Newbie with a shopping list for review please

[num1bryanp]

Hello all,

Below is my shopping list for my LinuxMCE system or MythTV sytem not sure yet. I am only going to have one location running but after seeing the LinuxMCE video, which was real cool by the way it sounds like the way to go!

I will mostly be recording off of digital cable TV and moving some of my movies on to the system for easy access, but I like the idea of having one remote to control all of the audio/video devices and maybe the lights in my case. I am guessing this is done with some sort of IR transmitter I don’t have on my list yet, what do I need?

Also, should I spend the bucks and get the fanny gyro remote?

As for the list I am trying to build a low wattage/low heat system, any recommendations or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bryan

Shopping list:

1-ASUS M2NPV-VM Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
1-AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Processor
1-Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory
1-OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W Power Supply
3-Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
1-Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Dual TV Recorder Tuner Card w/MCE Remote 253 PCI Interface
1-LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DH-20A4P-04
1-SILVERSTONE SST-LC17-B Black Computer Case

[RockHound]

700W PSU? Wow ... that is way too big ... use http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp to calculate your actual consumption. I have a 350W running perfectly fine in there.

LC-17 is really an nice case for the money.

Other components I can not comment on.

What graphics card are you planning?

[DeadPenguin]

Rock - thanks for the link...Very Helpful.

700W seems way excessive.

Never heard of the 45w chips before. Learn something everyday.

Num1 - Its up to you. Linuxmce seems better suited for a whole house solution and your looking for just one thing. If all you want is to do the "tivo" like stuff and watch a couple of movies use Myth. Myths got tons of plugins that should give you tons of added functionality. But if you are looking for home DVR - CCTV - VOIP - Automation all rolled into one check out Linuxmce.
Lighs are controlled by X10 - Z-Wave - or (maybe soon Insteon and Zigbee.)

Your hardware looks good.

Regards,
Blair

[num1bryanp]

Thank you, RockHound & DeadPenguin for the feedback.

I found a smaller power supply which will do the job and still have current to spare.

As for LinuxMCE or MythTV I am going to try both and see which is the better fit. With the possibility of running MythTV will my shopping list also work for a MythTV setup?

Thanks,
Bryan

Updated Shopping list:
1-ASUS M2NPV-VM Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
1-AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Processor
1-Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory
1-CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply
3-Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
1-Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Dual TV Recorder Tuner Card w/MCE Remote 253 PCI Interface
1-LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DH-20A4P-04
1-SILVERSTONE SST-LC17-B Black Computer Case

[diamondcobra]

Num1 - thanks for posting your shopping list - I used it to start mine.

1-$90 -ASUS M2NPV-VM Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
1-$110-AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Processor
1-$80 -Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory
1-$80 -CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply
1-$130-Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE Dual TV Recorder Tuner Card w/MCE Remote 253 PCI Interface
1-$30 -LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DH-20A4P-04
1-$120-SILVERSTONE SST-LC17-B Black Computer Case
-------
$640 without storage

I think this is better for me:
1-$16 -TRENDnet TEG-PCITXR 10/ 100/ 1000/ 2000Mbps PCI Copper Gigabit Network Adapter 1 x RJ45
1-$80 -Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
1-$585-Cavalry CADA002SA4 2TB 7200 RPM RAID eSATA Personal Disk Array
-------
$1385 with storage and extra nic

And while I am at it:
1-$63 -USB-UIRT w/additional 56KHz IR Sensor
1-$160-Global Cache GC100
1-$50 -X-10 CM11a
1-$60 -HomePro ZWave USB interface (if i can find one)
1-$270-Grandstream GXV-3000 SIP Videophone
1-$150-Fiire Chief
-------
$2138 with everything else I can think of...what am I missing?

I already have a box full of x-10 modules and some wiimotes which i hope to use.

To all the experienced people out there - does this look ok? 
I plan to use this as a hybrid and eventually have 5 rooms set up with the VESA mounted Fiire Stations or similar.

[blackoper]

I'm not happy with my pvr-500. I'd go with two pvr-150s instead. My reception is very poor on the 500 compared to the 150s and I have very good rf signals coming in that are in good power ranges. You may get better results but for me the 500 is only good for svideo capture of my cableboxes

that be-2400 chip will have problems with x264 and h264 encoded hd material. It should be able to handle 1080i and 720p material ok. If you plan on using XvMC I'd advise against it as it has never worked right for me since myth version .18. I went with a intel E2180 and overclocked it to 3.1 ghz easily without boosting cpu v-core (voltage)

for an idea of the hardware I'm using here you go: http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/User:Blackoper

I'm not sure about that Caviar disk array. I remember hearing their drives are crap. You may be better off buying two $200 western digital 1tb drives and either putting them in e-sata external cases or make your own array case on the cheap. You will probably be much better off and have better speeds and longer drive life.

You are paying way too much for your ram.  You should be looking for high performance ocz or crucial ram for $30 to 40 after rebates and a latency of 4. Check out deal sites like fatwallet.com or slickdeals.net and their hot deal forums to save some money on your parts.

[diamondcobra]

excellent feedback, thank you.

Aside from what I have listed here, is there anything else you can think of or suggest that would be good to add to this system?

[blackoper]

if you want to do HD qam or OTA, I'd get a HDhomerun. I noticed you didn't have any hd capture cards. Not sure it's status of use with linuxmce but it works fine with myth so it probably will work on version 710 of linuxmce. The nice thing about the hdhomerun is it's a dual tuner that doesn't take up any pci slots or room in your case. Just set it your utility/cable closet and hook it up directly to the video coax lines. Also you never have to install firmware on the linux box itself which is nice

[1audio]

The HDHomeRun works well with LMCE. The autoconfigure does its thing pretty well.

I'm told that the AMD BE-2400 can play the HD-H264 but not with the current version. Possibly with 7.10.

The core doesn't seem to use more than 1 GB in operation. I reclaimed the extra Gb I had in it. The MD's are fine with 512 even sharing 128 for video.

[diamondcobra]

Thanks - I am definately adding the HDHomeRun - until someone figures out a way for me to record my actual HD subscribed feeds in 1080p.

I am a little confused by the last post, however.  The HD-H264 is a video file format, and the AMD BE-2400 is a CPU - I was under the impression that it was the software that handled the formats and not the CPU?  Since I am going buckwild with my setup, I want to make sure I use the most compatible processor - is this the right choice?

I wanted the extra RAM because I was planning to use a lot of the features in Asterisk (using add-ons from nerdvittles) like email-by-phone, conferencing, IVR, weather forecasts, etc.

[1audio]

The video decoding is handled in software and you need the necessary processing power. The BE 2400 is supposed to be able to handle the H.264 HD stuff with the latest tweaks to the codecs.