[ale] MythTV/similar hardware recommendations

[Derek Atkins]

Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net> writes:

> On 2016-03-29 18:47, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
>> Media sources?  ATSC?  CableCARD?  Something else?  For ATSC, get
>> SiliconDust HDHR network tuners.  If cableCARD, I didn't think Myth
>> supports the premium channels without going through an analog hole.
>> Though that only Microsoft Media Center worked with that DRM.
>
> Satellite TV using their box (so S-Video or composite out, I don't
> subscribe to HD programming).  No ATSC.

Is this SD or HD?  Either way you'll need a capture card.  It's unlikely
an rPi will suffice for this unless you find a USB-based capture card
with onboard MPEG encoder.  For HD you might consider a Hauppauge HD-PVR
device.

More likely you will probably need to build a box.  You can certainly do
that, and make it silent, but it'll still be around the size of a 2U-4U
depending on how big a case you get.  You can get silent fans and an
external DC power supply to reduce heat and sound output.

I just record ATSC over-the-air using a pair of HD-HomeRun boxes.  I've
got 2 backends.  My master backend runs on an intel platform and
contains the mysql database.  My slave backend is an an ARM (Wandboard)
with a 2TB HDD and stores my video.  It's just doing I/O, so it's fine.

My frontends are all nVidia-based solutions, I've got a few Zotac boxes
and one Via.  They all use the nvidia hardware for video decoding and
playback, and use HDMI to my TV.  They are generally quiet boxes, but
these days I'd probably swap out the spinning disks for an SSD to make
it even more quiet.

-derek
-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available