[mythtv-users] Your ideal (pal) system

[Paul Poetsma]

Your subject says "ideal". What do you want to achieve? Is it just for video & 
music or do you plan to use MythGame as well?

For the first, take a PVR350 for TV in&out. If you want to play games, then 
take a PVR250 for the TV input and an nVidia FX5200 card for the TV output.

The bigger the harddisk, the more you can store. I'm using a 250Gb drive 
(Seagate) and I have tons of mp3, games, videos and recordings and still 60Gb 
available.

Consider a gigabit LAN card if you have a gigabit network upgrade in mind.

I've 512Mb memory in my machine, and that's enough. Esp if you use ratpoison 
or so as wm and not KDE, which is memory hungry.

Modern processors have cooling techniques that will keep the temperature low. 
I'm using an AMD Athlon XP 1600+, has no build-in cooling features but the 
athcool software does the magic. It runs idle at 38C, at top speed 55C, but 
normally the load doesn't pass the 50%, even when playing games (zsnes). Or 
use a passively cooled P3 or Duron processor, no fan noise. VIA Epia are 
interesting things to look at too.

Select a powersupply that uses a large fan (12cm). There's a passive 
powersupply and very nice HTPC cases at e.g. silverstonetek.com.

Paul

On Thursday 09 March 2006 21:54, Francesco Peeters wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering what would be people's ideal system for mythtv when
> running a frontend *and* backend on a single machine for use in the
> livingroom.
>
> The system would have ethernet access to the local home LAN, and direct
> connection to the cable.
>
> So it would need:
> * Ethernet (100/full)
> * Analog TV tuner
> * TV capable output
> * Silent/Very Low Noise
> * Audio (preferrably SPDIF) output to Stereo components
> * and obviously be able to run MythTV
> (Oh, and it needs to be affordable too, so no 50k components <G>)
>
> Maybe there'll be more separate backends and/or frontends in the future to
> facilitate viewing and recording at other places in the house, but
> initially this is intended to be a self-contained unit in the
> livingroom...
>
> Very interested in your suggestions... (And planning to see what I can
> actually make happen <G>)