[mythtv-users] upgrade to low-power-consumption-system query

[Stephen Worthington]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:44:35 -0500 (CDT), you wrote:

>I'd like to ask to begin with how feasible it might be to use a laptop to 
>replace my current myth desktop box? Laptops have very low power 
>consumption, and bottom-of-the-line models that are quite 
>reasonably-priced have better specs than my current myth box. I do 
>understand the drawbacks--namely, there are no expansion slots in which to 
>insert capture cards and hard drive space will be limited. I suppose video 
>quality could be a drawback as well, since these low-end laptops tend to 
>have crappy display hardware. I'm not sure that would present a problem 
>for me since I am not much of a video connoisseur and my display is only 
>capable of 720p anyway; so I'm not too concerned with the sub-par video 
>issue.

I use my laptop to run MythTV when I am away from home.  But it is a
pretty high end one (MSI GT70) that I made sure before I bought it
that it would be fully capable of doing what was needed for MythTV. It
has an Ivy Bridge quad core i7 processor, 12 Gibytes of RAM, 2 x USB
2.0 and 3 x USB 3.0, HDMI out, eSATA, SPDIF out, 17" screen, 750 Gbyte
drive and a second drive bay.  I wanted it to be able to be used as a
backup for my main MythTV box also, should that ever be down
unexpectedly.

I normally run two tuners on it, both USB 2.0 DVB-T.  I found that
under Mythbuntu 12.04, the tuners did not work in the USB 3.0 ports,
which may or may not change with later kernels.  I have not tried them
in the USB 3.0 ports under Windows.

I have put my old laptop's 120 Gbyte drive in the second drive bay and
used its existing Mythbuntu partition, so that the main drive can be
used for my Windows needs.  The TV and videos storage is on external
drives.  I have a USB 3.0 dual drive mount, an eSATA/USB 2.0 single
drive mount and an eSATA/USB 3.0 single drive mount that I can use
with it so that I can mount two recordings drives and two videos /
music / pictures drives on it all at once if I want to.  But mostly I
just use the dual USB 3.0 mount and have either the two recordings
drives or the two videos drives mounted.  I think you should use USB
3.0 or eSATA for your external drives - USB 2.0 hard drives have very
limited throughput.  They should be capable of one recording and
playing back something at the same time, but that is all - with
multiple tuners, you would not want the backend to record three things
at once to one drive.

The i7 processor (3610QM) is powerful enough to do full decoding for
1080p video if necessary, but it also includes a good Intel 4000 HD
GPU.  Once I installed the 12.04 repository from 01.org (no longer
available), I was able to get VAAPI working very well and I use that
for Mythfrontend.  The Mythbuntu VAAPI packages have, I think, been
updated since then and may well work properly now too.  By using
VAAPI, the processor use is low and the fan stays pretty quiet.

With its 17" screen I can happily watch TV directly on the laptop, but
if the place I am staying at has a sufficiently capable TV I have a
long HDMI cable I can use to plug into that.  Audio via the HDMI works
fine.  One of my USB 2.0 tuners is a Hauppauge HVR-900, which came
with the excellent full-featured Hauppauge remote, so I can control it
via remote just like my main MythTV box.

I am very happy with the laptop for MythTV, but the laptop itself was
just under NZ$3000.  Then you have to add on the external drive
mounts, tuners, long HDMI cable and external drives, so the whole
setup is very far from cheap.  I would think you should be able to
find a much cheaper laptop for your needs though - a lot of the price
of mine is in that 17" screen and the battery to run it for several
hours.  You can get laptops with a good GPU and much smaller screen
that will produce good 1080p output via HDMI even if the GPU is wasted
on the builtin screen.  Unfortunately, getting a laptop with all the
necessary ports will probably still put you in the medium price
bracket.