Video card for 1080i output

[JRoque]

Hello,

Noob alert!

I was introduced by a friend to this site not long ago and have been very impressed with the possibilities of LinuxMCE. I've started by reading as much of the wikis as possible but as you can imagine, have tons of questions.

I'm slowly filling my NewEgg cart with items to build a core machine plus 3 media directors. I want to start with a relatively good core, initially as a hybrid, and then get to the directors. I'm hoping I can switch the hybrid to all-core later on. The motherboard on the core will be a Gigabyte one since I've had good experience with them. The CPU will be a Q6600 2.4Ghz quad core and it will run a 64-bit kernel. Something between 2 and 4G of DDR2 1200 RAM, a 750G drive for video and a smaller one for OS, etc. Network will be all Gig Ethernet; the mobo has 2 ports built-in. Finally two DViCO FusionHDTV7 Dual Express so I can have 4 tuners in the system. There. How am I doing so far?

My immediate question is about the video card. I gather it should (must?) be an nVidia chipset so MCE will work well and display alpha blending. True? BUT, which one?? I ultimately want to display 1080i on my HDTV and don't want to limit myself to something that might introduce glitches or noise in the image. My main TV, an old Sony KP-65WV700, has a DVI port in the back that I could use. So ideally, this video card I want should allow me to make a DVI-to-DVI connection to the TV.

Bonus: Does anyone know if the DViCO FusionHDTV7 will allow me to watch/record 2 cable HDTV (clear QAM)? What about recording cable standard def? I read somewhere that this card does not have an MPEG encoder and puts too much load on the host CPU. Is it even supported by MCE?

Sorry for the barrage of question but I'm very anxious to get this project off the ground and forever do away with rented set top boxes/recorders that take your vids away when you switch providers.

Regards,
JR

[tschak909]

Get an HDHomeRun instead of the DViCO.

-Thom

[JRoque]

Hello and thanks for your suggestion. I looked at the HDHomeRun and thought it would be nicer to have an internal card rather than all the cabling to and from an external model. Why do you prefer the HDHomeRun over the DViCO? One works and the other one doesn't?

The HDHomeRun is 100Mb network and that seems sufficient to stream 2 HD channels... no? If so, I could plug each of the two HDHomeRuns to a giga switch. Another Q: can I watch/record 2 HD channels from cable (clear QAM) with the HDHomeRun?

JR

[tschak909]

the HDHomeRun contains two discrete tuners that MythTV can use. And it is plug-and-play with LinuxMCE. The tuner circuits are of much higher quality (especially the amplifier section), than the DViCO and is not subject to internal interference from the PC case like internal tuner cards.

If one tuner is in use, the other one is used, as per MythTV's tuner allocation algorithm.

[JRoque]

Thanks for the quick and helpful tip. I've ordered one of these boxes to try it out on my Windows box as a client and see how it does. BTW, I picked up the tuner from here: http://www.thenerds.net/SILICONDUST.HDHomeRun.HDHRUS.html for $144 including shipping - excellent price.

Regards,
JR

[JRoque]

Hello again. I placed my "core" order today that included, as mentioned above, an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz processor. I'm confused about which .iso to download for the Q6600 which also works as a 64-bit processor. Is the AMD the only 64-bit processor supported? If so, doh! If not, what do I download for 64 bit install on Intel CPU?

Thanks,
JR

[Zaerc]

...
The system may see all 4 cores but will likely utilize 2+2 if you get me here. 
...

What on earth are you talking about?

[JRoque]

Hello and thanks for your comments. Sorry the thread is now so far from the subject line; I appreciate the help though.

Dave, the board is a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R. I chose this one because it has 5 PCIe and 2 PCI slots, and 2 giga ethernet ports built-in which I thought would be good for a core. I'm slightly disappointed that I won't be able to run the system at 64-bit or use all cores even since I picked this board and CPU with that purpose in mind. I guess I should have read bit more before jumping in. But no sweat, I'm sure it will run fine, especially because the tuners will be external - thanks Thom for the suggestion.

I also bought a cheap nVidia card for the core even when it will function strictly as such. I'll lurk around here some more to see what's a good video card for the directors. I've seen some folks running even with modest video cards but I'd rather over spec it and not have that be a limiting factor in the future. Any hints on what's best for up to 1080i display via DVI or component port?

Thanks,
JR

[JRoque]

Hello Dave,

It's amazing how I managed to pick all the wrong hardware for this 8-)

I think I found a 2.6 kernel driver for the RealTek RTL8111C:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#2. Thanks for the video card word. If I can make the core go, I'll try the MD with a nicer video card and try component output to start.

If none of this works, I may simply use HDHomeRun alone until the hardware is supported. That said, I will try the install when I get all the parts by the end of this week.

Thanks,
JR