MythTV

Building a MythTV HTPC - Table of Contents

nigel — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 15:49:44 +0000

Building a MythTV HTPC - Table of Contents nigel Sun, 01/10/2017 - 16:49

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MythTV

Building a MythTV HTPC - Bill of Materials

nigel — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:26:45 +0000

Building a MythTV HTPC - Bill of Materials nigel Tue, 01/04/2014 - 16:26

It would not be correct to say that money was no object with my MythTV HTPC build, but I did want something special, something I would be proud of, and a HTPC that performed well as well as looking good. Therefore keeping costs down wasn't my primary objective. I bided my time and got the most important part - the chassis - mint in box off eBay after waiting for the correct one to turn up. The hardware was selected to be good enough to do a job whilst having headroom to spare and to have all the functionality I will need for the foreseeable future. Due to work constraints I wasn't able to build the box immediately and many of the components languished for close to a year thus resulting in poor economy when you consider that technology prices generally fall over a period of time.

Bill of Materials

Chassis	Antec Fusion Remote Black (S/hand, MIB)	eBay	£107.00
Motherboard	ASRock H77M Socket 1155, Intel H77, DDR3, S-ATA 600, Micro ATX	Amazon	£64.99
CPU	Intel Core i3 3225 Dual Core CPU (Socket 1155, 3.30GHz, 3MB Cache, Ivy Bridge, 55W)	Amazon	£107.50
CPU Fan	Scythe SCKZT-1000 Kozuti Low-Profile CPU Cooler	Kustom PCs	£25.00
Memory	Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance Low Profile 8GB	Amazon	£68.38
PSU	picoPSU-160-XT 12v 160W & AC Power Adapter 12V, 150W	Kustom PC	£60.00
Solid State Disk	SanDisk SDSSDP-064G-G25 64GB Pulse SATA 6GB/s 2.5 Inch Internal SSD	Amazon	£50.31
Satellite Card	TBS6981 PCI-E DVB S2 HD Dual Tuner Card	Amazon	£84.99
Optical Drive	LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x SATA DVD±RW ±R	eBay	£12.96
USB Card	5 Port High Speed 4+1 Extra USB 2.0 Host PCI Advanced VIA Gaming PC Card Adapter	eBay	£3.27
Firewire Card	PCI FIREWIRE CARD 1394 400 FOR DV CAM CORDER HARD DISK 4 PORT 6 PIN 4 PIN CABLE	eBay	£6.94
Cover Plate	PSU gap cover / blanking plate.	eBay	£10.40
Optical Cable	Audio Lead 2m TOSLink SPDIF Cable	eBay	£5.99
HDMI Cable	High quality 2m	eBay	£5.99
ATX Cable	ATX 20 Pin Female to 24 Pin Male Internal PC PSU Power Adaptor Cable	eBay	£2.19
ATX Cable	ATX 20 Pin to 20 Pin PSU Power Extension Adaptor Cable Lead	eBay	£2.89
LAN Cable	Cat 5e patch cable 5m	Maplin	£11.99
SATA Cable	SATA extension power and data cable	eBay	£2.99
SATA Cable	SATA male to female power splitter	eBay	£2.95
	TOTAL		£636.73

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MythTV Linux

Building a MythTV HTPC - Motherboard + CPU + RAM

nigel — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 16:38:00 +0000

Building a MythTV HTPC - Motherboard + CPU + RAM nigel Fri, 10/01/2014 - 16:38

I elected to go for a motherboard and CPU combination that would balance performance against budget and provide all the functionality I need for the MythTV HTPC build. Having scoured around the Internet and read numerous reviews, the best I came across was the ASRock H77M board combined with an Intel i3-3225 3.30GHz Ivy Bridge CPU

ASRock H77M Motherboard

The motherboard fitted the bill perfectly - I was after high quality audio for DVD playback, and also HDMI output for the video. Both are provided with this board. The feature list is quite extensive for an inexpensive motherboard.

7.1 channel HD audio
2 SATA3 slots
4 USB3 slots
10 USB2 slots

In addition, there are a number of technologies bundled into the firmware to improve the overall experience. Time will tell whether they can be used within the Mythbuntu operating system.

Intel Rapid Start Technology - brings the device up quickly from a 'deep' sleep
Intel Smart Response - Accelerates system response by putting frequently used blocks of data on a SSD
Dehumidifier - the computer will power on automatically dehumidify the system after entering S4/S5 state
Digi Power - Unlike traditional motherboards that use analog power, this motherboard uses a next generation digital PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation) design, which provides CPU Vcore voltage more efficiently and smoothly, so that the stability and lifespan of the motherboard is greatly enhanced.
On/Off Play Technology - Even when the system is powered off (in ACPI S5 mode), On/Off Play Technology still allows users to enjoy the great audio experience from the portable audio devices through the PC speaker.

Intel i3-3225 LGA1155 CPU

A big decision was to whether to purchase a mid range i5 Ivy Bridge processor or an entry level i3 Ivy Bridge. The Core i3 processors are the first dual-core Ivy Bridge chips for desktop PCs. The Core i3s have HyperThreading enabled and appear as quad-core CPUs. You do get a lot for your money with the Core i3s. For an affordable allround PC these are nice CPUs. The 3225 was chosen for its built-in graphics capability. This chip really stands out because it combines the relatively fast GPU (the HD 4000) from the more expensive Core i5 3570 and Core i7 3770K with the affordability of the Core i3s. Furthermore, the HD 4000 capability is more than enough to cope with any of the rigours of a HTPC. Job done!

Scythe SCKZT-1000 Kozutie CPU Fan

I was a little concerned when it came to purchasing the CPU fan since despite the Antec Fusion case dimensions, most CPU fans won't clear the case lid. Obviously my desire was to avoid an interference fit and the Scythe Kozutie looked good. It is ultra low profile with an abundance of cooling fans and copper pipes so it also looks the part. Assembling the fan was fiddly and the diagrams on the single instruction sheet were barely adequate. A piece of advice - don't even bother with the written instructions on the side, just pretend you are 12 again and assembling an Airfix model plane. Once you get your head around the exploded diagrams you should be ok.

Technical specifications: Air flow rate: 42.2 m³/h · Fan dimensions: 80 x 80 x10 mm · Fan speed: 3300 rpm · Heatsink dimensions: 110 x 103 x40 mm · Heatsink material: Steel plate · PC base: Intel® 775, Intel® 1156, Intel® 1155, Intel® 1366, AMD AM2, AMD AM2+, AMD AM3, AMD AM3+, AMD FM1 · Type of bearing: Plain bearing

Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 1600MHz

A very early decision was to populate the machine with 8GB of high speed RAM. It felt to me that 8GB will provide the headroom for high performance without breaking the bank. The Corsair Vengeance LP memory chips are built for high performance systems with extra large CPU coolers and small form-factor builds which seemed ideal. The specification being:

Speed rating: PC3-12800 (1600MHz)
SPD speed: 1333MHz
SPD latency: 9-9-9-24

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MythTV Linux

Building a MythTV HTPC - Requirements

nigel — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:47:28 +0000

Building a MythTV HTPC - Requirements nigel Sat, 13/04/2013 - 16:47

I had a germination of the idea of an all conquering HTPC build almost 18 months ago. I moved into my new apartment and had a Sky satellite dish installed on the roof, but being such a visionary (guffaw), I ensured that the dish had a quad LNB - this would support a maximum of two Sky+ boxes (each capable of recording two channels simultaneously). However, I had an idea - how about a Sky+ box and dual tuner Freesat? This would provide HD and all the Freeview channels (should I ultimately dump Sky) and I could connect via a Freesat tuner card in an HTPC. This was duly decided upon and the coax cable was laid from the roof to my living room via the outside wall.

The HTPC would have to do exactly what you'd expect an HTPC to do and more besides -

Record / pause live TV
Record second channel whilst watching first
Provide FreeSAT programming
Save recordings to my FreeNAS server
Burn programming to recordable DVD
Provide a musical jukebox facility, ideally output FLAC files through USB to my DAC device
Ideally categories my music collection by mp3 and by FLAC
Power on / off via remote control
Utilise any chassis mechanical volume rotary control
Utilise any chassis LCD display

During the initial research for this project I have set a few parameters from which I won't stray

The HTPC software will be MythTV running on Mythbuntu. This will augment my Linux experience and provide an intellectual challenge at the same time
The chassis will be the excellent yet sadly obsolete Antec Fusion Black Remote. Thankfully this is a chassis I have already sourced, mint in box yet secondhand off eBay. The chassis has the powered volume knob and the iMon LCD
The FreeSAT tuner card will be the TBS6981 PCI-E DVB S2 HD Dual Tuner Card which is MythTV / Linux compatible and has two tuners

Ok - so that's my intention! It will be quite a journey and I will be learning some new skills at the same time which makes it worthwhile. Whilst I have a great deal of Linux experience, I've never had any exposure to the popular Ubuntu distribution (albeit it the Mythbuntu distro). Skimming the MythTV wiki suggests a very powerful system and extraordinarily complex as a consequence.

Should be fun - bring it on!

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MythTV