[mythtv] Hardware Platform

Jens Lohmann-Hansen mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Thu Jan 2 19:27:31 EST 2003


Hi all.

Since Myth* is about to be decoupled into a client and a server, I've been
wondering about creating a Myth server on a (possibly noisy but fairly buffy
HW wise) computer in a closet or another room. Then setup a Myth client on a
minimal mini-itx thingy (that is, whithout harddrive, floppy, CDROM) that
would boot-on-LAN from some image stored on the server. The client shouldn't
have any fans, thus making it noise-free. Actually the client should be a
mini-itx board with RAM in a slim case.

Does anyone know if this is feasible? The latest mini-itx boards from via
has a small fan on the CPU, but does also have hardware accel. MPEG2
decoding (as mentioned below) and drivers for RedHat, SuSE (and others?).

Does it sound crazy?

Does anyone here have experience with boot-on-LAN images? (Add to this that
a RedHat/SuSE driver must be used for hardware decoding).

My 2 eurocents.

/Jens

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew B" <abroadst@hotmail.com>
To: <mythtv-dev@snowman.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 4:49 PM
Subject: [mythtv] Hardware Platform


> Greetings.
>[...]
> Anyway, one thing that I think would be a great idea would be to specify a
> hardware platform for MythTV. Has anyone tried it on the VIA EPIA
> motherboards? They are highly integrated and fit in mini iTX cases (17cm
> square motherboard). They have audio, video (with TV-out including
S-Video),
> lan, usb, firewire (and even MPEG2 decoding in the M series) all in
> hardware. Take a look at this site:
> http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/mini_itx.jsp. Add a small internal TV
> tuner (or an external USB one), a quiet hard drive, and a slim DVD-ROM
> player and put it all in a little black iTX case (see www.shentech.com)
and
> you have a pretty slick PVR machine. And you could put the whole thing
> together for less than $500.
>
> Does anyone else think a worthy goal of the MythTV project should be to
> create not only an excellent software package, but also a complete
TiVo-like
> device? Maybe there could be a MythTV linux distro as a single CD image
with
> everything you need and a recommended hardware spec. Perhaps we could even
> convince somebody to sell the who setup - like a 9thtee.com or some small
> vendor.
>
> -Andrew




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