I need advice on building a Debian GNU/Linux HTPC with OTA HD recording capability

[Chaotic42]

A few years ago I purchased several antennas which I put in my attic to get OTA HD TV. I got cable last year, but I'm ready to dump it again. I used my previous HTPC to record the OTA stuff, but it was in Windows using Media Center. The computer is pretty old and power hungry.

I'd like to trim down the power requirements and move over to a Debian GNU/Linux system. I'd like it to be able to record shows at a given time (a media guide thing would be awesome, but I'm not counting on it) into an open format. Remote operation is a plus.

I was thinking about going with the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 2250 card and an Asus H61M-A motherboard with the lowest power CPU I can throw on there.

Does anyone have a Linux HTPC setup? Could the most minimal 1155 processor handle recording and playback at the same time, or would I need something beefier?

Thanks

 

[Chaotic42]

No love for Linux on in HTPC?

 

[Medikit]

No love for Linux on in HTPC?

I'm not familiar with Linux but I think anything with a core 2 duo plus should handle playback well no matter what OS you are using. It is interesting to see the HTPCs people are creating with the raspberry pi, although it does seem that it isn't up to 1080p playback.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

No love for Linux on in HTPC?

There's some here:
http://www.avsforum.com/f/76/htpc-linux-chat

 

[nForce2]

I'd like to trim down the power requirements and move over to a Debian GNU/Linux system. I'd like it to be able to record shows at a given time (a media guide thing would be awesome, but I'm not counting on it) into an open format. Remote operation is a plus.
...
Does anyone have a Linux HTPC setup? Could the most minimal 1155 processor handle recording and playback at the same time, or would I need something beefier?

Absolutely it could handle it.

My current HTPC is a 10-year-old socket-A Athlon XP 3000+ (2.1 GHz), a fanless AGP NVIDIA 6200, a gig of DDR 333 RAM, and 1.5 TB of IDE hard drives. I'm running a Gentoo install with MythTV, and even with this "ancient" hardware, it can record 2x shows AND play back OTA HD on a 1920x1080 display just fine. :thumbsup: I'm going to upgrade it at some point here, but honestly the power consumption is the only reason - it really does run great.


Take a look what you can do with VDPAU on an NVIDIA graphics card.
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/VDPAU
Almost everyone with a new enough graphics card is running at single-digit CPU utilization to watch HD videos now, even on Atoms, Geodes, and other low low end CPUs. :thumbsup: My graphics card is a bit too old to use this, so my CPU usage is up pretty high, but it's not a problem.


Just out of curiosity, what is your old system?

 

[Chaotic42]

Absolutely it could handle it.

My current HTPC is a 10-year-old socket-A Athlon XP 3000+ (2.1 GHz), a fanless AGP NVIDIA 6200, a gig of DDR 333 RAM, and 1.5 TB of IDE hard drives. I'm running a Gentoo install with MythTV, and even with this "ancient" hardware, it can record 2x shows AND play back OTA HD on a 1920x1080 display just fine. :thumbsup: I'm going to upgrade it at some point here, but honestly the power consumption is the only reason - it really does run great.


Take a look what you can do with VDPAU on an NVIDIA graphics card.
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/VDPAU
Almost everyone with a new enough graphics card is running at single-digit CPU utilization to watch HD videos now, even on Atoms, Geodes, and other low low end CPUs. :thumbsup: My graphics card is a bit too old to use this, so my CPU usage is up pretty high, but it's not a problem.


Just out of curiosity, what is your old system?

Awesome, thanks. My old system is a Core 2 E6600. It's certainly not useless, but I don't know that I want to leave it running 24/7. It puts out a lot of heat.