[mythtv-users] Minimum hardware recomendation

jedi jedi at mishnet.org
Sun Jun 21 18:42:51 UTC 2009


On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:29:55AM -0700, Allen Edwards wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:11 AM, jedi <jedi at mishnet.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:27:51AM -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Allen
> > > Edwards<allen.p.edwards at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > My daughter told me my father's day gift was that she was moving out
> > (have
> > > > you heard of boomerang kids?).  She was kidding but had heard that was
> > a
> > > > recommended gift.  We went to her new place yesterday and got OTA
> > broadcast
> > > > from her Menlo Park apartment with and old UHF antenna I have had for
> > 50
> > > > years and a single dipole at Channel 7 taped to her balcony.
> >  Everything
> > > > comes in very strong.  Now she needs her own MythTV system.  She also
> > needs
> > > > something cheaper than buying cable w/DVR for a year.  Perhaps that
> > cannot
> > > > be done...
> > > > I know with the Atom-ION systems things are changing fast so perhaps it
> > is a
> > > > good time to ask this.  I looked at newegg and realized I don't know
> > > > anything about these solutions.  What kind of power supply, case, etc.
> >   Can
> > > > you get a barebones or complete version of these systems?  Lots of
> > > > questions.  I looked on Tom's hardware and didn't find anything useful.
> > > >  Perhaps someone on this list can help.
> > > > Allen
> >
> >    Since this is an MPEG2 based system for "someone else" perhaps a VDPAU
> > approach isn't the best idea. Anything with good xvmc support should be
> > more than adequate for playback. If you aren't planning on transcoding,
> > requirements for the rest of the system should be pretty meagre.
> >
> >   An i945 or nv7x00 based system might make more sense at this point.
> >
> >   Without the HDPVR, which is driven by the fact that I have cable and
> > would like to tune in to HD channels, I wouldn't personally see the need
> > for VDPAU myself.
> >
> >   My i945 and nv7x00 systems do well enough for the OTA HD stuff.
> >
> > [deltia]
> >
> >   After the reviews of the early ION systems I would tend to be worried
> > about lack of CPU power should the need arise. You never know extra CPU
> > hungry sort of thing might present itself.
> 
> 
> Could you be more specific about what i945 or nv7x00 system you are
> suggesting?

    My frontend boxes are dedicated remote frontends, so I am not sure
they would be applicable to your proposed setup. The machines I was
referring to were Mac Minis and an AppleTV.

    If I were building from scratch I would start with an Antec Fusion
case and a C2D nv7x00 mATX board. Zotac even has such a board. I would
put a 2TB WD drive in it and probably not even bother with an optical
drive.

    My AppleTV seems to do really quite well despite the relative 
slowness of the CPU in that box. Nvidia in general seems to have 
better and more complete drivers and are better able to cope with 
HTPC oddities like HDTV's that send out bogus EDID info.

    I agree with the choice of the HDHomeRun and have one myself.

> 
> I like the idea of a low power fanless system and she doesn't want to spend
> a lot of money on this.  VDPAU is both intriguing and frightening as it is
> not released and perhaps not either stable or simple to set up.  It took me
> about 40 hours to get my first myth box running right.  Now I can do one in
> an hour -- but only if it is just like my last one, Mythbuntu 8.04.  Much of
> the 40 hours was because the PC would not boot with the drivers installed in
> the order that Mythbuntu wanted to install them but that is another story.
>  The point is, I am pretty good with computers but have never done a compile
> of a Linux system and really have no idea how difficult that is to learn how
> to do.
> 
> So, how difficult is it to make a VDPAU system work?

    I would be more concerned about the fact that you're running a dev
version of MythTV that could have been in any sort of state when you 
checked it out of version control.



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