[mythtv-users] 1.6GHz Intel Atom as a SD-only backend?

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Wed Sep 1 15:19:58 UTC 2010


On Wednesday, September 01, 2010 09:07:29 am Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi,
>    I'm wondering if anyone has experience using an Intel Atom as a
> backend for standard definition only. Any problems?
> 
>    I've mostly shifted to DirercTV and just use their recorder for the
> house but I don't have access to that in my office. I was thinking
> about setting up Myth to use my HDHR which still gets local channels
> off the cable. It's only going to record a few shows a night, mostly
> Letterman, Ferguson and maybe 1 or 2 network shows. I'll use external
> USB storage for the video.
> 
>    This machine will not be used as a frontend. Backend _only_.
> 
>    I had an old PowerPC-based Mac Mini which worked fine but may have
> bot the dust so if I cannot get it working I wanted to buy something
> _really_ cheap. I suspect this will work and am just looking for
> anyone who knows differently.

The only backend activities that require much CPU horsepower are commercial flagging and transcoding. Other than that it's 
pretty much just a disk I/O machine. This assumes you are using capture devices that output an already-encoded stream, 
which the HDHR does.

If you are not commflagging/transcoding, or are doing so and are not in any hurry for the results, just about anything 
should work. You might even look for an older P4 or even a 1Ghz. P3 machine, though if power consumption is an issue an 
Atom might be better at that.

Backends just don't need much CPU.

USB storage can be slow, but unless you are doing multiple HD streams at the same time you should be OK. eSATA is faster, 
and would give you some headroom on disk I/O. Older P4 class machines could do IDE or SATA (perhaps needing a PCI 
adapter), which would save the external cases, power bricks etc. involved with multiple external USB drives.







More information about the mythtv-users mailing list