HW for Core with no PVR - Will this work ok?

[daniel.welch]

OK sorry for this, I cant find the info I want and I've been looking I promise...

Can someone please advise me what the minimum HW for the Core is if you do NOT run PVR's on it.

Heres my scenario;
Core - Is this enough? - PIII 733 Dual CPU with enough ram + Disk and a few PCI slots - yay I could dual NIC.
MD - P4 3ghz 2GbRam 250GB SATA with PVR 500 MCE nvidia 6800 PCIe (and much to my shame, utilizes one of the two PCI's for the nvidia (dont know why the HW manufacturer does that!) - oh well learned with the first Motherboard :-( although I think its pretty OK for a MD)

Reason:
Because my sky tv analog cable is where I want to put my MD (not the Core box), is it possible to use lower spec'd HW for the Core which doesnt need to have a PVR in it? (if thats possible I 'may' be able to get one PVR in there as I understand the PVR 500 needs lower spec'd HW anyway., but would rather not if i could...)

I understand that when the PXE boots it will take info from the Core but I also read and am not that not clear on whether I can use a PVR in an MD to another MD without the core needing to be higher spec'd hardware - so not sure if I want to use PXE??.

SO; my goal is to:
a) have a lower spec'd core just to house some media (or maybe just a backup of it)
    Run the household stuff.... IP Camera's only at the moment x 3.
b) Have one MD running a PVR card and having SKY Tv on one input, and an analog cam (hopefully to use the motionwrapper) for security inside the home (so its not public anywhere except inside the home via direct cable) so my wife can monitor downstairs.

c) Have a second MD (Havent purchased MB yet but have a nice silverstone case waiting !) in the rumpas room, with another PVR, monitoring another two camera's via analog into a PVR, and thats also where the projector is for movies (and a VGA screen I guess for when theres a music party and not using the projector(using and nvidia card).

If I cant, then I know I have other issues because I can't get the Core installed onto my P4 box. Thats another story, so I need to know which way to go. Low specd P3 for Core in the downstairs cupboard, or push on trying to get the P4 to install - and then work through the single NIC issue - and looks like the DB isnt loading and there is no /home/videowiz (or whatever it is, Im at work currently) so there is no video instructions etc. The HD is new, so Im not sure why the movies arent on there. unless my DVD was corrupted.

Sorry for the long post. I work shifts and may not respond super fast
;-) All help is much appreciated.

Can I have PVR in one MD and watch content from it in another MD without the core doing much. I expect my installs would be MD with Hard disk and no PVR, but I dont understand (never used) the Myth Backend concept.

If I use the HD install with the MD is the backend on that box? because it resides where the PVR is physically?

PS: My first MB is an ASROCK + Hauppage PVR500MCE The reason I got it was it had onboard nic and two pci slots
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775Twins-HDTV&s=775

I didnt realise that for the Video to work the Onboard ATI (yea I know) HD TV out, was an 'additional video', so I HAD to get a video card for it to work at all! Thought it would have been OK for the core, but now Im stuck/indecisive/lost a bit (or more than a bit)!

One final compliment to the designer - When I installed kubuntu, i had to manually fiddle with drivers for my nvidia card and download pakages.
When I installed linuxmce, even though something failed, I can run startx, and it loaded perfectly after increasing the resolution, so for that I am pleased ;-)

[daniel.welch]

Have I said something incredibly stupid, or is no one willing to gamble on whether the overhead of linuxmce running some motion wrappers on a few cams will be enough to reduce the quality of my sky recording etc.

Have I posted this in the wrong post - I didnt see a 'pre Installtion section' 

[foneguy9]

Alot to chew on!!!

Very clear tho' daniel.

I haven't gotten to the MD working stage yet, with a network boot scenario but I have a PIII as well with 1 gig of ram and Dual NIC's on my Core with the output only to a 15'' monitor just for my testing. 

Now, can you explain to me what is this Sky TV analog connection you have?

I have Charter analog/basic cable and am wondering if this will work on the MD to be networked to other MD's as well.

[daniel.welch]

howdy!

In New Zealand, we get Sky Digital TV (which actually comes from Australia via Satelite I think. Anyhow, the only output from the sky decoder is analog. So I am forced to use analogue input to record tv. (Its pay per view...)

So, I have to record sky plus 3 other cams which are for security inside the home (ie child monitoring) - so if i record sky on my core, plus the others running motion wrapper to alert when theres movement (no need for real time monitoring for those 3, as i will split the cable anyway to go to a tv in the master bedroom)

So should I get another PVR and put that in the core, or put the second pvr in the MD upstairs where sky is (means i dont have to run long VID/L+R Audio cables downstairs to the core.

I see on Mythtv site that i should be able to split this up, but was wondering what the database overhead from MCE would be. I see the latest myth lets you run the master db on any slave box, so maybe i have sky upstairs, pvr upstairs and have the master db on their, and the core has the backup DB.

That may be kind pf ugly I dont know

Just to add to my messy mix, I have a matrox G200 with a set top box. I think i can record into that. as I can with M$ Windoz

Thanks for reading....

[Zaerc]

It shouldn't be a problem to put the PVR in the MD, I dunno about those database questions though.

[daniel.welch]

   - Excellent, thanks very much for the confirmation. All I need to do now is get a New HD that seems to be faulty, Warranty replaced, then I can install my Core!.