MythTV Hardware
Sunday, May 25th, 2008
Well I have finally got around to building my mythtv all in one unit so I figured I’d share the hardware I used to help others out. Choosing the hardware was to become the biggest hurdle because if it doesn’t work in linux then its no good for mythtv.
I wanted something that will handle HDTV without any problems and also run reasonably cool and quiet. Even though I live in Ballarat, Victoria which seems to be the coldest place on earth it has to be able to handle the 2 hot days a year we get. So onto the hardware used:
Case: Antec Fusion Black V2
The LCD panel and built in IR work with compiled drivers from www.codeka.com. You don’t get all the functions of the LCD but its a great start. Another guy over at mythtvblog.blogspot.com is working on a better tool to drive the LCD but its only in an alpha stage but it does look promising.
Settings the side fans to low makes them silent when watching TV and and almost non-existent when the TV is off. The power supply is a beefy 430w so should power anything you stick in there also.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
While I don’t have a TV that will work with HDMI as yet and also the drivers as far as i can tell don’t work 100% its a great all in one board with a quality built in graphics card. Not to mention it has HDMI, DVI and VGA onboard. When I get a new BIG SCREEN TV I shall update this to reflect its compatibility.
CPU: AMD 5600+
Based on the pricing and stock from my supplier at the time this was the best bang for buck CPU I could get my hands on. An alternative would be to look at the 45nm AMD low power CPU’s, and while I did consider them I wanted to be sure I could do HDTV with no problems and still have left over power for other things I have planned.
CPU Cooler: Scythe Ninja Mini Cooler
This gets rid of the noisy stock cooler (Trust me its noisy had to use it for 2 weeks before getting this. The constant speed up and slow down drove me nuts) and can be run without the fan in the Antec Fusion. Watching HDTV the CPU doesn’t appear to get hotter than about 40 degrees. This may change during the warmer months but right now its running fine without a fan on the CPU cooler. This is also the only cooler I could find that would fit the Antec case. Having the 2 large 120mm fans almost right next to it negates the need to use the 80mm heatsink fan and keeps the only noise coming from the system to the low speed tri-cool Antec fans.
RAM: 2GB DDRII 800
In this case memory is memory and its so cheap 2GB just made sense.
DVD: Samsung SATA DVD Burner
Tossed up between this one and a pioneer drive. Given I have had no trouble with samsung DVD drives before I just went with it. It has turned out really quiet not that I have really used it much as yet.
Graphics: XFX Nvidia 8500GT Passive Cooled
As I don’t currently have a TV capable of doing HDMI I grabbed this to do composite out. It also gives me time to wait it out until ATi get their drivers working 100% with my build in graphics card and the HDMI interface. The video card is passively cooled and doesn’t seem to get real hot either. As always the nvidia linux drivers worked like a charm and allowed me to do TV-out with a few lines of code.
HDD: Samsung 750GB
Was either this drive or the Western Digital drive and seeing as samsung drives are normally quieter i went with this. It was also a good few dollars cheaper than the WD drive so was an easy choice and in the 2 weeks of use I have never heard the drive.
TV Tuner: DVICO Dual Digital Tuner
i scored a second hand DVICO Dual Digital tuner which works fine with mythtv. Had I not been able to get my hands on it I would have gone with the PCI Hauppauge Nova-T Dual tuner. I do think there is a PCIe version coming out which does not work so make sure to grab the PCI version if you are looking. Its not cheap at around the $200 AUD mark but worth it to save problems getting it working in linux.
Remote: Logitech Harmony 525
The remote that came with the tv tuner had a busted connection so grabbed this as it will work 100% with the build in IR receiver in the Antec case. Time consuming to configure but I can now control my Stereo, TV and Mythtv box all with one remote fairly cheaply and honestly it does everything you could want. When I get onto the configuration side of things I’ll post up my lircd.conf file and my lircrc mythtv file to save you guys some trouble as it was a little time consuming.
Operating System: Ubuntu Hardy 8.04
While not hardware it is required to run mythtv. The ubuntuforums.org are a great wealth of knowledge and have made my life easier on many occasions.
All this hardware should give you a great working HDTV capable mythtv box with little driver problems. Well basically no driver problems unless the nvidia drivers give you trouble but I had no problems running the installer. Next up I’ll try and get the install guide together but in the mean time check out these sites which helped get my mythtv system up and running.
