[mythtv-users] Shopping for new hardware: Audio & discrete video?

[Jon N]

Hi,

My MythTV computer (front and backend, along with mostly web browsing,
email and a few minor other tasks) is about 7 years old.  Although it
still works pretty good on ATSC HDTV recorded OTA, I'm really itching
to upgrade to something newer.  Since I run Debian I was asking on a
Debian mailing list group about support for certain hardware, and ran
into a problem I hadn't thought of before, which I'll ask below.

I did a little reading (mostly Wikipedia) to learn about current
offerings for processors and quickly decided Intel Haswell (low end,
probably Pentium, but I could stretch my budget to i3 if necessary)
on an Mini-ITX motherboard would fit my needs.  Since I currently use
a Nvidia video card I was planning on purchasing a newer Nvidia card
for the new system.

I was hoping to use the HDMI on the card for both video and audio to
my AV receiver.  But on the Debian mailing list I was told that it
either isn't possible, or it is but it will probably be very
difficult.  It seems to be that steering the digital audio to the PCIe
slot so it can make it's way to the video card's HDMI isnt' something
that could be done easily, although apparently it's done on Windows,
so it's technically possible.

So basically, I have 2 questions.  How much, if any, success have any
of you had doing this?  I realize I didn't narrow down the hardware
choices much (Haswell motherboards & discrete Nvidia graphics cards),
so I guess success or failures with certain hardware combo's might
help me choose what I might buy.

But the other question is, how well the built in graphics that is part
of the Haswell CPU's work as a MythTV front end?  Maybe the Nvidia
card isn't needed at all.  I often will be watching one recorded show
(I almost never do, or am interested in, Picture in Picture) and
recording 2 (HDHomeRun tuners) shows while browsing the internet.

I hope I gave enough information to at least get a start on this.  If
the questions can't really be answered at this point please let me
know what more is needed.  Maybe I can narrow down my motherboard or
Nvidia card choices some more

Thanks,
Jon