I know there is alot of talk about home theater pcs in the forum, but i though an official thread on linux based htpc's would be cool. My next feat is to make a fully functional linux based htpc using myth tv. My test subject is an AMD K6-2 500 Mhz copmuter with 256K ram, 60 gb hd, and crappy 8mb integrated trident blade 3d/mvp4 video card. Tonight, i when out to comp usa and treated myself to a Hauppauge WinTv Go PCI TV Tuner/Capture Cardl; It was $50 [overpaying too]. I bought the lowest end card i could find and this one was recommended by myth tv (as a low end solution). I do not want to drop 100's on this project only to find out myth tv works like ****.
For those of you who do not know, myth tv is a linux based program that allow you to replace your digital cable box, record tv, pause live tv, do picture in picture, play video, mp3, picture files, etc. It is a full featured (free open source i might add) multimedia center. You can see screen shots at www.mythtv.org .
Getting back on topic, using a low end tv tuner such as the wintv go will work just fine with myth tv, and yeild a great image. The only dawback is the fact that it will drain more CPU usage. This is because when it records video, it does not have an mpeg encoder chip. It sends the video to be encoded by software, thus taking cpu power. This is why a 3 ghz cpu would be needed to record tv and watch it at the same time.
There is a good way around this though. Buying a tv tuner card with an mpeg encoder built in will reduce cpu usage dramatically! You will be able to record video with a 450 mhx processor, and use somthing like 2% CPU. Another good (yet pricey) trick im looking into using is an mpeg decoder card. This is a hardware mpeg decoder that will again reduce cpu usage. I have not yet confimed if there are any models that will work with myth tv, but it is worth a shot. If encoding/decoding hardware is used, the need for a powerful cpu would lessen. Possible 1ghz or less would be adiquite. Ever wonder why a tivo has only has like 16 mb of ram and something like a 65 mhz processor 🙂.
So, I'm very exited now that i know i do not have to buy a 3ghz processor and overcock it simply to watch tv 🙂. Also, i have tried out the tv card i bought on windows, and i must say, on my crate of a test computer, it runs awsome! There is literally no cpu usage at all! The will be a diifferent story when using myth tv however. So, my next step is to get mandrake 9.0 (seems to be the easiest flavor of linux to install myth on). I will be sure to keep you guys posted and my progress (if any one out there cares lol), i know many of you are thinking about building htpcs, i i think that linux is a great solution! So, be sure to check out myth tv website.
Any one have any tips for me? Hell, any elite linux gurus?
For those of you who do not know, myth tv is a linux based program that allow you to replace your digital cable box, record tv, pause live tv, do picture in picture, play video, mp3, picture files, etc. It is a full featured (free open source i might add) multimedia center. You can see screen shots at www.mythtv.org .
Getting back on topic, using a low end tv tuner such as the wintv go will work just fine with myth tv, and yeild a great image. The only dawback is the fact that it will drain more CPU usage. This is because when it records video, it does not have an mpeg encoder chip. It sends the video to be encoded by software, thus taking cpu power. This is why a 3 ghz cpu would be needed to record tv and watch it at the same time.
There is a good way around this though. Buying a tv tuner card with an mpeg encoder built in will reduce cpu usage dramatically! You will be able to record video with a 450 mhx processor, and use somthing like 2% CPU. Another good (yet pricey) trick im looking into using is an mpeg decoder card. This is a hardware mpeg decoder that will again reduce cpu usage. I have not yet confimed if there are any models that will work with myth tv, but it is worth a shot. If encoding/decoding hardware is used, the need for a powerful cpu would lessen. Possible 1ghz or less would be adiquite. Ever wonder why a tivo has only has like 16 mb of ram and something like a 65 mhz processor 🙂.
So, I'm very exited now that i know i do not have to buy a 3ghz processor and overcock it simply to watch tv 🙂. Also, i have tried out the tv card i bought on windows, and i must say, on my crate of a test computer, it runs awsome! There is literally no cpu usage at all! The will be a diifferent story when using myth tv however. So, my next step is to get mandrake 9.0 (seems to be the easiest flavor of linux to install myth on). I will be sure to keep you guys posted and my progress (if any one out there cares lol), i know many of you are thinking about building htpcs, i i think that linux is a great solution! So, be sure to check out myth tv website.
Any one have any tips for me? Hell, any elite linux gurus?
Hmm, if you ever plan to play DivX/Xvid and similar files on your htpc (like I plan to do), you need a fair amount of processing power and a decent amount of vram (im not sure how much but I know my rage II 4mb couldnt play an Xvid of an anime I was tryin to watch heh).
I have a celery 500mhz at home which I wanted to use as a htpc, but I don't think it'll be able to process the 200mb 24 min Xvid/DivX files I watch almost daily (anime). Just another thing to look for, that high bitrate video takes more CPU than you think.
Other than that, I'm not sure what you want to use your htpc for, some people want to play games on it. I plan to stash a collection of mame/arcade games on it to play on the big screen.. there's a site on the web which describes plans for DIY arcade controllers.. so if you made up a few.. you and your friends could have a crazy arcade experience 🙂
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I have a celery 500mhz at home which I wanted to use as a htpc, but I don't think it'll be able to process the 200mb 24 min Xvid/DivX files I watch almost daily (anime). Just another thing to look for, that high bitrate video takes more CPU than you think.
Other than that, I'm not sure what you want to use your htpc for, some people want to play games on it. I plan to stash a collection of mame/arcade games on it to play on the big screen.. there's a site on the web which describes plans for DIY arcade controllers.. so if you made up a few.. you and your friends could have a crazy arcade experience 🙂
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You bring up a good point. I can play 600 mb divx movies fin on my current computer at full screen. Im not plannig of going with something low like 500 mhz for the final version. I will at least use around 1.5 ghz processor. Myth tv ctually can emulate old games 🙂. I actually do not play to use htpc for games. If you want to play games, use a realy computer. You also have to remember that linux will probably run a bit better than windows 🙂.
I think that 1.5ghz is plenty, that'll run anything you need 🙂 Not a huge fan of linux.. I've worked with it a lot here at school (do most of our development on linux boxes) but still not a huge fan.
Best of luck.. sigh still waiting to get my projector off the ground 😡 But the light has shipped.. and now I'm watching.. and I got my LCD today.. so I'll soon have all the basic parts 🙂
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Best of luck.. sigh still waiting to get my projector off the ground 😡 But the light has shipped.. and now I'm watching.. and I got my LCD today.. so I'll soon have all the basic parts 🙂
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verbose mustafa said:
I wonder if you have ever heard of MoviX? There is no need to install it since you can boot it from CD.
http://movix.sourceforge.net
It's capable of playing DiVX, DVD, VCD, SVCD & some hell lot of other filetypes!
David
Movix is really a totaly different concept that myth tv. It is made to play only video files. The whole point of mythtv is to do the same thing as a tivo, as well as play files that movix does, and then some. Movix seems to be a great way to play movies you have on your pc without taking up tones of system resources. I will be sure to give it a try, but is is really not what i personally am looking for in htpc. Movix is an easy way out though 😀.
Thats great to hear! I was contemplating freevo or mythtv... Im still not 100% sure. So your really happy with freevo? What was the installation like?
The installation used to be pretty difficult but a college of mine told me yesterday that the new version was a piece of cake when installed on RH9
Tazzy, I have been contemplating what you did for quite a while, except I want to run MythTV on an M10000 rather than Freevo (to get all the advanced features of MythTV). However, Freevo remains a possibility. (I plan to use a WinTV PVR 250 most likely in conjunction with the M10000.)
What is TV output like? Can you tell the difference between live TV and the quality of TV from the M10000?
I want to set up an M10000 as a total HTPC, as in have it running Linux, doing PVR duties with Freevo or MythTV, and have it act as my main DVD player with 5.1 output. However, if the TV out quality is not too great, maybe I'll think twice about it or look into VGA port adapters...
What is TV output like? Can you tell the difference between live TV and the quality of TV from the M10000?
I want to set up an M10000 as a total HTPC, as in have it running Linux, doing PVR duties with Freevo or MythTV, and have it act as my main DVD player with 5.1 output. However, if the TV out quality is not too great, maybe I'll think twice about it or look into VGA port adapters...
Good news (sort of) i found some old install disks of red hat 8, so im running that now as i type this. I also got the capture card running on here using xawtv. Its a pretty simple program, but does the trick. The video is very smooth and looks real good... its runs at 640X480 resolution. II have already been studing the mythtv manual i printed out (thank god i have a laserjet) and will muck around with the install tomarrow. Happy fourth of july for those of us in the USA.
i'm working on a new htpc myself. my previous one was:
800mhz duron
256mb 133 ram
ati aiw 128 video card
6x dvd and 4x2x12 cdrw
10gig hdd
my current one:
via epia 800 mini-itx board
256mb 133 ram
kworld video in card
10gig hdd
6x dvd
some of the goodies were reused, however i am trying to get rid of the old mb, the duron, an athlon 1.2ghz chip, and video card. the old setup ran divx and dvds no problem, never really played around with pvr type stuff. the new board is having a bit of difficulty with divx, but working on that. perfect size for a htpc (only 17cm x 17cm with video/s-video outs, spdif out, ethernet, etc built in).
800mhz duron
256mb 133 ram
ati aiw 128 video card
6x dvd and 4x2x12 cdrw
10gig hdd
my current one:
via epia 800 mini-itx board
256mb 133 ram
kworld video in card
10gig hdd
6x dvd
some of the goodies were reused, however i am trying to get rid of the old mb, the duron, an athlon 1.2ghz chip, and video card. the old setup ran divx and dvds no problem, never really played around with pvr type stuff. the new board is having a bit of difficulty with divx, but working on that. perfect size for a htpc (only 17cm x 17cm with video/s-video outs, spdif out, ethernet, etc built in).
My specs are:
VIA M10000
120Gb disk
6x DVD player
256Mb
And a TV-In card from a unknown OEM.
Soon to be replaced by a Firewire device (need that PCI slot for a 54Mbit wireless networkcard)
And this cabinet:
I bought the 120Gb so I could use the system as a harddisk recorder to replace my VCR.
VIA M10000
120Gb disk
6x DVD player
256Mb
And a TV-In card from a unknown OEM.
Soon to be replaced by a Firewire device (need that PCI slot for a 54Mbit wireless networkcard)
And this cabinet:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I bought the 120Gb so I could use the system as a harddisk recorder to replace my VCR.
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