[mythtv-users] Fronted advice

Tue Mar 31 16:03:05 UTC 2015

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Damian
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 1:38 PM
To: Discussion about MythTV
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Fronted advice

On 30/03/2015 03:45, Craig Sanders wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 06:03:45PM +0000, Damian wrote:
>> I'm doing some computer juggling. Planning on giving the kids the old 
>> 'tank' of a machine that's in the garrage at the moment (working as 
>> an over powered frontend), so I'm looking for a new frontend machine.
> a similar discussion came up on another list i'm on recently, and a 
> good, cheap powerful and very power-efficient option is an ASRock 
> QC5000-ITX
>
> http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/QC5000-ITX/
>
> it costs about $62 USD from newegg....and the wifi version is $145AUD 
> in australia from various shops (non-wifi version doesn't seem to be 
> available but the wifi card is removable so you can get back the 
> mini-pcie slot).  i would expect similar pricing in the UK.
>
> ($145 in .au isn't too bad when you take into account the exchange 
> rate, shipping, GST, and the fact that australia has decent consumer 
> protection laws and statuory warranties)
>
>
> this product includes the motherboard and CPU (AMD FT3 Kabini A4-5000 
> Quad-Core APU). built-in graphics are AMD Radeon R7 HD 8330. it has 
> 6xUSB3.0, 6xUSB2.0, 4xSATA3, a realtek 8111E gigabit nic (so needs 
> non-free firmware) and 2 x DDR3 DIMM sockets (max 32GB non-ECC).
>
> all you need to add is a mini-itx case + psu, RAM, and a small SSD to 
> install the OS and mythfrontend on. includes VGA, DVI, HDMI and 
> DisplayPort 1.2 sockets.
>
> it uses a max of 15W under full load.
>
> if you're not happy with the Radeon GPU (which should be more than 
> adequate for myth playback), it has 1 PCIe x16 slot and 1 x mini-PCIe 
> slot so you can put in an nvidia card, but that will obviously use 
> more power.
>
>
> IMO, these are nearly ideal for all sorts of home server applications 
> from myth frontends to RAID or ZFS NAS boxes (more PCIe slots would be 
> nice but if you don't need a third-party graphics card, you can 
> install a good cheap SAS card into the PCIe slot or a multi-port NIC 
> or whatever)...it has way more CPU grunt than any off-the-shelf "NAS" 
> and very low power use.
>
>
>
> craig
Thanks for that Craig

My 2 cents for what it's worth, the SkyStreamX has been a great front end.  Android based.  Uses XBMC/KODI and has giving me no problems connecting to MythTV.  The kids have had no issues using it.  Comes with a remote that's even able to adjust the volume of the surround sound speakers.  Plus able to connect to other items than just MythTV.

We purchased a dual core for the family room which has Wifi an Eth connections. 4 USB.  HDMI.  1080P

At a cost of about $125.

John Moore
OSG VM Solutions Team

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