[mythtv-users] Newbie HW question

[Paul Barker]

Jim Geist wrote:

> I'm looking at putting together a MythTV box, and I came across this 
> kit from magicitx
>
> http://www.magicitx.com/store/kit-mythtv-1.html
>
> It's a reasonable price, but it's based on a Via chipset, and I read 
> in one of the other hardware guides that people have had random 
> lockups due to Via's bad implementation of DMA.
>
> Has anyone played with this hardware, or have recommendations that I 
> should go with this or pieces-parts from newegg?
>
> Thanks!
>
>  
>
I have the same board sitting in the family room running as a diskless 
front end via mini-myth (http://www.linpvr.org). I really like the EPIA, 
especialy when using the hardware mpeg decoder. The TV ouput quality is 
really good IMHO (for SDTV - no HD here in the UK yet). If you're buying 
it for a combined fe/be be advised that transcoding and commercial 
flagging may be slow due to the processor speed. Also the 'goom' 
visualisation in MythMusic does not run well on this box even when using 
the correct dri and Unichrome drivers. Not exactly a show stopper but 
it's my favourite visualisation ;-)

Personally I'd want 512Mb of RAM but I bet there are plenty of folks on 
the list will argue that 256 is enough.

Overall I'd recommend this board whole heartedly as a front end solution 
- for a backend ... with a PVR 250 / 150 etc (ie hardware encoder) it 
should go well enough I guess.