[mythtv-users] Australian components

Owen Townend owen.townend at gmail.com
Tue Jan 6 23:23:49 UTC 2009


2009/1/7 Phil Wild <philwild at gmail.com>:
> Thanks for the response...
>
> 2009/1/6 Ben Coleman <arrikhan_mail at yahoo.com.au>:
>> My specs as an FYI ... which are old these days.. by at least 1 year or
>> more!
>>
>> They all run standard Debian Etch (2.6.16 kernel) w/Mythtv 0.20. Am about to
>> upgrade to Debian Lenny in order to get drivers to work on new Mobo on
>> backend (new gbit on board needs newer linux amongst other things, installed
>> OLD network card to get by!)
>
>
> I think I have narrowed down my shopping list. I am going to use this
> opportunity to also upgrade my home linux server to be the mythtv
> backend and will probably buy the hauppage NOVA-t 500 dual DVB-T tuner
> card and use an external 1TB hard drive to hold the video content. I
> will be upgrading my network to gigabit ethernet as part of this...
>
> This server is also going to be a web and and mail server, proxy,
> firewall etc...
>
> I am thinking of going with s diskless frontend and boot over the
> network. Have been looking at mythbuntu as the distribution to use.
>
> The ASUS M3N78-HDMI will most likely be the motherboard I buy for the
> frontend and I am undecided on a case at the moment. Any suggestion on
> what AMD CPU I should buy?
>
> Cheers
>
> Phil

Hey,

I had a similar goal and ended up going with:
ECS A780GM-A mobo
ATI HD3200 (onboard video) [0]
AMD 4850e CPU (dual core, low power - 45W)
AVerMedia AverTV Hybrid PCI (A16D) tuner
KWorld DVBT-100 Tuner (older, had it already)
A plethora of HDDs.
All in an Antec 4U22 19" rack mount case

On the whole the setup is working great.  The GPU/CPU combination is
more than adequate even for 1080p.
I imagine that the Geforce 8200 that you've gone with will cover the
same, especially with the new VDPAU.
The low power of the CPU plus onboard video means smaller heatsink,
slower fan, less noise etc. which is ideal for a frontend.
For a backend though, which will usually live in the garage, under the
stairs etc. noise is hardly going to be an issue, so you may as well
go for performance and have those transcodes run faster.

Also, be wary of the external HDD enclosure.  Make sure that it is
capable of spinning down the disk else it will be running 24/7.
Most/many cheap USB enclosures can't do this.  It may not be a
problem, but it is something to be aware of.

Cheers,
Owen.

[0] I am still having issues with the onboard video... when it works
it's great, but there is a bug whereby changing between channels with
different resolutions causes the display to be messed up until you go
back to the menu then back to the tv.


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