[mythtv-users] YA Frontend recommendations thread

[Jack Madison]

On Tue, 2007-05-15 at 14:03 -0400, Rich West wrote:
> Jack Madison wrote:
> > First, sorry for bringing up a topic that seems to come up a lot, but it
> > just doesn't seem to be answered for what I'm looking for.  If I missed
> > it, go ahead and e-slap me (and point me to the answer).
> >
> > I am looking for a FE only box.  RCA, s-video or component out (all my
> > old HDTV has).  SPDIF or any other way to get 5.1 or better surround
> > sound.  Something that looks like it belongs with the TV and is
> > reasonably quiet.  Enough power for SD only.  Under $300 (I'll
> > eventually have ~5 of them).  True MythTV front end.
> >
> > No xbox solutions, I've tried them and am not happy.  I'd rather not
> > have a Mac solution either.
> >
> > Preference would be for new (cheap-o or build it myself), but I'm not
> > against used e-bay solution.
> >
> > I've seen a lot of "this should work" stuff, and some other posts
> > describing things that sorta work, or have issues (ie the MSI's 6150
> > board thread) so any first hand "I did this and it works great" replies
> > are welcomed.
> 
> I have three Shuttle SK21G
> (http://hq1.shuttle.com/products_page03.jsp?PLLI=25&PI=85) boxes as
> frontend-only systems with 1 512MB stick of ram, an XFX GeForce 6200
> (fanless) agp card, an AMD Sempron64 3000+ processor, and varying drives
> (old 6GB laptop drive in one, an old 20GB laptop drive in another, and
> an older 80GB IDE drive in the third).  Ideally, these would be
> diskless, but they work great as they are.
> 
> I had to get over the hurdle of buying a non-atx motherboard; of buying
> a "custom" motherboard.  But, for the $119 I paid for the refurbished
> barebones system off of the Shuttle ebay store, it was a no-brainer. 
> The advantage of the Shuttle systems is that they are q-u-i-e-t.  They
> have a nice "ICE" system that cools via a heat-pipe setup.  The result
> is that the case fan (which also cools the heat-pipe setup) runs between
> 900 and 1200 RPM.
> 
> The SK21G is a socket-754 based system with an AGP slot, which is a
> little more dated.  I think everything (nearly everything) is 939 and PCIe.
> 
> -Rich
> 
> 

Not sure if it would fit below my TV, but it looks good and I'm sure I
could live with it.  Only problem with that system, no TV-out that I can
see.  :(  I know I can pop a video card in, but I'm holding out for
integrated s-video as well as SPDIF connection still.  I may have to
give up and buy extra cards but I hope not.  I am looking at other
shuttle systems now, thanks!

-Jack