September 17, 2006
mitch @ 11:30 am on September 17, 2006
Well… After the move I still haven’t hooked up my MythTV box, which I began last week some time. I’ve been using Ubuntu alot lately(on my laptop) and I’m looking at running Ubuntu Server for my mythtv backend/frontend. And I’m probably going to be compiling MythTV from source this time around on all boxes that will be running it. Binary releases are nice, but making sure they all match up across distributions is a real pain. If i was only running one distribution it would be a no brainer… however I’m probably not going to ever be on just one distribution. I think this desktop will always run on the latest fedora just so I can keep up with the changes going on there.
Anyway, during the rebuild of the mytv server… My power supply started burning… along with the power connector for the laptop hard drive i was installing the OS onto. Not good… So, I ended up ordering a new Power Supply and after it showed up… you wouldn’t believe it… the power connector won’t fully snap onto the clip because of a transistor on the old motherboard. Who designs these things anyway? So… I ended up ordering a new motherboard, going for a cheap Socket A motherboard that locates the power connector way in the corner of the board. After that arrived… as luck would have it… it no longer supports the RAM I had in the old board… needs DDR…!?!?! why oh why didn’t I look at that to begin with you might ask? well my thoughts were of the opinion that Socket A motherboard… Duron 800MHz processor… old school right? Should take the same ram I had…. well, I was wrong. RAM is in the mail… should be here by monday hopefully… tuesday at the latest. Then I should have the box mostly setup by that night. Since I don’t have school on Monday or Wednesday, I should have enough time to get it done… I might even take it to work… but we’ll see whats going on there first…
Life· MythTV· Projects· Technology — No Comments
April 15, 2006
mitch @ 2:10 pm on April 15, 2006
After playing with a couple different versions of the linux kernel. I’ve found that I best resort back to the 2.6.13 kernel that had been working for me previously. I would have sooner but, with the new install and everything Gentoo 2006.0 doesn’t have the option for 2.6.13 anymore. Its not in portage anymore either… So, I ended up downloading the 2.6.13.5 kernel source from kernel.org. From there the ivtv in portage works just fine. So far so good.. Hopefully I won’t get anymore database corruption and no more chunks of recordings instead of one recording. 
Gentoo· MythTV — No Comments
April 9, 2006
mitch @ 4:19 pm on April 9, 2006
Well, long story short, my 7 year old 15GB hard drive finally started to show its age. It started by corrupting my mysql table files for my mythtv database… not fun. I just happen to have a 40GB laptop hard drive sitting here tho… and have replaced it with that… Its taken me the better part of two days to get the mythtv box reinstalled with Gentoo and mythtv again. However I’m still having some trouble getting the DB and my recordings straightened out…. I’m thinking I’m just going to drop my entire db, and salvage all the recordings that I can for now… start it fresh and we’ll pick up the pieces as we go along
MythTV· Technology — No Comments
December 22, 2005
mitch @ 7:22 pm on December 22, 2005
Finally! I’ve completed my first phase MythTV install. Currently the case I have it in is fairly loud so I don’t really want to move it into the living room. So its sitting on the floor next to my desk, and currently I connect to it with a mythtv frontend install on my local box. So far it all works flawlessly. I must say I’m quite impressed with its simplicity. At first its somewhat daunting, but once you get your head around it it’s not so bad. Now I need to figure out what all the settings mean, and how they’ll affect me. Currently I’ve got it setup using about 2.4GB per hour of recorded video. Which should give me roughly 87 hours worth of recorded video not bad I’ll be expanding it probably in 6 months or so with another 250GB drive which should be fun Anyway, I need to get ready to head off to school.
MythTV· Open Source — No Comments
November 10, 2005
mitch @ 7:22 pm on November 10, 2005
It may not be to interesting for others to read, but I really don’t feel like blogging about anything else. My mythtv box is comming along… the gentoo install is taking a while. I started from stage 2, and have optimized for the athlon processor, along the optimization -03 for speed with GCC. So, the compile time is taking a while. However, I think my kvm switchbox at work has stalled my progress on a couple times because of the scroll lock key. When hitting scroll lock on the key board it seems to halt the compile process. So, I probably had it sitting and doing nothing for the last day… I finished the move to stage 3 today, and I left it compiling my kernel (for the sake of time at work, I simply did a genkernel and made sure it had everything I needed as either modules or compiled in. I don’t much care if it takes it all night to compile). So, it should hopefully be done by the time I get back to work tomarrow. So I can start it on compiling everything for myth over the weekend. I got the video card today, so i’ll be taking that in tomarrow to be looked at. Should be fun.
Gentoo· Life· MythTV — No Comments
November 8, 2005
mitch @ 10:51 am on November 8, 2005
I’m finally starting my mythtv box build, I’m erecting it out of old parts I’ve had laying around, so far I’ve got a 15GB drive for my OS install, an AMD Duron 800, with 640MB RAM, which is a bit much for a myth box but, otherwise the ram will just sit. So… I figure why not right? couldn’t hurt. Anyway, when I first fired it up, the Orb heat sink i had on the proc was wicked loud, and we can’t have that in a home theater pc. So I bought a new heatsink from pcclub, which will do for now… I’m going to be slowly making it quieter as we go along, but that’ll really start happening with a new case. I’ll probably eventually replace the mobo/cpu with something else making sure its quiet, but that will be after the new case down the road a bit (or maybe for xmas ). After I replaced the cpu fan, the fan on the chipset (A7V133) was wicked loud too… finding a replacement and removing the old one was a problem, so I left on the heat sink… and I’m hoping that the CPU fan will keep the chipset cooler too. I’ll know soon enough, I’m starting my gentoo install today
Gentoo· MythTV — No Comments
August 22, 2005
mitch @ 8:24 am on August 22, 2005
Well… I completed a rough set of specs for a MythTV box. Processor/Mobo combo probably will change, and possibly the hard drive sizes. Currently I’ve listed one 40GB drive for the OS and a set of drives from 160GB to 350GB for the media drive (currently will only run one). Setup in a logical volume so future expansion is possible. This box would remain a MythTV box, and probably migrated into just a backend eventually. (this makes a difference for the type of hardware used). The rough estimate is ~$750 for the box. There are some areas I didn’t skimp on the price of the parts. The power supply being one of them.
MythTV Box:
-Case
Name: Lian Li PC-60BPlus Black Computer Case
Price: $129.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811112078
-Power Supply
Name: SeaSonic S12-430 430W Power Supply
Price: $99.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151023
-Hard Drive
–OS (may not be needed… probably will have spare for OS)
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST340014A 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 - OEM
Price: $53.50
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148013
–Media
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3300831AS 300GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 - OEM
Price: $165.25
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148064
—OR
–Media
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 - OEM
Price: $112.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148065
—OR
–Media
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ ST3160827AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8M Cache Serial ATA150 - OEM
Price: $89.25
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148034
-DVD Drive
–Using one just pulled out of Desktop
-Memory
Name: pqi POWER Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 (PC 4200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
Price: $74.99
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141225
-Motherboard
Name: GIGABYTE GA-7VT600P-RZ ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Price: $47.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128281
-Processor
Name: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400MHz FSB Socket A Processor - OEM
Price: $105.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103394
-Heatsink_Fan
Name: ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan - Retail
Price: $47.99
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118115
-Video Card
Name: MSI FX5200-TD128LF Geforce FX5200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail
Price: $38.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127181
-Video Capture Card
Name: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE White box WinTV-PVR-500MCE Windows XP Media Center Edition - Retail
Price: $138.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116628
MythTV — No Comments
August 20, 2005
mitch @ 6:16 pm on August 20, 2005
No, I don’t mean MythTV has a bug, (not saying it hasn’t ever, or won’t ever have a bug, as they’re just part of software developtment) This is more, me having the MythTV bug again. I want to build a MythTV box! I just have to convince Elissa it its a good idea :). Within the next couple of days I’m going to post my System Configs as a way of forcing me to make the purchase… One part at a time should be doable. Or if all else fails… my christmas bonus should finish it off (I really don’t want to wait that long… as it would be useful for recording shows that we watch but the times they’re on arn’t always convenient. Especially now with school and work scheduals what they are)
Time will tell.. I’ll keep you all posted.
MythTV· Open Source· Technology — No Comments
May 18, 2005
mitch @ 12:20 pm on May 18, 2005
I was doing a bit of web surfing today at lunch and came across this article I want my MythTV. It gives a quick snapshot about what is going on in the DVR underground. At the end, the author writes something that I will have to agree with:
There are other implications of all this. In a changing universe, technologists will refuse to be hemmed in by artificial roadblocks created for the purpose of maintaining the status quo. Microsoft and Hollywood and whoever else can create all the DRM schemes they want; they can sue college kids for trading songs, block trading networks, shut down BitTorrent systems—but it won’t do them any good. The forces of “We want it our way” will overpower them again and again, because that’s the way technology works.
And this will all be shared. In a networked, computer-based world, the sense of community breeds a socialistic desire to share, not covet. This mentality is at the root of all the open-source activity and cannot be ignored or denied. I want my MythTV.
Emphasis added is my own.
I’ve been on a couple kicks(extremely annoyed) lately… DRM schemes, Sensorship, etc… Hopefully within the next day or two I’ll have my whits about me that I will be able to write something that isn’t completely flamming, and has some worth while points.
MythTV· Open Source· Technology· Thoughts — No Comments
May 13, 2005
mitch @ 3:01 pm on May 13, 2005
Well, I’m offically *extremly* excited about MythTV… to the point I want to go out and build one this weekend. However, looking over needed hardware which has set somewhat of a damper on things…
Some rough figures I’m seeing are the following:
Power Supply ~ $75 (Good power is one of the most important things)
Case ~ $150 (Need cooling for those components)
Mobo and Proc ~ $150
RAM ~ $85
2 Hard Drives (SATA, 300GB each) ~ $310
Video Card ~ $45
HDTV Tuner ~ $160
Total: ~ $1275
Now these are rough figures, and yes, I could go cheaper on some parts (less disks, cheaper case and power supply). However, if I was to build it, money not being an issue, that is the system I’d build. However, I’m probably not going to be considered a “power” HDTV user… the most I’ll ever get is 3 hard drives(but thats unlikly considering how big drives are getting…)… and I doubt I’ll ever have more than 2 tuners. (atleast for a couple years, because, I simply don’t watch *that* much tv, nor would I still even if I had a HTPC, but I would like to have something setup to automatically record the shows I do watch so I can live my life and fit in some TV when I don’t have anything else going on).
Anyway, I’ll probably start with the minimums which can probably be had for about $500 (with one 300GB disk). I can’t wait… Just need to finish up the living room first. Who knows… probably by the time I get around to building it… Hardware will be out that I could do this cheaper and better. I would like to be able to get some parts that are low power, so I don’t run up the power bill.
MythTV· Open Source· Technology· Thoughts — No Comments
