We recently did a review of our MythTV setup. But, we omitted the Other MythTV rig, where old MythTV parts come to their final resting place. Most of the parts here were once part of the primary MythTV rig, and have moved to this secondary location.
The rig in question, codenamed Glendale, is an AMD X2 BE-2400 low wattage processor, the same we use for one of the frontends in the main setup. But this one pulls double duty as both a frontend and a backend.
Inside are two old PVR-150s, as this location still has analog cable service, which has been eliminated at the primary location. There is also a Silicondust HDHomeRun, gotten inexpensively during a Black Friday sellout. The location has absolutely no broadcast reception. We figured, if the recorder ever goes out, any old system can stream from the Homerun, including a netbook.
The system has an old refurbished 250MB hard drive, which had failed in the primary backend and been replaced by the manufacturer. A recent addition is that of two E-Sata ports. Since this is a less frequently used location, we bring up video material to enjoy over recording it on location. E-Sata even would allow us to make the entire media drive for this system external with no loss of speed.
The stand is an audio stand we found one day on clearance at Staples, marked down to $10. On top of the Antec MicroATX cube is an old Radio Shack amplifier, hooked into some old speakers that used to be part of a Cambridge Soundworks speaker set. Next to it is a refurbished digital photo frame, and below it is a mini-keyboard and mouse.
The whole assembly is hooked into an APC power strip with a master control outlet, so when the computer shuts down, all the peripherals, including the monitor, shut down. This is useful, since this system takes advantage of a feature we don’t use at the primary site, ACPI wakeup. When there are no recordings, the system can be shut down and programmed to wake up in time for the next recording.
During the trip when these pictures were taken, we added VDPAU acceleration, so the system can encode the files recorded off the HD-PVR at our primary location.
As mentioned previously, we have hopes of upgrading our primary monitor to one that is HDMI capable, at which point we’ll net a widescreen monitor for this location to replace the current 19″.
The system runs Fedora, as is our custom. We have thought, as this is isolated from the rest of the systems, of switching to a MythTV distribution such as LinHES, MythDora, or MythBuntu. More on this if it happens.