I used a PC I had --- a Pentium2 400 (I think I paid around $250 for it off-lease several years ago - I see that they now sell for around $40)
bought a pvr350 - $150
a 120GB disk - $60 (with rebates)
256 MB memory (I had laying around - cheap to buy)
With the PVR350 it works great for me. I can watch and record at the same time. I wouldn't try any fancy transcoding on it, but it is in my oppinion very usable. The secret to using such and old slow machine it the PVR350 without it, the machine would be unusable. I tried another card and it was unusable.
On 1/23/06, Mark Hetherington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 03:26 pm, Brian Wood wrote:
> With some recent discussion here about CPUs and costs I wonder what
> the "average" cost of a MythTV machine might be.
> I think if one was constructing a computer specifically for MythTV a
> minimal F/B configuration might cost $600, using refurbed components
> perhaps, and with 1 MPEG-encoding capture card. $1500 would buy a
> very nice machine with maybe 1TB of storage and 3 capture cards.
> These guesses include a "computer" monitor but not an entertainment-
> quality display.
>
US$600? I guess it depends on what you want from your mythbox, but I think you
could get it done for less than $AUD500 (Maybe $US400 with the exchange rate
now). Then again, maybe I'm just thinking that way because my mythbox is part
time, I run it on a machine I already had. But I can run standard definition
digital on my celeron 1.7 no problems. HD is a bit jerky of course. But if
you only wanted either analogue or standard def, I reckon you could head over
to www.cheapestpc.com.au and get a machine for about $380, and whack in a
tuner for about $110. That machine would be a lot faster than the one I'm
using, and so would probably do a magnificent job. I imagine if you were
given $US600 to spend on a box, you'd probably get HDTV in there.
In any case, it's one of those things where you can probably spend as much or
as little as you want (depending on how many spare parts or PCs you have).
I think anyone who isn't trying it out due to cost should get their existing
PC, perhaps put a tuner in it and try one of the live CD distros that
includes myth, thats a pretty good way to try before you buy.
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