[mythtv-users] Best hardware for a backend/frontend combo?

Mark fairlane at voyager.net
Mon May 26 19:04:44 EDT 2003


Just getting into this, and need to pick out hardware for a myth only box.

I need to pick out motherboard, cpu, hard drive, video and case.

The only stuff that really has me puzzled is what motherboard and video 
card to use.
What are good chipsets for AMD motherboards these days?  I've had lots 
of problems
with VIA chipsets in the past.  have they changed for the better, or is 
there a better kind?
I don't have preferences on manufacturer, but I need very good 
stability, very quiet, and
as small as possible.  I'm going to use this to replace a vcr, so size 
is a consideration.
It also needs to be inexpensive as possible.

As far as the video card, are there trouble free cards to use?  There 
will be no monitor in my
system, only TV.  It's a Philips 32", so quality matters.  I have 
component, Svideo, and A/V inputs.
I also have a Hollywood+ card that will decode MPG2, but I understand 
that the steam/file is compressed
in something different (nuppel) whatever that is.  Is it possible to 
switch to MPEG2?  If not, and I have
to use a video card, which is relatively trouble free to setup and use? 
 Tv out or scan convertor?

The rest of the system is :

AMD cpu - probably Barton XP or similar.
Any 80-120GB hard drive
Any slim line desktop case painted black most likely
Some form of IR blaster/reciever
~ 200 W power supply, with a large slow case fan ducted
to a slow moving cpu fan most likely.
WinTV 401 w/BT878 chipset
May add another tuner in the future
Either a CDRW or DVD-R drive most likely (can you record the streams in 
VCD format?)
SBLive 5.1 or similar
Echostar DBS reciever
Some over the air channels

What I'm looking to do is capability of record / watch 1 channel, 
perhaps record/watch another
channel on a separate front end (future use)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Mark




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