[mythtv-users] advice for frontend/backend

[Neil Konouchi]

inline comments...

>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

Your page has been a frequent visit of mine -- in fact, your mATX setup
was what got my cogs turning in a direction away from the Pundit. Way to
confuse me. ;)

>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.

Sounds nice -- I think that kind of expandability is what's so
attractive about BYO.

>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.

Do you consider the GF4MX to be that much of an asset, considering all
the driver work that's been done for the SiS? Another thought I had in
the case of using a Pundit would be using networked SMB shares, if only
to avoid using external HDDs. How well would MythTV perform in a
situation like this (say, 120GB drive in the pundit, another 120GB SMB
share on a 100Mbps LAN)?

I couldn't resist the deal I found today and purchased a Pundit for
$140. I haven't ruled out the idea of returning it and building a mATX
system -- the bargain hunter in me just won out today. I know I'll
agonize over this decision until it's all built and done.

Oh, and for those keeping score, my rough estimates for building these
systems are looking around $400 for the Pundit (2.4 Celeron, PVR-250,
512 RAM) and $485 for mATX (Athlon 2400+, Leadtek WinFast K7NCR18GM,
PVR-250, 512 RAM, CoolerMaster 610 case). HDDs are existing. I could
probably cut costs by going for cheaper processors, but I like having a
bit more power, just in case.

Any more thoughts?

Neil Konouchi