[mythtv-users] recommendations for building new FE/BE HDTV system?

Jean-Yves Avenard jyavenard at gmail.com
Sun Apr 5 04:54:03 UTC 2009


Hi

On 05/04/2009, at 11:41 AM, John-Marc Chandonia <jmc at dolorespark.org>  
wrote
>
>    Any thoughts on the Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H?  I see it was
> discussed briefly on this list a few months ago--are people still
> happy with it?  It looks like the integrated graphics will work well
> with all types of VDPAU decoding.
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128363
>

It's a great board.
Perfect at what it does and full hdmi support.

You don't need a very fast processor with this board to enjoy HD  
content as all of them can be decoded by re onboard GPU.


>    It looks like I'll need to use my current coax SPDIF connector to
> attach to the header on the mobo, and I'll need to buy a cable to
> connect the parallel cable header on the mobo to the LCD display on my
> case (which is driven by a parallel port).
>

There's a digital output but its optical only. There's a spdif  
connector on the board as you noted.

The only downside with this board for use in a backend, is there's  
only 4 SATA ports.


>    Can anybody confirm whether or not the fan connectors on this
> board can be controlled through ACPI under linux?  My case has 2
> large fans in the back, but I don't want them to be constantly
> running.

I can't say anything about that as I never tried those. My fans a re  
dead silent so it doesn't bother me if they are running 24/7

>
>    Is the Wolfdale 2.8GHz CPU sufficient power to decode anything
> that's currently out there?
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115206
> or should I go with one with a the faster FSB--e.g., the 3.16 GHz:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
>

You only need to worry about what processor you will need for  
transcoding and the like.

For viewing video, even a 1Ghz processor would do thanks to vdpau.


>    Have other people tried replacing the CPU fan with a passive
> cooling system, or adding passive cooling to this board?  I've seen
> reviews that it runs hot, but remains stable.

I don't see how this has anything to do with the motherboard.


>
>    Is 4Gb of memory sufficient for this system?  Are you running
> a IA-64 linux distribution, or a 32-bit distro?

That's more than enough 2GB is plenty.


>
>    I will probably get 2 WD Green 1TB drives, and run them in
> (software) RAID-0 for storing recordings.  I'll put long-term
> storage on NFS, over a gigabit network.
>
>    Finally, any recommendation on power supplies?  I currently
> use a fairly quiet 350W Ahanix PSU, if that's sufficient power
> to run this system.
>

I recommend the seasonic S12+. They are completely silent

Jean-Yves


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list