Ya know,

I started building a micro-ATX style PC (planning to go with a ATI9600AIW card) and was thinking that I'd strap XP Home on it and link it up to my network running slackware 9.1...however, I've started to rethink the issue.

What gets me is that I'd have to spend about 80 bucks for a legit copy of windows and install the software that comes with the 9600AIW...BUT....what happens when XP reboots right in the middle of a recording session? That would T me off considerably. So, I've been looking into building my own PVR (Personal Video Recorder) via linux. I'm thinking that a wuss install like Mandrake or SuSe would be a good place to start...hell, I'm even looking into Lycoris. Ok...so I went searching for PVR software and lookie lookie here it is:

<A HREF="http://www.freevo.org/" target="_new">http://www.freevo.org/</A>
<A HREF="http://www.mythtv.org/" target="_new">http://www.mythtv.org/</A>

The thing is, these two programs RAWK! Bot are free and Linux is free...Hell, I could get an old 8500 AIW for cheap and use Myth or Freevo and have a nice setup going on. This project should take place sometime next year...and I will definately post pics AND info on how it goes as well as what I choose and why. I just posted this info to see if anyone else was planning on or already had a linux multimedia machine.

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<b>It is always brave to say what everyone thinks. </b> <i>Georges Duhamel</i>

TKS

That'd be neat, I'd love to read how it goes. Haven't done anything like that yet. These boards are distracting enough without me having a TV on my system. Seriously though, I like the idea of building a second box for that. I've got three machines in the P2-P3 range collectin dust...

I think I'll wait till you trailblaze it... I'm having enough problems with my current projects...

<i>8088 4.77 mhz
640k RAM
CGA, 12" monitor
20mb mfm harddrive
PC Speaker, DOS 2.0</i>

Don't go for the 9600 AIW. Get a separate tv card that has a linux driver. The new ati cards don't have drivers for their AIW capabilities yet.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

I was just reading the latest issue of linux journal, and they're "on the web" section, which talks about online articles, had this little blurb and link:

"Moving on to the video portion of or presentation, Roberto de leo's article 'Self-Hosting Movies with MoviX':
<A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6474" target="_new">http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6474</A>
explains how de Leo came to start the MoviX Project for a self hosting movie-'a Linux CD mini-distribution that is able to boot and play automatically all audio/video files on the CD.'
The main point of the article, however, is to walk users through the process of building their own mini-distributions, whether for playing a movie or some other application."


If yer planning on building that box to be a dedicated PVR, you may want to look through that article and just build yer own specific distro. Save ya some space, and would offer some great braggin rights.

Also, found this link through google...
<A HREF="http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~bjlarson2/links.html" target="_new">http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~bjlarson2/links.html</A>
Details building a PVR with a shuttle XPC. Thought it would be interesting...

<i>8088 4.77 mhz
640k RAM
CGA, 12" monitor
20mb mfm harddrive
PC Speaker, DOS 2.0</i>

Any Idea on a good stable TV Tuner? Money really isn't a problem but I'd like to spend under $225 US Dollars...I'm new to the TV Tuner thing....so I'm not really sure as to what would be a good card. Any input would be helpful.

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<b>It is always brave to say what everyone thinks. </b> <i>Georges Duhamel</i>

TKS

I think the older ATI TV cards are good. I know they have drivers for linux.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

LOL not to get flamed.

but in my experience Windows is rather stable.

i noticed that you said your network is running linux, so yeah it might be nice to stay with linux. but the misconception that windows crashes all the time is just that, a misconception.


oh and to my knowledge 5.1 sound on linux is rather tricky to get working. (which is why i stick to XP currently but will change to the big L when its plug and play 5.1 LOL) but i guess you have been around linux long enough to not mind fixing things when they are broken. (but for onboard 5.1 rather than creative 5.1 cards, i think its even more difficult) (but i may be wrong, things may have changed over the 6 months since i spent about 20 hours searching for 5.1 channel settings on the net and help files LOL)

if you don't use multi channels then i guess its not a problem


it was just the coment that XP was unstable that threw me off a bit sorry, coz my dads XP machine runs consistantly for about 1 month at a time between reboots. i turn mine off every night to sleep, but tis stable inbetween 99% of the time LOL

Anyway good luck

Alltaken

<A HREF="http://www.mud-puddle.co.nz" target="_new">http://www.mud-puddle.co.nz</A> its where its all going on, oh and its also all going on HERE <A HREF="http://doug.mud-puddle.co.nz/gallery/" target="_new">http://doug.mud-puddle.co.nz/gallery/</A>

"but in my experience Windows is rather stable."

It is, compared to where it was, but...

" the misconception that windows crashes all the time is just that, a misconception."

Is it is a misconception when people say this having experienced it? As stable as windows has become, many people still have problems with it. MS apologetics aside, it doesn't matter that the OS has gotten more stable across the board, to those who are still experiencing crashes with it it is still unstable.

"it was just the coment that XP was unstable that threw me off a bit sorry, coz my dads XP machine runs consistantly for about 1 month at a time between reboots. i turn mine off every night to sleep, but tis stable inbetween 99% of the time"

And that's good. That's the way it should be.

<i>The wrath of penguins shall be felt. No windows shall be left unbroken.</i>

i agree with you on those points.

if it doesn't work for you then it doesn't work



<A HREF="http://www.mud-puddle.co.nz" target="_new">http://www.mud-puddle.co.nz</A> its where its all going on, oh and its also all going on HERE <A HREF="http://doug.mud-puddle.co.nz/gallery/" target="_new">http://doug.mud-puddle.co.nz/gallery/</A>

I'm personally just sick of everything getting a m$ tag. Soon bios is gone, I already have to ask M$ to let me change system config's now.. and i'm only alloud to have up to 4 new computers a year. Sure I prolly wont have 4 NEW computers.. but what if I wanted to upgrade 4 different hd's.
I think Windows is a good OS. But whenever something on windows goes wrong the only answer you get from the techs is for a format and reinstall.

I'm personally waiting to build a cheap pc to learn how to use linux to get away from M$.

p4 2.8 533fsb
intel mobo
1gb rdram pc 800
radeon9800 pro
120gb seagate s-ata

Getting 5.1 to work isn't very difficult now that 2.6.0 has alsa in the kernel. It can be tricky still, but there are some good guides out there.

Getting 5.1 on soundstorm is difficult, and getting hardware mixing is impossible. Thanks nvidia driver guys.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

I would go with Linux on the new 2.6 kernel. try core Linux with black box. I have a complete Linux install that takes up less than 80 Megs and uses less than 32 Megs of ram with X and other software running like Xcdroast, XMMS, file manager , XP on the same machine always takes 250 megs sitting still and it takes 2 gig of hard drive with all the patches. I just installed Open Office Suite and im up to a whopping (get this) 150 megs on the hard drive. what does this mean . it means for recording movies and the like you need as much available ram and HD space as possible. It took me a little over 8 hours to build the entire system.

The point is you will be able to do better recordings with a customized Linux box than any bloated distribution. That includes Windows what ever version or Red Hat etc. plus if you build it you can fix it. Happy hacking


Willaim S. Huskey
Network Engineer
SAIC
"there are 10 types of people in this world. They who understand binary and they how do not"