[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[dick at photoclerk.com]

>
> On May 8, 2006, at 2:38 PM, dick at photoclerk.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Yeah, HD won't work, but 480i works great.  I've got three front-
>> ends in
>> my house at the moment.  The one in the living room is hooked up to
>> my HD
>> TV, so the resolution is 1280x1024, but I'm only playing 480i signal
>> through it.  The visualizations for mythmusic are dreadful at
>> 1280x1024,
>> but it doesn't bother me much...
>>
>> Last time I bought these I got a lot of 10 through ebay for $800.
>> They
>> were actually the 1GHz boxes, same case.  I kept a couple and sold the
>> rest to friends/family trying to build myth boxes.  They make a great
>> frontend/backend for single-tuner installs.
>
> But I'm still wondering if you can get decent MPEG-4 playback. That
> requires more CPU horsepower than MPEG-2. Unless it can do MPEG-4
> than I'll stick with my MediaMVP.
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>

Sorry I didn't answer directly.  I'm no expert on what's MPEG-2 vs. -4, so
please excuse me if I say something completely wrong.
I believe my backend records natively in MPEG-2 (I use two Hauppauge
250's), and then for "Low Quality", converts to MPEG-4.  I've never had
any problem playing anything back, so I think it works for both.  In fact,
I think the NVidia card I have in there accelerates the MPEG playback(?).
The only thing I've had trouble playing back was some 1080p footage I
downloaded as a test.  This played back about 1 frame per minute.

-d