[mythtv-users] Epia 600 or 800 as backend?

[Leo Przybylski]

I'm using EPIA-MII12000 for backend and frontend. I use a PVR-250 to 
defer mpeg encoding though. I tried using an analog WinTV PCI card, but 
the encoding was too much for that. So if you're going to use USB or PCI 
devices, first make sure they support hardware mpeg-encoding. I highly 
recommend the WinTV PVR cards. I replaced my analog card with one in 
about 5 minutes including all the software setup.

Transcoding will probably be a long and painful process for an EPIA.

EPIA has a fanless MS 8000 which is going to run a little faster than 
the 6000, but if you are hardware mpeg-encoding/decoding, I don't see 
much point in it. You could probably work fine with a 6000.

IMHO I think EPIA would make a much better frontend. Especially with 
Linux BIOS and a 4 GB compact flash card. You can avoid a hard drive 
entirely. EPIA MII6000 has a compact flash card reader. You can boot 
from it if you install a linux bios. Of course, you can also do a PXE 
boot, but that wastes valuable space replicating an OS on a hard drive 
you are probably going to use for saving your mpeg content to. It is 
also going to further consume RW I/O bandwidth to that disk.

The advantages of not having a hard drive in your frontend are obvious. 
Your frontend can run not only fanless, but super cool without a hard 
drive generating heat.

I don't know if anyone on here had much luck with the unichrome drivers, 
but mine are not working well at all. I don't even use XvMC for the mpeg 
decoding anymore. I just use libmpeg2 and my cpu has not suffered much 
from it.

The recent posts of the pundit sound pretty good to me if you're 
thinking of going small, quiet and more powerful than an EPIA. For the 
cost of an EPIA, you could get a pundit barebone which is case and 
motherboard.

Hope this helps you make a decision.

Best regards,


Leo Przybylski

Stephan Krings wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'd like to build a mythbackend system, which is based on an Epia 
> system with 600 or 800 Mhz preferably without any fan. It should run 
> almost noiseless 24/7 and only needs to do the backend job, that is 
> recording 1 or 2 DVB streams from USB or PCI devices and hosting the 
> MySQL db. All displaying and decoding will be done on another, faster 
> system. Before I get out buying the hardware I'd like to clarify some 
> things.
>
> - Is such a configuration possible? Will the Epia hardware be fast 
> enough for the job?
>
> - Is it possible to do commflagging and transcoding on another host? 
> Preferably the frontend, which scheduled the recording job? I guess 
> the described backend system will be heavily underpowered to fullfil 
> that task.
>
> - Any specific hardware recommendations?
>
> Thanks for your attention,
>
> Stephan
>
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