[mythtv-users] Neoware Thin Clients

[Mark A. Hoover]

> From: Brian Wood <beww at beww.org>
>
> Mark A. Hoover wrote:
>> I've found a couple Neoware thin client boxes that have 800 mhz and 900
>> mhz processors in them and thought about picking a few of these up in
>> order to make Myth front ends out of them until I can build the front end
>> that I really want.  What I'm trying to find out is if anybody has built a
>> box on such a slow machine?  I don't need it to do HD right now, so if
>> it'll do SD it'll work for the time being.
>
> Certainly machines with even slower CPUs have been used as frontends,
> the MVP is an example, but it's hardware is optimized for what it does.

Yeah, I did some looking around and found a few charts listing the 
hardware people were using.  Found a few people using machines around the 
same speed or slower, but the reviews were mixed.  Some were happy some 
weren't.  Didn't give me that warm fuzzy feeling that I was looking for.


> General purpose machines became capable of decoding DVD-quality MPEG2 at
> about 500 or 600 Mhz. P-IIIs, or at least it was at that point that
> machine makers stopped putting hardware MPEG decoders into "DVD capable"
> units.
>
> So the CPUs should be OK for SD, and assuming that the video hardware
> can cope it should be possible, but you can't be sure until it's tried.

That makes me feel a lot more comfortable about giving this a shot.  If I 
can actually get the machines, I'll let everyone know how it pans out.