[mythtv-users] Hardware Sanity Check

Paul Bender pebender at san.rr.com
Wed Jun 7 14:45:15 UTC 2006


Mark A. Hoover wrote:
>>------------------------------
>>From: Paul Bender <pebender at san.rr.com>
>>
>>>Morex Cubid 3688
>>>Pioneer Slim DVD Burner DVR-K06
>>>VIA EPIA M10000 Nehemiah
>>>Kingston 1GB DDR266 Memory
>>
>>It is hard to know without knowing what you want to do with it. For
>>non-HD MPEG2 playback, the setup is be fine. For HD MPEG2 playback and
>>MythGallery you will find the setup to be underpowered.
> 
> 
> At this point, all I'm planning to use it for is playing recorded standard 
> TV, mythmusic, and possibly mythvideo.  However, I didn't want to paint 
> myself into a corner so to speak where I woudln't be able to run a plugin 
> around the corner or go HD at some point in the future.  I don't have HD 
> now and probably won't get it any time in the near future.  But at the 
> same time I didn't want to rebuy the entire frontend if I ever decided to.
> 
> 
> 
>>Also, 1GB of memory might be overkill. 512MB should be enough. In
> 
> 
> I initially went with 512MB, but since I'm not installing a hard drive and 
> will be PXE booting/NFS mounting the filesystems, I thought the extra 
> memory might be helpful.

I run out of 512MB of memory using MiniMyth <http://linpvr.org>, and 
MiniMyth loads the entire file system imagoe into memory rather than 
mounting it via NFS (although it does support mounting it via NFS).

However, the extra memory cannot hurt. Back in the Myth 0.15 days, 
MiniMyth only required 256MB of memory. However, with the addition of 
more MythTV plugins and the increase in size of MythTV, it requires 
512MB now. Therefore, using 1GB will make things more future proof.

>>addition, if noise is a concern, then the ME6000 may be a better choice
>>as it has not fan. I run a fanless ME6000 and a fanless SP8000E using
>>512MB of RAM.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure where I sit on noise right now.  Obviously the major 
> requirement is that I should be able to watch tv and not hear the fans. 
> Ideally, I'd like to be able to sit in the living room with everything off 
> and not hear any fans.  After all, my VCR, TV, and DVD player don't make 
> any sound right now.

The VIA M10000 CPU fan is relatively loud. In addition, the case fans in 
the Mini-ITX cases tend to be relatively loud, because they are small. 
It takes more RPMs to move the same about of air with a smaller fan than 
with a larger fan. As a result, smaller fans tend to make more noise 
when they more the same amount of air.

>>If size is not a concern and you can afford to spend a little more, then
>>for about $70 more you could have a frontend that has the horsepower to
>>play back HD MPEG2, display images in MythGallery and will be somewhat
>>more responsive in the menus by using an AMD Athlon64 with an NVIDIA
>>chipset based motherboard. I run an ASUS A8N-VM CSM motherboard with an
>>AMD Athlon64 3200+.
> 
> 
> I was kind of hoping to keep to a mini-itx sized case.  Definitely not 
> wanting a full size PC case in the living room, nor the noise generated 
> from the required fans.

The board is MicroATX, which is not quite full size. I use an Antec 
NSK24000. The case is somewhat smaller than my amp/receiver. In 
addition, the case uses 2 120mm fans, making it relatively quiet. In 
fact, it make less noise than a VIA EPIA M10000, because the fan on the 
CPU of this EPIA motherboard is rather small and loud.

I have mine in a stereo case with a door on the front and open in the 
back. The only time I can hear it is when everything is off and there is 
no noise in the environment. Even then, I have to really be listening 
for it to hear it. It is quieter than my TIVO ever was.

> Aren't the MPEG2/MPEG4 decoders on the VIA EPIA 
> boards supposed to do the hardware decoding of the MPEG2 streams that HD 
> and the PVR-500 cards produce?

VIA EPIA boards with the CLE266 (e.g. VIA EPIA M series) can only do SD 
hardware MPEG2 decoding. This is supported by Openchrome drivers, 
MPlayer, Xine and MythTV

VIA EPIA boards with the CN400 (e.g. VIA EPIA SP series) can do HD 
hardware MPEG2 decoding and have some hardware MPEG4 accelaration. 
However, the MPEG4 accelaration is not supported by the Openchrome 
drivers, and the HD MPEG2 using the MPEG2 hardware decoding is broken in 
MythTV.


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