[mythtv-users] advice for frontend/backend

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Thursday, Sep 18, 2003, at 14:07 US/Pacific, Neil Konouchi wrote:

> I know it's been asked a thousand times, but in searching the archives,
> it's been hard to find a solid answer. i'm looking to build a
> front/backend to sit in my entertainment console. the basic ideas i've
> had are the Asus Pundit, a Shuttle XPC (not sure which model), or a
> homebuilt using either the Leadtek K7NCR18GM
> (http://www.leadtek.com.tw/motherboard/winfast_k7ncr18gm_1.shtml) or  
> MSI
> K7N2GM
> (http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/ 
> pro_mbd_detail.php
> ?UID=437&MODEL=MS-6777).

I'm rather partial to BYO on a micro-ATX platform myself. My system is  
here (I'm referring to the 'current production' one):

http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250#hw

> I guess the questions that I'm still pondering are: what sort of
> processor is the best performer for a full-fledged front/backend? What
> other factors do I need to consider?

Storage. Driver support.

> Is the Shuttle going to be too loud?

Much of this depends on your video card cooling, motherboard chipset  
cooling, hard drives and case fans... The case itself should be  
perfectly acceptable, from what I understand.

> Do I NEED a PVR-250 for good performance, even with a strong
> processor?

No. But I've found its image quality to be much better than my bttv  
card. But I'm viewing on a 47" HDTV.

> For what it's worth, I've been leaning towards the Pundit with a 2.4
> Celeron & PVR-250. The only thing keeping me from sealing the deal is
> the single IDE channel -- I was wanting to have more than one HDD in  
> the
> unit in addition to an optical drive.

Yeah, I'm not wild about that either. I've actually got dual HDs RAID  
striped in my main system now, along with a DVD-ROM, and room for  
another optical (and another HD, I think). And it all fits nicely in an  
A/V rack to boot.

> The obvious solution is to use an
> external optical drive, but I've been looking for something a bit more
> elegant. Hence, I've been looking at systems with more than one IDE
> channel, but the additional cost is making me second guess the PVR-250.
> Any advice is truly appreciated!

I've seen some people suggesting firewire hard drives as a  
possibility... I'm not a big fan of that idea myself, but that's mostly  
because Linux has relatively shoddy firewire support. I'm used to the  
way firewire works on my Mac. :)

Having yet another box for a hard drive seems to negate the appeal of  
the Pundit's compactness. You need more room, and you need more power  
connections. I'd just assume get a slightly bigger micro-ATX case. Then  
you can get a mobo w/GF4MX onboard instead of the Pundit SiS, which  
could be of benefit.

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

MythTV, Red Hat Linux 9 & ATrpms documentation:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250