[mythtv-users] koolu frontend

[Brian Wood]

James Orr wrote:
> I'm thinking about separating my backend from my frontend.  They are
> currently combined, but it gets a little noisy sometimes.
> 
> I found this as a possible frontend ... http://www.koolu.com/
> <http://www.koolu.com/>
> 
> I searched the list and was quite surprised not to get any hits as it
> even has a mythtv frontend running in the product demo video.
> 
> Obviously this box won't have the horse-power for playing back HD, but
> that is not a concern for me at the moment, or indeed for the forseeable
> future.
> 
> Is anybody using one of these?  The one downside I see is that I use
> MythDVD as my main DVD player, and this obviously does not have a DVD
> player in it.  I could use an external USB DVD player, does anybody know
> how well those work under Linux?

Hmmm... A 500Mhz. CPU is right on the edge of being able to decode
DVD-quality MPEG2 without any hardware assistance, and that assumes
highly-optimized software.

Obviously you couldn't use a PCI capture device, but USB or even a HDHR
might be a possibility.

I'm not familiar with the LX800 graphics, but I'd guess it doesn't offer
any help with MPEG playback.

It might work, for SD, then again it might not.

No way to tell except for some brave (or well-financed) soul to try it out.

beww