Newbie building my first hybrid lookinig for feedback and suggestions

[ThaMighty1]

Im a total newbie to home automation but I’ve done a lot of reading on these forums and im ready to jump in and get my feet wet. All the info is a little overwhelming with all I want to do eventually but I figure if I take it in little steps at a time it will be ok.

I figured my first step would be to start building my hybrid core.  I have been starting to get the parts together for a while now and ready to jump into putting it together. The hybrid is going to be down in the basement in my den/office. Once I get the hybrid setup I want to put 2 Media Directors (Living room, bedroom). Here is my hardware plan

Already have:
Case :  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147090
PSU : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007&cm_re=antec_power_supply-_-17-371-007-_-Product
MB : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131366
CPU : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103649
Boot Drive : 250Gig WD SATA 7200 rpm Drive
RAM : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148149


Planning to get
Media Drives : 3 of these in  RAID 5  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073
2nd NIC : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833114004&cm_re=gigabit_network_card-_-33-114-004-_-Product

I already see that the MB might be a problem. I thought when I bought it a couple months ago I saw that it was compatible on here but searching now i don’t see anything on here saying whether it is or isn’t so im going to give it a try and if I run into problems then I’ll pick up a nVidia video card to use instead of the onboard video.

The next problem I have is with picking the video capture card. Ive built hundreds of PCs but I’ve never worked with any type of video capture or MythTV, etc so this part of it is pretty new to me. Right now I have Comcast with the HD package but no premium channels. I want to be able to DVR regular and HD content and be able to record 2 shows at the same time.

From looking through all the user setups and the tv card wiki it looks like this Hauppauge card fits best http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-PVR-500_MCE. Seems like that’s kind of an old card and hard to find for sale in the US so wanted to find out if anyone has used any of the newer Hauppauge cards. I saw some threads in the forum about needing templates for the newer cards but I have no idea how to do that.

The other issue is looking at is which version to go with. I see 810 is in beta now but im leaning towards still going with the 710 since this is my first time. How far along is the beta and would 710 still be the recommended version for newbies? Im fairly familiar with Unix just not with Ubuntu or LinuxMCE.

Id love to hear any other suggestions and ideas anyone has. Ive read a lot of the info but since some of the stuff is a year or two old its hard to tell what info is old and outdated and what still applies. Thanks in advance

[tkmedia]

1 Yes I suggest nvidia video for pain free install.

I like having a quality Intel nic for serving media.

The Hdhomerun provides a dual network tuner and works well with lmce



HTH

Tim

[ThaMighty1]

Tim,

Thanks for the info. That HDHomerun looks like it will do the trick. I hadnt looked at them much before because i was focusing on internal capture cards but after your suggestion i started reading up on them in the forums and seems like they really work well.

Thanks again.

[tkmedia]

MB : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131366

I would not use that board... It has ATI video ...
Get one with an Nvidia GPU.


Tim

[ThaMighty1]

Im thinking of picking up this machine to use as a Media Director and mounting it on the back of the LCD TV in the living room.

I searched the forums for this particular model but only found some specs about an AsRock ION system that uses the same GPU so i think it should be compatible.

Anyone use this system as a MD?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119016

[Techstyle]

Not sure that will work as an MD out of the box, I think you may have NIC related problems:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=9578.msg65613#msg65613

[tkmedia]

Some of the wireless units that appear not to be able to disable the wireless nic. That becomes a challange in itself when using it as a MD.



HTH


Tim

[totallymaxed]

Im thinking of picking up this machine to use as a Media Director and mounting it on the back of the LCD TV in the living room.

I searched the forums for this particular model but only found some specs about an AsRock ION system that uses the same GPU so i think it should be compatible.

Anyone use this system as a MD?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119016

That Foxconn unit needs atl1 driver and that will not be in the standard initrd image... you need to add it and update the initrd to support it.


Andrew

[ThaMighty1]

Im thinking of picking up this machine to use as a Media Director and mounting it on the back of the LCD TV in the living room.

I searched the forums for this particular model but only found some specs about an AsRock ION system that uses the same GPU so i think it should be compatible.

Anyone use this system as a MD?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119016

That Foxconn unit needs atl1 driver and that will not be in the standard initrd image... you need to add it and update the initrd to support it.


Andrew

Andrew,

so once the initrd is updated it will be fully supported? even the onboard NIC?



btw thanks again everyone for the help so far. Im still trying to soak all the info in from reading through the wiki and the forum