[mythtv-users] Discussion: system layouts to reduce power consumption

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Jul 27, 2009, at 5:58 PM, glenhawk at optusnet.com.au wrote:

> I am very conscious of power consumption and want to try and reduce  
> it wherever possible. I already believe that using MythTV saves  
> power in a way because it reduces the overall time that your AV gear  
> is switched on. My concerns are now that in a house where you want  
> access to MythTV on most if not all of your TVs how do you balance  
> power consumption with functionality?

It greatly depends on usage (how often you record, how often you have  
recording conflicts resolved by multiple backends, etc.) Based on the  
fact that I always want access to mythweb, I run it on a separate  
webserver that I happen to have running for other domains, so it makes  
sense for me to keep all the web serving on that one machine. My  
master backend stays on all the time and contains all my tuners and  
all the storage for mythtv. It's on all the time because I record  
enough where it would probably only shut off a couple of times a day  
for a short time. The wear and tear on constantly shutting down and  
starting up makes it much less desirable. I do have a separate  
frontend since it's on much less time than the number of programs I  
record.

My point is that sometimes simpler is better. This has been working  
for me for quite some time and I believe is the best consumption to  
performance ratio for my needs.

-Brad