[mythtv-users] Quiet HDTV frontend: AOpen XC Cube EY855-II?

Brad Templeton brad+myth at templetons.com
Tue Mar 22 01:25:46 UTC 2005


On Tue, Mar 22, 2005 at 12:54:42AM +0000, Joel B wrote:
> Hi, all,
> 
> I currently am using a MediaMVP as a frontend system, and I'm happy with 
> it. Despite a lack of features, it does play video with acceptable 
>  quality. But I've been thinking of what happens when I
> eventually go with HDTV (Comcast says Real Soon Now).  I'd like to put 
> together a frontend system that can do the HDTV equivalent of the MediaMVP, 
> and also do LiveTV from a cable STB firewire feed.  Beyond
> that, my main criterion is quietness.  I prefer to boot diskless and store 
> things on a backend server.  I also have the luxury of being in no hurry.
> 
> Has anybody looked at <a 
> href="http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/aopen-ey855/index.x?pg=1"> 
> TechReports review of the AOpen XC Cube EY855-II mini-barebones system 
> <\a>? It's based around the Pentium M, and it seems to be exceptionally 
> quiet.  Other nice features for a frontend are builtin firewire
> and optical digital audio inputs and outputs.  There's a 4X AGP slot (but 
> not a very wide one) as well as one PCI slot.  The main drawback is the 
> price of the Pentium M, but the low power consumption of that processor is 
> also what makes the quietness possible.

I have an aopen xcube as my frontend, but it is a much cheaper version.

In any event, it's pretty quiet, but gets noisy when doing commercial
scanning or transcoding as the fan revs up.   Fan does not rev up playing
video though.   Keep it well ventilated.

However, the TV's own fan (projection tv) is much louder so the noise of
this has not been an issue.


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