[mythtv-users] Backend / Frontend advise

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Tue Jan 10 20:13:58 UTC 2006


Jonathan Oexner wrote:

> Sorry to semi-hijack, but I'm in a kinda similar situation.  I've got 
> an Athlon XP 1800+ box with 3/4 gig of memory and a 4x AGP slot.  
> Right now I'm just using it as a backend to capture SD via a PVR-250 
> card.  I'm using an XBox as a remote frontend, via a component video 
> adapter hooked up to my HD TV.  Works like a charm, couldn't be 
> happier, but...
>
> At the end of the month I'll be getting a DTC-62xx (I think) from RCN 
> here in Boston.  I'd like to capture via the Firewire port and watch 
> it on my TV, but I understand that the XBox probably doesn't have the 
> horsepower to decode and display a 1080i signal.  Is there a video 
> card with component video outputs that I can drop into the 4x AGP slot 
> on my mobo that will be able to render a 1080i video stream?
>
> I've heard people mention that some Nvidia 6200-based cards come with 
> a component-out dongle and they work well for HD video, but all the 
> cards I've seen say AGP 8x (or PCI-e).  Would an AGP 8x Nvidia 6200 
> card even work in a 4x AGP slot, or would the video kinda suck if the 
> card stepped itself down to AGP 4x?

The 1800+ will most likely be a problem (although you might be able to 
make it work with XvMC, it will be so close to the edge it will probably 
still be annoying), so you might want to just create a new dedicated 
frontend.  That would allow you to get a processor that will be able to 
decode the video as well as a MB with an AGP 8X (or PCI-E) slot.  
Unfortunately, that will be more expensive than just dropping a video 
card in the existing backend...

Mike


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