[mythtv-users] Re: NEWbie, trying this for the first time

[Dewey Smolka]

You've got the right idea, although I would also echo previous posters
and suggest a PVR 250 instead of the 350, paired with an nvidia GF4 or
fx5200, both of which come in fanless models.

You might also want to rethink your case. I'm partial to generic
towers myself, since there's plenty of room inside when you need to
change or add components, lots of PCI slots and drivebays, good
airflow, and it's very easy to expand your system in such a box (plus
they're cheap).

Consider also that after the joy of building your first box wears off,
you'll most likely start thinking about adding remote frontends and
expanding your system. If you start with a cheap tower, you can later
easily convert it into a backend-only and put it somewhere that fan
and HDD noise will not be an issue.

The case you've picked out looks great for a front-end, but you may
get frustrated later when there's no space in the box for more
storage, more capture cards, surround sound card, etc. If you have to
put in a NIC, this case leaves you very little to work with. To give
you an idea, my FE/BE has an nvidia fx5200 (AGP), 2x PVR 250s (2x
PCI), 5.1 sound card (PCI), ultra ATA (PCI), and a NIC (PCI).

You can build a MythTV system in this case, but it won't be easy to
expand. Of course you can buy a cheap box later to build a backend on,
but that seems like a whole lot more work than starting with a box
suitable for a backend and later adding frontends.

If I were you I'd be looking for deals like this one: 
https://www.pcretro.com/webstore//catalog/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=118&osCsid=4a92ad8d5d34939422218d3caab58290

You'd still have to add RAM, cards, drives, maybe change the fans, and
so on but you'd get pretty much the same functionality as you've
picked out for less, and you'd be able to expand it.

Anyway, just my thoughts. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.