used it to get a reasonably simple
12 single-box MythTV setup running. The only real problems I had making this
13 work were the need to update to a fresher xmltv package, and the fact that I
14 somehow got some program guide info loaded with the wrong timezone the first
17 Extras I loaded include the latest SiS driver and sisctrl from
18 <a href="http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsisvga.shtml">
19 Thomas Winischhofer</a>, and a
20 <a href="http://tarek.2y.net/myth/sony.pl">Perl script</a>
21 that handles channel changing duties on the Sony DirecTV receiver with a
22 simple RS-232 cable from ttyS0.
24 The hardware is my Micro ATX system, with the following bits and pieces:
26 * Athenatech Micro ATX Case w/200W Supply,
27 <a href="http://www.athenatech.us/a100bb.htm">A100BB</a>.
29 * Asus <a href="http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7n266-vm/specification.htm">
30 A7N266-VM</a> motherboard.
34 * 512Mb PC-2100 DDR266 RAM
38 * <a href="http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr250_datasheet.htm">
41 * ECS AG315P/TV video card
43 The PVR-250 gets S-Video and stereo audio from my old Sony DirecTV receiver,
44 and I'm feeding composite NTSC from the video card and analog stereo audio from
45 the motherboard to one of the inputs on the A/V receiver. Some tweaking of
46 the video output using sisctrl and I think the family will be happy while I
47 get on with trying to make things like my pchdtv card and a more complex
48 frontend/backend structure for the house work.
50 It feels good having something the family can start using. KnoppMyth
51 definitely gets a "stuff that works" rating here. Try it if you want to
52 see what MythTV is all about with minimal pain... ;-)