[mythtv-users] Inexpensive, preassembled, VDPAU-friendly frontends

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Brad DerManouelian
> <myth at dermanouelian.com> wrote:
>> On Nov 30, 2008, at 6:50 PM, R. G. Newbury wrote:
>>
>>> The arrival of VDPAU makes a whole bunch of low power hardware,
>>> previously discounted  because of being incapable of HD, back into
>>> scope.
>>> I just ran out and grabbed an nvidia 8400GS for my main myth box, but
>>> given the low cost (about $45Cdn).
>>>
>>> But now, I think will grab a PCI board and resurrect the VIA SP13000
>>> motherboard. That board, with 2 hard drives ran just under 50 watts
>>> according the the Kill-o-watt. The on-board video chipset, although
>>> great for SD was hopeless for HD so it was downgraded to a fileserver.
>>> But WOW, it might make a really good mythbox again.
>>>
>>> (And I can move my most powerful motherboard from my rec room to my
>>> office. You *will* note that I do have my priorities in order: TV
>>> first!)
>>>
>>> The reason that no-one has discussed a low-power low-cost solution is
>>> that this solution just DID NOT EXIST 2 weeks ago. And Isaac and the
>>> un-named and un-known other toilers have done an amazing job getting
>>> this working.
>>
>> Exactly why I posed the question and was met with "View the other
>> threads as people have posted some built machines for under $200."
>> along with someone telling me to look into atom systems and then
>> posting benchmarks of the VDPAU. Someone else posted about using an
>> Acer AspireOne laptop for some reason which doesn't use an nvidia
>> chipset. <sigh>
>
> I think people have been getting used to throwing CPU power at
> decoding HD, given the difficulties (until 2 weeks ago) of hardware
> decoding using any chipset in linux. With XvMC disappearing from the
> higher end nVidia chips and cpus becoming cheaper and more powerful
> its comparatively simple to say "throw a core2 duo and plenty of ram
> at it...."
>
> What we need is a machine with an atom processor and an nvidia onboard
> chip. Perhaps Jeff is right, EPIA with a PCI video card.
>
> Do any of those epia motherboards have a PCIe slot?

to answer myself, this series does:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=550

Don't know exactly what "1 x 16-Lane PCI-E slot (Gen 1)" means in
terms of compatibility with a video card.

>