[mythtv-users] Dell Zino HD as FE/BE

[Raymond Wagner]

On 11/12/2009 09:35, Cool Frood wrote:
> Just when I was considering an Ion-based machine for an FE/BE, Dell
> has thrown the Zino HD in the mix.
>
> AMD Athlon™ 2650e (512K L2, 1.6GHz) processor
> 2GB RAM
> 250 GB HDD
> Integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 Graphics
>    

That processor is marginal at best.  You would likely not be able to 
decode full bitrate ATSC, much less do so with any deinterlacing.  The 
$110 more expensive 6850e would be a bare minimum, and even then you can 
hardly manage half-bitrate HDPVR recordings, and bluray/hddvd is out of 
the question.

You should be able to get the HD3200 working well enough with the fglrx 
drivers, but it will not currently, and will likely never support 
hardware accelerated decoding.  You can upgrade to the HD4330 which now 
has XvBA support indirectly through VAAPI, but will not be supported by 
MythTV until at least 0.23.

So its $414 for a fairly inadequate frontend, that may have better 
support five months from now.  For that price, you should have no 
difficulty building a computer that can decode whatever you want 
directly in software.