[mythtv-users] Advice on a silent PC/Mini ITX for DVI and DVB-T (maybe -S)

[Nicholas Piper]

Steve,

On Tue, 01 Apr 2008, Steve Smith wrote:

> On 01/04/2008, Nicholas Piper <nick-mythtv at nickpiper.co.uk> wrote:
> Although I'm a die hard SD user (well you can get really nice CRT
> screens for NOTHING literally nothing these days), with Freesat the UK
> is on the cusp of going HD. So if you're going to spend money on a
> Mythbox now, you should probably make it HD capable.

I believe we still don't know the requirements for Freesat (DVB-S or
S2, etc.) yet? I agree I want something that I'm not going to outgrow
straight away.

> For that you're probably going to have to ditch the mini-ITX idea (for
> the Frontend at least), the power of these boards just isn't up to HD
> and linux driver compatability remains a bit of an issue. (I suppose
> one way might be to run the evolving Windows Mythfrontend client with
> Windows drivers?)

> Have you considered a near-silent frontend? You can build something
> pretty quiet these days either using off the shelf parts or doing some
> hardware hacking yourself. E.g. my P3 933mhz, Nvidia 5200, 3x
> harddrive runs quiet enough that me and the girlfriend have slept in
> the same room as it (in fact its the overly bright hard disc light
> that distracts us most!).

I've started to borrow/dig up some bits to make an ATX PC. I'll NFS
boot it and have no local disks. I'll see how cool and quiet that
runs. It looks like Mini ITX sounds nicer than it really is.

> With a bit of work you should be able to get a Core based box running
> pretty silent, some of the AMD processors can work pretty well
> undervolted which really helps out with the noise.. Check out
> www.silentpcreview.com for help. Then you can go with a tried and
> trusted Nvidia video card to get your HD output with the connector
> types you want for your TV.

> What you could use the mini-ITX idea for, is a low powered back end.
> Use USB tuners, and a 2 way PCI riser. (In the UK commflagging is a
> bit of a loss at the moment so you won't need huge lumps of power).
> With a separate backend you can keep the FE powered off (& absolutely
> silent) when you're not using it.

Not sure if I'd like a TV that I have to wait while it boots :-)

Thanks for your ideas,

 Nick