[mythtv-users] living room myth pvr

[Timothy Waters]

How about smallish, easier to get working, but don't worry about the cost. I
was thinking about maybe a shuttle case or something along those lines. I'll
be buying this probably one or two pieces at a time so cost isn't my
concern. I want it HDTV ready as well. Thoughts?

On 3/31/06, Chad <masterclc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/30/06, Timothy Waters <timothy.waters at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What hardware would you all recommend for a small & quiet MythTV box to
> hook
> > up to my TV in the living room? Case, chip, memory, tuner and output
> > card...I just got a decent job and I'm finally going to have the means
> to
> > build one and I want it to totally replace my vcr and dvd player and I
> don't
> > have a lot of space.
> >
> > --
> > Timothy Waters
> > timothy.waters at gmail.com
> > http://www.e-Waters.org
> > 205-587-9001
> >
> > "It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of
> > man." Albert Einstein(1946)
> > _______________________________________________
>
> Einstein was amazing, just got done watching a few shows from Nova on
> PBS HDTV via Myth...
>
> Anyway..
>
> 2 schools of thought here:
> Small, expensive, quiet and somewhat harder to get working OR
> Smallish, less-expensive, relatively quiet, and a little less work/time
>
> Small,expensive would be your garden variety Via Epia with XvMC
> actually working, which I haven't been able to accomplish yet;
>
> Smallish, less-expensive would be your basic CeleronD 310, some cheap
> motherboard with AGP slot, and an GeForce FX5200 to do the XvMC
> output.
>
> I chose the middle road and bought a 300 dollar setup that kind of
> does both of these things:
> Celeron D 310 Retail (the factory fan is actually fairly quiet)
> Antec Minuet II (the case is a beauty and the case/PSU fans are also
> fairly quiet)
> 512MB RAM (less heat, figure 512 is a good round number these days)
> And a Biostar motherboard with a P4M800CE chipset on it.
> The motherboard chipset is the important part there.  It's a Via
> Unichrome Pro chipset.  Which means I don't also have an FX5200 in
> that box, instead I'm taking the road of using the onboard video
> saving me some space, heat, and possibly a fan (and a few bucks too);
> but giving me a world of headache figuring out how to get the
> OpenChrome drivers working on this newish chipset that is supposed to
> have XvMC to decode the mpeg2, and ALSO have the ability to accelerate
> mpeg4 video, meaning my Celeron will left to mostly just detect
> commercials and run the OS (which is why I went cheap with a Celly).
>
> So there ya have it!
>
> The side bar is that I didn't use a Hard Drive either, I'm PXE booting
> that machine, saving me more heat, no noise from an HD, and making it
> easier to build more and have them everywhere.  No need for massive
> power supply, or worry about power outages and getting UPS's for every
> computer in the house (just 1 for the main PXE/Myth/Everything
> server(s) and the front projector ;-] ).
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Chad
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>



--
Timothy Waters
timothy.waters at gmail.com
http://www.e-Waters.org
205-587-9001

"It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of
man." Albert Einstein(1946)
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