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

[Paul Bender]

Scott D. Davilla 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?
> 
> No, but the intel ITX with atom 330 is only $80 at Newegg. That's $80 
> for motherboard AND cpu. That's less expensive than the epia cost. 
> Add memory ($20 for 512MB) and $60 PCI nvidia 8400 (512MB) toss it in 
> a enclosure with a HD and go. It does not get less expensive that 
> this. I'm surprised that more people don't get how inexpensive this 
> is.

You can get a GeForce 8200 motherboard for $75 and an AMD Athlon CPU for 
$50, which costs somewhat less and would somewhat more powerful.