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What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server?

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markknecht at gmail

May 20, 2009, 8:39 AM

Post #1 of 6 (2832 views)
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What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server?

Hi,
I have an older ppc-based Mac Mini that I haven't updated in a
while but would like to try using as a MythTV backend server for
digital recording only. I don't have a lot of experience with my Mac
running Gentoo. I set it up last year but never used it much as a
frontend. I like the machine. It's quiet and doesn't draw much power
or take up much space so I'm looking for a use for it. The HD Homerun
digital tuner outputs MPEG so there isn't much processing power
required and I'll be saving everything to an external 1394 drive so it
seems to me this is a pretty good match and won't take me too much
time to test out.

My question is which new profile to choose. It was set up last year
with a 2007.0 profile which is now depreciated. when I look at the
long list of options the question that comes up for me and this
application is whether to choose the standard 2008.0 profile or the
2008.0 32-bit userland-profile.

Does anyone with more experience on this platform have any inputs
they want to make? I'm leaning toward the standard profile which I
think is 64-bit? I assume that's the difference between these two?

Thanks,
Mark

josejx at gentoo

May 20, 2009, 10:35 AM

Post #2 of 6 (2691 views)
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Re: What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server? [In reply to]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an older ppc-based Mac Mini that I haven't updated in a
> while but would like to try using as a MythTV backend server for
> digital recording only. I don't have a lot of experience with my Mac
> running Gentoo. I set it up last year but never used it much as a
> frontend. I like the machine. It's quiet and doesn't draw much power
> or take up much space so I'm looking for a use for it. The HD Homerun
> digital tuner outputs MPEG so there isn't much processing power
> required and I'll be saving everything to an external 1394 drive so it
> seems to me this is a pretty good match and won't take me too much
> time to test out.
>
> My question is which new profile to choose. It was set up last year
> with a 2007.0 profile which is now depreciated. when I look at the
> long list of options the question that comes up for me and this
> application is whether to choose the standard 2008.0 profile or the
> 2008.0 32-bit userland-profile.
>
> Does anyone with more experience on this platform have any inputs
> they want to make? I'm leaning toward the standard profile which I
> think is 64-bit? I assume that's the difference between these two?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
>
Nope, the standard profile for this machine is a 32 bit profile. The 32
bit profile that you're looking at is probably the 32 bit profile for 64
bit machines and shouldn't be used on the Mini. All PPC Mac Mini's are
32 bit PowerPC chips (G4's).

Hope that helps,
-Joe

markknecht at gmail

May 20, 2009, 10:47 AM

Post #3 of 6 (2685 views)
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Re: What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server? [In reply to]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Joseph Jezak <josejx [at] gentoo> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I have an older ppc-based Mac Mini that I haven't updated in a
>> while but would like to try using as a MythTV backend server for
>> digital recording only. I don't have a lot of experience with my Mac
>> running Gentoo. I set it up last year but never used it much as a
>> frontend. I like the machine. It's quiet and doesn't draw much power
>> or take up much space so I'm looking for a use for it. The HD Homerun
>> digital tuner outputs MPEG so there isn't much processing power
>> required and I'll be saving everything to an external 1394 drive so it
>> seems to me this is a pretty good match and won't take me too much
>> time to test out.
>>
>> My question is which new profile to choose. It was set up last year
>> with a 2007.0 profile which is now depreciated. when I look at the
>> long list of options the question that comes up for me and this
>> application is whether to choose the standard 2008.0 profile or the
>> 2008.0 32-bit userland-profile.
>>
>> Does anyone with more experience on this platform have any inputs
>> they want to make? I'm leaning toward the standard profile which I
>> think is 64-bit? I assume that's the difference between these two?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mark
>>
>>
> Nope, the standard profile for this machine is a 32 bit profile. The 32
> bit profile that you're looking at is probably the 32 bit profile for 64
> bit machines and shouldn't be used on the Mini. All PPC Mac Mini's are
> 32 bit PowerPC chips (G4's).
>
> Hope that helps,
> -Joe

Ah, my mistake. I didn't notice the ppc32/ppc64 difference earlier in the path.

Thanks. I've selectedwhat I think is the correct one:

[11] default/linux/powerpc/ppc32/2008.0 *

I'm excited about maybe getting some use out of this machine. It's
just been sitting here for 3 years now doing nothing. Maybe it will
become useful.

Cheers,
Mark

ajai at bway

May 27, 2009, 8:01 AM

Post #4 of 6 (2690 views)
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Re: What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server? [In reply to]

On Wed, 20 May 2009, Mark Knecht wrote:

> I have an older ppc-based Mac Mini that I haven't updated in a
> while but would like to try using as a MythTV backend server for
> digital recording only.

Actually, do you think it has enough CPU power to do video recording and
transcoding? I have my doubts. I have the same Mac Mini. It would
however, make a great remote client to stream video from a MythTV backend
server.

--
A

markknecht at gmail

May 27, 2009, 8:15 AM

Post #5 of 6 (2677 views)
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Re: What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server? [In reply to]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Ajai Khattri <ajai [at] bway> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 May 2009, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>> I have an older ppc-based Mac Mini that I haven't updated in a
>> while but would like to try using as a MythTV backend server for
>> digital recording only.
>
> Actually, do you think it has enough CPU power to do video recording and
> transcoding? I have my doubts. I have the same Mac Mini. It would however,
> make a great remote client to stream video from a MythTV backend server.
>

ACtually, with an HDHR it doesn't have to do much of anything except
commercial flagging. I'm using an external USB drive for storage and
the HD Homerun for getting the data off the cable. It's VERY early
days so I cannot say much at this time but it seems OK at least with
test recordings. Give me a few weeks to check it out more completely
and I'll post back.

It seems a perfect solution for this sort of application as the Mac is
really just acting as a router to get network traffic from the HDHR to
the disk, and then from the disk to the network for remote front ends.

My fingers are crossed... ;-)

Cheers,
Mark

ajai at bway

Jun 4, 2009, 4:23 AM

Post #6 of 6 (2659 views)
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Re: What new profile for an old Mac Mini as a MythTV backend server? [In reply to]

On Wed, 27 May 2009, Mark Knecht wrote:

> ACtually, with an HDHR it doesn't have to do much of anything except
> commercial flagging. I'm using an external USB drive for storage and
> the HD Homerun for getting the data off the cable. It's VERY early
> days so I cannot say much at this time but it seems OK at least with
> test recordings. Give me a few weeks to check it out more completely
> and I'll post back.

Now Im wondering if an Apple TV box could do this :-) I have a Tivo but
Ive always wanted to play with MythTV (especially now since I just bought
a shiny new Samsung 32" 1080p LCD TV! :-)

--
A

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