Fun and Games

[c9]

Devices:

• plain old boring TV; no bloody A, B, C, or HD.
• rather fancier than it needs to be set of rabbit ears (modern rabbit ears look more like a radar installation on a battleship actually)
• DVD player
• CD player
• VCR
• Nintendo 64
• Amp
• Work laptop (sometimes, but often left at work)
• Desktop with Media Centre (currently installed but overheats)
• IR Receiver for Media Centre Remote
• Harmony universal remote

Interfaces:

• RCA Audio (Red and White)
  
• RCA Video (Yellow)
• Fibre audio
• Component video (currently cheating and using three RCA cables for this; I know, I know)
• S-Video
• VGA & HDMI (not in use)

Frustration level:

• High

Comments

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Behold the power(saving) of Linux -- under load, the CPU automatically steps up to full bore, 1600MHz. But it still doesn't melt :)

One potential way to save money on a CPU is to buy an Hauppage PVR-250 card -- it has on-board MPEG-2 encoding, which means you can get away with a much leaner CPU. Then again, with the cost of CPUs being what it is (low), there's probably not any savings to be had there if you already have a tuner card.

As you can see from my lspci, you can get away with much less in the graphics card department if the 6600 is kicking out too much heat. The 440 chipset is passively cooled. Then again, this assumes MythTV; I have no idea what requirements MCE has.

[c9.livejournal.com]

I have the Hauppage 150, not sure what it has.

The 6600 may be hot, I haven't checked it specifically, but it comes with a big fan at least. It's required for MCE. Last time I tried MythTV it couldn't handle my old video card (IIRC). Haven't tried since.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

The 150 doesn't have hardware encoding, but it's a very nice card regardless. Linux will handle the 6600 easily (it's what I'm using on my desktop). You need to install the nvidia proprietary display drivers to get TV-out working. Ubuntu ships the nvidia driver as a package, making for pain-free installation.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Will Ubuntu+Myth understand my existing IR receiver (it came with the Hauppage). Or will it require convincing?

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

There may be some configuration involved, but since the PVR-150 is one of the most popular tuner cards out there, I'm sure someone's done it before.

I'm going to try getting my remote working next weekend; I'll let you know how it goes :)