[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[Brian Wood]

On May 10, 2006, at 5:05 AM, Andrew Hutchinson wrote:

> Why don't you guys just buy Xbox's and then soft mod them?  You can  
> get an Xbox on eBay for under $100 and they seem to be about the  
> same speed or maybe even faster than the ones you are talking about.
>
> Add to this the fact that although ugly, they don't look half as  
> bad as a normal computer and they are really not that noisy.

Funny, but my nephew was just telling me that last night.

I guess it's partially my inborn prejudice against gaming consoles,  
and computer gaming in general. Perhaps I'm afraid that somebody  
would see the device in my home and think that I might be a  
"gamer". :-) In addition, purchasing any product marketed (note, not  
"made") by Microsoft grates on me a bit.

But I was looking on the net at the possible mods and what the  
machines can do and it really does look like a lot of hardware for  
the $$$, with a lot of support from the Linux community. Perhaps I  
could gain some universal karma points for "reforming" a game machine  
into a useful real computer.

Of course the little machine I started this thread about will only  
cost me $119, considering I already have the $150 or so in extra  
components sitting around, but, as I said, it is not a viable  
economic solution if you don't have a large junk drawer.