Feb 12, 2006
I have spent one month now working with the HP-a1250n, Ubuntu Linux for AMD 64,
Windows XP Media Edition,
and the Hauppauge PVR-350.
I put notes for installing Linux and MythTV at Linux and PVR.
64 bit Linux and MythTV is currently not for the faint of heart.
The main limitations of this system are:
Microsoft XP Media Edition does not support the PVR-350 TV output.
The power supply is a 300 watt power supply with 70 percent efficiency.
There are three PCI slots and one PCIE slot.
There is no space for an extra hard drive.
The embedded ATI video is not good enough to be a high end video gaming system.
The Ubuntu Breezy version of Linux does not support MythTV as downloadable
packages for the AMD 64.
The Ubuntu Breezy version of Linux does not support the ATI video driver as downloadable packages.
There is a bunch of junk software installed that can be removed. (See advantages of this also.)
The main advantages of this system are:
It is quiet.
The system is cheap. About 900$ for a complete PVR system.
The system is not a power hog.
There is a bunch of junk software installed. I assume this means
the system is cheaper because vendors pay to install? It is easy to
remove, so well worth the cost of removal.
Windows XP Media Edition
XP ME worked with the PVR-350 out of the box, except that the TV output
is not supported. The acquired video is high quality.
Ubuntu Linux with MythTV, LIRC, and IVTV
Up to this point, I have completed the following:
Partitioned for a dual boot with Windows and Linux.
Installed the 64 bit version of Ubuntu Breezy AMD64 Linux.
Built the 64 bit IVTV driver for the Hauppauge PVR-350.
Built the 64 bit version of MythTV.
Built the 64 bit version of LIRC to support the infra red
remote control of the PVR-350.
Configured the desktop to display on the PVR-350 TV output.
The following is not yet working as well as I would have liked.
I am not sure if the MythTV interlace options work as well as
the Windows XP setup.
There does seem to be timing problems when
watching rapidly changing video such as
sports footage. Since
Windows XP works properly, there is hopefully some simple solution.
I don't have the dual display output working. I can manually configure to see the
captured video on either the monitor, or the PVR-350 output, but not both at the same time.
I will either get
this to work, or will make something to allow a choice at boot time.
I don't have a backup of the Linux system working yet.
Some of the MythTV user interface is not as user friendly out
of the box as it should be. For
example, if a recording is running, and someone
wants to cancel it and watch TV, you can't just
select the watch
TV option. It tells you to go somewhere else to stop recording. Although
some features can be customized to be hooked up to buttons on the remote.
I expect that the next version of Ubuntu will fix many of the problems with running the AMD64
and the ATI video chipset.
