[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[Brian Wood]

On May 7, 2006, at 2:12 PM, Dennis Hand wrote:

>  Brian Wood wrote:
> > I know, we've all seen the posts:
> >
> > "I (found in a dumpster / was offered for $5) a computer. All I know
> > about it is (It says "286" on the front / It says "Altair") and I  
> was
> > wondering if it will work With Myth. I plan to connect it to my
> > network with (a 300-baud modem / my cell phone), and storage will be
> > (punch cards / magnetic drum). I will need to drive 6 High- 
> Definition
> > displays simultaneously, each with a separate 1080i signal. Do you
> > think it will work ??"
> >
> > Not to be outdone, I found this:
> >
> > http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid»-U-BUDDIE- 
> SYS&cat»K&cpc=JAD
> >
> > Since I have the RAM and the drives, I'm only risking $120.
> >
> > What I wonder about is the "64-bit 2D/3D graphics accelerator". Is
> > this just a UniChrome variant? I don't know much about those, but  
> I'd
> > never heard they were 64-bit. What "acceleration" might it provide ?
> >
> > I'm wondering if it might do SD only, perhaps with XvMC or a
> > Unichrome-only driver ? I'd really like to be able to playback  
> MPEG-4
> > streams, sort of a "Rich Man's MediaMVP that can do MPEG-4".
> >
> >
> > Brian Wood
> > beww[at]beww.org
>
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> Doubt very much this is Unichrome capable. I recently sold a MythTV  
> system very
> similiar to this on Ebay. The model your looking at states a 1.1GHz  
> which in fact
> is a incorrect. It's actually somewhere around 800MHz. The onboard  
> graphics is
> an SiS chipset which should work very well especially using Thomas  
> Winischhofer's
> SiS driver. I used this along with an Avermedia M179 with this  
> setup and the frontend only
> pulled about 60%. With the improvements to MythTV it "should" run  
> even lower than that.


Yeah, if you look at the specs on the site John Mitchell pointed me  
to it states that the 1.1Ghz. is a "performance" figure and the  
actual speed is 800Mhz., exactly as you said (Thanks again John).  
More or less like the numbers in an AMD CPU name I guess ?

I went ahead and ordered one, since I already have a hard drive and  
some RAM for it, as well as an optical drive that should work, I  
figure what the heck for $120? The specs also don't say if the USB  
ports are 1.1 or 2.0, so I assume they are 1.1, but of course I could  
use the PCI slot for a 2.0/Firewire controller.

Looks like a decent deal for the price, and a way to utilize some of  
the stuff in my junk drawer (which is actually more of a "junk  
garage" at this point). If I can get it to play SD MPEG-4 I can  
replace my MVP and transcode everything to MPEG-4 to save space.

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