My MythTV Setup

My MythTV Setup



CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 754)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Blue Orb II
Motherboard: FIC K8-800T
RAM: 1GB (Single Module)
Video Card: Nvidia 6200 AGP (Passively Cooled), Component HDTV Output
Tuner Cards: 3 Air2PC ATSC PCI HDTV Cards
Hard Drives: 1 SATA 80GB (Seagate) for OS 1 IDE/PATA 250 GB (Western Digital) for recordings
Remote IR Receiver: Snapstream Firefly Mini
Remote: Sony RMVL710 Universal Remote
Case: nMediaPC HTPC 300
Wireless:D-Link DLG-3420 Wireless 108AG Gaming Adaptor
HDTV: Sanyo HT27745 (27" 4:3 format)
Operating System: Mythbuntu 7.10 (64 bit version)


Originally built as a cheap "Proof of Concept" OTA HDTV PVR system for my wife to accept the idea of ditching the Charter Cable HD DVR/PVR, the system works so well that I never built a replacement system. At the time that I put it together (April 2007), a comparable HD Tivo Series 3 cost $799 plus $12.50 a month for service. With some spare parts, I put about $400 into it initially, and since them I put about another $100 into it. TV Listings were free when I first built it, now I have to pay $20 a year for the listings. The 250 GB drive will hold about 36 hours of HDTV, and with 3 tuners I can record 3 shows at the same time. A Series 3 TiVo can only record 2 programs at once and costs $129 a year for listings (It can record 32 hours it HD). Except for the large amount of time I put into setting it up initally, I think I got a better deal with my Mythtv box :)

Mythtv is getting much easier to setup, the initial install on Ubuntu 7.04 took quite some time. Now, with Mythbuntu (a new Mythtv centric Ubuntu Distrobution), I was able to format and re-setup in a couple of hours, and many things that were a major pain to research and setup are automatically configured in the GUI install.


UPDATE- I no long run this system. I built a new system that runs *gasp* Microsoft Media Center. The updated build is here.

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