I_NEED_HELP Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 Hi i recently upgraded my pc and have found enough parts lying around my home to build another pc the and decided to build a multimedia centre for my living room. I need it to play dvds. play music(mp3s) play video files of various formats mpeg, divx, avi etc. play tv through tv card I have several questions. 1.Is there a way of playing xvid in linux. 2.Is there a linux distro or program that does these kind of functions. (i have found mythtv that appears to do everything i want. 3.Can anyone recommend a tv card that as not to expensive. (i have looked at the hauppauge wintv go which i believe supports linux) 4. Can anyone recommend an infrared remote so that i can control the system with. If anyone can answer these questions i would be thankful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 a bit in a hurry, but maybe you find the perfect linux-distro here: http://www.distrowatch.org/dwres.php?resource=search i do remember that there was a special distro in this list, whose only purpose was mulimedia usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 (edited) 1: Mplayer plays everything including xvid 2:There are 2 well known programs that do what you want: Mythtv and Freeevo. Both come with Mandrake and can be installed with urpmi (taking care of all the dependencies). There is no need to use another distro 3:Go with the Hauppauge wintv pvr250/350 (about E150/200). I guess since this computer will be build from spareparts it won't be the fastest and both of these cards do hardware encoding (and the 350 comes with a TV out). You need that with a slow PC. 4:These cards come with a remote but it needs some effort to get them to work with Mandrake 10. (Mandrake 9.2 a lot less effort) Good luck Edited July 23, 2004 by devries Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I_NEED_HELP Posted July 23, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 Thanks for the info. ill have alook at freevo. Mythtv is looking good if it comes with mandrake. The specs for this computer will be celeron 1 GHz 386 mb ram geforce 4 mx440 with tv out I was looking for something a bit cheaper thean the pvr250 as i can only find it for about £150 if someone can tell me where i can find it for about £80 then ill buy it. anyone with more recommendations about remotes would be grateful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 Wow...to me, that computer is REALLY REALLY good and REALLY FAST :P Try pricewatch for a cheap TV card...They're as low as $19 USD...just search 'TV Tuner Card' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdunn Posted July 24, 2004 Report Share Posted July 24, 2004 (edited) Wow...to me, that computer is REALLY REALLY good and REALLY FAST :P Try pricewatch for a cheap TV card...They're as low as $19 USD...just search 'TV Tuner Card' <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've had a fair bit to do with Media PCs and I just wanted to reinforce that your specification is fine, but you do need a hardware encoder on your TV card - it takes all the work off your cpu (and 1 Ghz Celeron will struggle otherwise if you want to timeshift or record while you watch TV (or, indeed, do other multimedia tasks while you record TV) Sure you can find a cheap card - but you're likely to regret it. My advice - stick with the PVR250 or 350 - they are proven, reliable stalwarts for a Media PC. Check out the forums at Mythtv or the AVS forums or myHTPC.net and do a search on TV cards or hardware encoders to see what those people who do media PCs as a hobby think about the subject. You'll find almost unanimous support for Hardware encoding cards, and a huge majority of users using and recommending PVR250/350 cards - for good reasons. Edited July 24, 2004 by jimdunn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted July 24, 2004 Report Share Posted July 24, 2004 saa7134-based Pinnacle PCTV stereo works good for me, but requires a *very* recent kernel (2.6.6 or 2.6.7). Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I_NEED_HELP Posted July 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 i have bought a pvr 250 card and am now waiting for it to be delivered. I have been thinking about the games part of mythtv and was wondering what joypads will work with it. I would like to use a playsation one through a converer is that possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 I believe mythgame is only a frontend for xmame and others. For others I don't know but xmame should support playstation 2 pad support (I had a look just now in the makefile and it's supported). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted July 27, 2004 Report Share Posted July 27, 2004 Forget what I said about the remote and being difficult. The people of lirc have been hard at work and the latest cvs snapshot (07.0pre7) compiles without errors and works out of the box. Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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