[mythtv-users] Hardware recomendation

[Tyler T]

>> 1. Small form factor (something like a mac mini or even a dell zino, but not
>> bigger)

There's always mini-ITX if you like building it yourself. There are
many Dell Zino-like form factor cases available. As mentioned in
another thread, I prefer ones with an external PS brick for less heat
and ease of upgrading or replacing failed components.

>> 2. Because of 1, I think the TV tuner must be USB.
>> 3. Ability to watch analog TV (my country uses NTSC standard)

See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Video_capture_card#Analogue_cards_.28Hardware_Encoder.29
, I see a few USB based tuners there. However some mini-ITX cases will
accept one PCI/PCIe device (with a right-angle adapter) so that may
broaden your options.

>> 5. IR remote control (supported by lirc). For this I guess any el-cheapo USB
>> remote control would do, right?

The MCE USB remote
(http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MCE_Remote#Media_Center_Remotes) seems to
be well supported and pretty painless. That's what I use.

> Have you considered storage? These small boxes usually run a single laptop
> type HDD. With the higher seek times you see in those, I'd really recommend
> putting the OS and recordings on different physical drives.
> If you are doing mostly SD
> recordings, you might get away with the single HDD.

I'm running my BE OS, HDHR recordings, and diskless FE (via NFS) all
off a single 2.5" drive attached via USB with no problems so far
(though I only just got my FE installed last night). Of course, you
should design in plenty of headroom rather than just scrape by with
the minimum, but a single 2.5" drive is not impossible (especially if
you select one based on performance). Also, I do not transcode or
commflag, so these operations could well make the difference between
working and not.