[mythtv-users] video cards, processor, etc.

Chris Haumesser ch at awry.ws
Thu Oct 23 17:09:16 EDT 2003


I have an old Pentium-200 that I want to put to good use for a very 
limited task, and I'm wondering if it would be up to it.

On my primary PC, which is a 3.06GHz P4 in my bedroom, I have a number 
of movies, mp3's, etc.  Upstairs in the living room, we have a TV, 
stereo etc.  Simply put, I want to use the old P200 to watch music and 
video upstairs, coming over a network connection from my downstairs PC.

We don't even have cable, so I am not interested at all in the PVR 
functionality of Myth, and the P200 would not be used for any encoding 
whatsoever.  Basically, what I want is a front-end, which looks and 
behaves similarly to the on-screen menus people are so familiar with on 
PVRs/VCRs/DVD players, for this weak linux box to play movies and music 
on the TV/stereo.

Here are my questions:

1.  First of all, would a P200 be capable of decoding/playing 
high-quality DVD and/or Divx-encoded video, given a sufficient video 
card?

2.  What kind of network bandwidth would be needed?  We currently have 
100 Mbps cat5 ethernet, and are planning to add dual-band 802.11a/b 
wireless.  Ideally, I would like to use the 802.11a (the access point 
will be in the same room as the P200), which should in theory provide 
54 Mbps, as wireless would prevent me from having to drill a hole in 
the living room floor.

3.  What is the best video card (must naturally have TV-out) for this 
application, in terms of:   a. price (restricted budget);  b. linux 
compatibility/driver availability/ease of configuration;  c. xv- and 
general decoding performance?

4.  Does anyone else have experience with this type of setup?  What is 
the crappiest hardware on which anyone has been able to successfully 
play (NOT encode) video with MythTV?

5.  Is there a different app I should consider that doesn't have the 
PVR features of Myth, which I don't need?  I need something that is 
very easy to use, functioning like onscreen menus of a VCR or DVD 
player.  I don't really want to have to teach my roommates how to use 
Linux to watch movies/play music.

6.  What would be the most efficient file-sharing protocol in this 
case?  I am tempted to to go with SMB, since I could then make 
everything available on the network regardless of whether the PC 
downstairs is booted into Linux or Windows, but I almost always stick 
to Linux, and I wonder if NFS or some other protocol would provide any 
efficiency gain?


Thanks for any thoughts you have!


Chris Haumesser
Berkeley, California



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