Building a HTPC running Arch

unull · 2011-02-20 09:09:14

Hey guys,

I'd like to build a new media PC (HTPC) with Arch Linux and MythTV. I did some googling already about TV cards and it seems that a TeVii S470 card shoud be running fine according to http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TeVii_S470.

My current plan is to use an Intel Atom based mainboard with Nvidia's ION chipset (2x1.8 GHz Atom CPU) with the already mentioned TV card. The television would be connected with HDMI then. The NVIDIA card should be capable of VDPAU, so 1080p movies shouldn't be an issue.

I'd like to know if anyone already has tried a similar setup or might see any issues I'm running into.

graysky · 2011-02-20 10:13:15

No issues using an IONITX-AU board, HDMI, and an HD-Homerun. No idea about that capture card.

unull · 2011-02-20 10:57:20

Cool, thanks for the reply. The capture card itself should be working, maybe even the included remote control.

zenlord · 2011-02-22 16:14:06

HTPC's are so 2000

Why not build a media server and stream all of your content over the network? You don't have to worry about a noisy pc in the room that you're watching or listening in.

toad · 2011-02-22 16:21:28

@ zenlord

I agree However, you got any idea/good links on how to set up a media streaming server and client?

unull · 2011-02-22 16:22:27

Well, the TV has an ethernet port though, but I guess that's not really compatible with anything != Windows.

I think of buying a passively cooled HTPC anyway

Kirurgs · 2011-02-23 07:13:29

I'm using arch on HTPC and to me it doesn't seem very ancient I have Revo 3610 (64bit dual atom + HT), ION. It's running XBMC mostly, I stream content from my media server which has a lot of stuff on it's shoulders, it's the torrent server, router (wifi+eth) and many other things. As a side note: it is slow celeron 1.2GHz, 256M RAM, bunch of SATA disks, torrents don't download faster than 7MB/s (megabytes), I'm planning to upgrade this to 1.3[6] P3 or so to be able to do 10MB/s It doesn't have TV card in it. I dunno about mythtv on that particular box.
I have used myth + tv card in another computer under arch and it was running fine, but for myth you have to have performing hdds and a lot of space, for me myth was of no use anyway I was just testing
My TV is FullHD LED but doesn't have any ethernet port, so I hook up Revo to TV via HDMI, stream content from celeron, use remote to control my Revo. 1080p is running nice, when I don't need Revo I just suspend to ram...

ichbinesderelch · 2011-02-23 16:25:38

i too have an htpc with an zotac ion board, 2gb ddr2 ram, 500gb samsung 2.5'' hdd, connected through hdmi to a beamer, the software on top running is xbmc, everything controlled with an xbox wireless controller, so far xbmc is really great for playing movies and stuff, afaik you can also configure it to use mythtv!

.:B:. · 2011-02-23 16:50:57

zenlord wrote:

HTPC's are so 2000

A lot of Xbmc users will disagree.

Why not build a media server and stream all of your content over the network? You don't have to worry about a noisy pc in the room that you're watching or listening in.

A media server streams, but that's just it. It still has to be decoded. You'll still need some type of hardware to do that.

To answer to the original poster, you might want to check how much of a drain that capture card would be on your resources. Even though dualcore the Atom is a weak CPU, and unlike h.264 decoding capturing can't be offloaded to the GPU.

Gnarl · 2011-02-23 18:40:05

You may want to check out http://mysettopbox.tv/

Arch based HTPC with Myth. My only issue with it is that it isn't kept current with latest repostitories

zenlord · 2011-02-25 11:12:47

.:B:. wrote:

A media server streams, but that's just it. It still has to be decoded. You'll still need some type of hardware to do that.

Virtually all TV's and A/V-amplifiers these days are equipped with an ethernet port and support uPNP/DLNA. My 2-yr old Philips TV has such support, but I prefer the PS3 as it is much quicker in fetching and displaying results. There are also a lot of cheap set-top-boxes like the boxxee by D-Link that are low-energy-consuming when compared to a HTPC and (iirc) are completely silent. Recent settop-boxes are based on a chipset that is able to hardware-decode almost anything up to 1080p, so they should be well up to any task.

If all goes well, I will be building a new home starting in Q3/Q4 this year, and I'm reviewing the possibilities to manage all of my digital content in 1 central location. DLNA / uPNP seems like the way to go. Serverside I'm really into ps3mediaserver, although it is a java-app. I have been using Coherence, Fuppes and Mediatomb. PMS works nearly out of the box and Coherence looked promising, but sadly development seems to have stopped.

My server also handles bittorrent, NFS, samba, http, postgresql and I'm looking to make it a mailserver as well.

Clientside I could use a settop-box in every room I want to hook up, but then I would be needing a monitor, amplifier and speakers in every room, which would cost a lot of money and I think it would not look good (the Wife Acceptancy Factor is crucial...). Maybe using next-gen tablets could provide a partial solution, or if I settle for audio only, closed solutions as provided by Logitech Squeeze (WAF-) and Sonos (WAF++) might be an option.

This is a rough outline, though - but my current setup proves that it is possible: my TV, PS3, laptop and office desktops all have access to my central repo of digital content (audio, video, photo). Anyway - what was the OP'ers question again?

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-20 09:09:14

Building a HTPC running Arch

#2 2011-02-20 10:13:15

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#3 2011-02-20 10:57:20

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#4 2011-02-22 16:14:06

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#5 2011-02-22 16:21:28

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#6 2011-02-22 16:22:27

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#7 2011-02-23 07:13:29

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#8 2011-02-23 16:25:38

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#9 2011-02-23 16:50:57

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#10 2011-02-23 18:40:05

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

#11 2011-02-25 11:12:47

Re: Building a HTPC running Arch

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