How about smallish, easier to get working, but don't worry about the cost. I was thinking about maybe a shuttle case or something along those lines. I'll be buying this probably one or two pieces at a time so cost isn't my concern. I want it HDTV ready as well. Thoughts?
<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/31/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Chad</b> <<a href="mailto:masterclc@gmail.com">masterclc@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 3/30/06, Timothy Waters <<a href="mailto:timothy.waters@gmail.com">timothy.waters@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> What hardware would you all recommend for a small & quiet MythTV box to hook<br>> up to my TV in the living room? Case, chip, memory, tuner and output
<br>> card...I just got a decent job and I'm finally going to have the means to<br>> build one and I want it to totally replace my vcr and dvd player and I don't<br>> have a lot of space.<br>><br>> --<br>> Timothy Waters
<br>> <a href="mailto:timothy.waters@gmail.com">timothy.waters@gmail.com</a><br>> <a href="http://www.e-Waters.org">http://www.e-Waters.org</a><br>> 205-587-9001<br>><br>> "It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of
<br>> man." Albert Einstein(1946)<br>> _______________________________________________<br><br>Einstein was amazing, just got done watching a few shows from Nova on<br>PBS HDTV via Myth...<br><br>Anyway..<br><br>
2 schools of thought here:<br>Small, expensive, quiet and somewhat harder to get working OR<br>Smallish, less-expensive, relatively quiet, and a little less work/time<br><br>Small,expensive would be your garden variety Via Epia with XvMC
<br>actually working, which I haven't been able to accomplish yet;<br><br>Smallish, less-expensive would be your basic CeleronD 310, some cheap<br>motherboard with AGP slot, and an GeForce FX5200 to do the XvMC<br>output.
<br><br>I chose the middle road and bought a 300 dollar setup that kind of<br>does both of these things:<br>Celeron D 310 Retail (the factory fan is actually fairly quiet)<br>Antec Minuet II (the case is a beauty and the case/PSU fans are also
<br>fairly quiet)<br>512MB RAM (less heat, figure 512 is a good round number these days)<br>And a Biostar motherboard with a P4M800CE chipset on it.<br>The motherboard chipset is the important part there. It's a Via<br>Unichrome Pro chipset. Which means I don't also have an FX5200 in
<br>that box, instead I'm taking the road of using the onboard video<br>saving me some space, heat, and possibly a fan (and a few bucks too);<br>but giving me a world of headache figuring out how to get the<br>OpenChrome drivers working on this newish chipset that is supposed to
<br>have XvMC to decode the mpeg2, and ALSO have the ability to accelerate<br>mpeg4 video, meaning my Celeron will left to mostly just detect<br>commercials and run the OS (which is why I went cheap with a Celly).<br><br>
So there ya have it!<br><br>The side bar is that I didn't use a Hard Drive either, I'm PXE booting<br>that machine, saving me more heat, no noise from an HD, and making it<br>easier to build more and have them everywhere. No need for massive
<br>power supply, or worry about power outages and getting UPS's for every<br>computer in the house (just 1 for the main PXE/Myth/Everything<br>server(s) and the front projector ;-] ).<br><br>Hope that helps.<br><br>Chad<br>
_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-users mailing list<br><a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br><a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Timothy Waters<br><a href="mailto:timothy.waters@gmail.com">timothy.waters@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://www.e-Waters.org">http://www.e-Waters.org</a><br>205-587-9001
<br><br>"It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man." Albert Einstein(1946)