[mythtv-users] Mini ITX motherboards

[Stephen Tait]

>
>Anyways, i was wondering if anyone has one of these mini-itx boards with 
>integrated everything and if it works with mythtv well.

Afraid not, but there are plenty of threads on this list archive about 
general stuff about the EPIA boards and their ilk. General consensus I 
think is that they're great for watching TV and video on, but less than 
satisfying for ripping and transcoding MP3's, DVD's, etc - essentially, all 
the stuff that requires a lot of CPU time.

>The one problem i see is the power supply.

You can get external PSU's for most iterations of mini ITX hardware, which 
will make cooling and modding the case *much* easier.

>Anyone know what wattage i would need to run one of these mini's and the 
>pvr 250, and a small size, it has to fit between the back of the tivo and 
>the harddrives.  Would have to cut a bigger hole for the cable and make a 
>few holes for the fan.  I mean if i don't have to buy a case, harddrives 
>and such, i just want to use the case.  I dont need a cdrom except to 
>install.  etc.  Any help would be appreciated.

If this is just going to be used for watching and recording TV, I'd 
recommend the 350 rather than the 250. It's TV-Out is of exceptionally good 
quality, and judging by the posts to this list, is generally far better and 
just as easy to get working compared to the TV-Out's on most GFX/mobos - 
plus you have the added advantage that you don't even need to think about 
using closed source drivers. If you're looking to play games or use 
MythMusic visualisations or suchlike, you may find the limited scope of the 
350's TV-Out problematic.

If hard drives are a problem and you have another computer (preferably 
running Linux), there's a fair few people here who netboot their machines 
off their central file/myth servers (which also contain the TV cards), 
which they also use for storage, giving them discless frontends which are 
*very* quiet. I'm going to attempt this approach myself once my current 
workstation gets retired.

As a personal opinion piece, I would rather spend the extra moolah on a 
prettier-than-a-TiVO case (I only have the short lived UK TiVO my mate has 
as a comparison, mind you) and chuck a low powered mATX solution into it, 
which would give me far more flexibility in terms of watching DVD's and 
XviD's and all the other functions ancillary to MythTV, although as pointed 
out the newer EPIA boards are much more powerful than they used to be and 
easily capable of pretty much anything you can throw at them. But then, 
IANAWBCM (Would-Be Case Modder :^) and I'm not a huge fan of proprietary 
hardware stuff like the mini ITX form factor.

P.S. hope you're prepared for a good slashdotting once your project is finished!