[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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