[mythtv-users] Building a MythTV Box

[Andrew Close]

On 5/21/07, Douglas Wagner <douglasw0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/21/07, Andrew Close <aclose at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 5/21/07, Douglas Wagner <douglasw0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > <snip />
> >
> > > Hate to "OT" This for a second but i'm going to anyway..:)
> > >
> > > Which device needs the horsepower?  Is it the backend to record or the
> > > frontend to play back?  I thought it was the frontend that needed the
> high
> > > CPU for HD playback..can you really get away with putting a big backend
> > > somewhere and then small frontends for playback?  Or is this only in the
> Low
> > > Def world?
> > >
> > > I've considered splitting my frontend / backend for quite a while (don't
> > > have the money to do it yet) but this intrigues me.
> >
> > if you have capture cards that do the processing for you (DVB,
> > Hauppauge, HDHR) you can get away with minimal processor power on your
> > backend, assuming that's where your cards reside.  if you want to do
> > transcoding and/or commercial flagging you may 'want' more power, but
> > don't really need it as long as you're willing to wait for those jobs.
> > the frontend needs the more power to actually play the HD content...
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> >
>
>
> Is a macmini a viable enough device for this playback then?  I get they're a
> duo-core, but I thought they were pretty low end...
>

There is another fairly recent thread floating around here somewhere
talking about using the mac-mini as an HD frontend.  apparently it's
very doable and several list members have had very good success with
it even with 1080i content.  do a quick search of the archives for
mac-mini HD or something...