[mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater

[Chad]

> Chad, as I mentioned to Michael it helps to have specific details.
> I've always been interested in finding the real lower-end hardware
> able to be a front end. There are a lot of reports about what "should"
> be a working solution, but few objective results are posted. If you
> don't mind please let us know memory, CPU, idle, Decibels leve, etc.
> info on playing TV, DVD, etc. Obviously for a frontend only I don't
> think capturing, encoding and commercial flagging info is needed.
>
> Alberto
>
>

Sure thing, I'll do a lspci when I get home, and a cat /proc/cpuinfo
along with free.  But to throw out a guess from memory until I get
home:
P3 866
128 MB RAM
All integrated mobo, intel chipset.

Audio decibels levels, really couldn't tell you.  It does sound decent
enough coming out of the TV speakers (set to normal volume, not
cranked up), but through the simulated surround occasionally you can
tell it's not "quality" hardware (hence the reason at looking for
better soundcards).

It's only got a CD-ROM drive in there, but playback of ripped DVD's
via mythvideo seems to work decent enough.  As I mentioned above,
there is some...  slowing.  The best way to describe it is hesitation
once a button is pressed, but I attribute this to the fact that these
systems are older hardware and were cheap, so I feel it was a
worthwhile trade (price for speed).  It's not unbearable by any means,
I can simply tell a difference when I was using an AMD64 3200 to this
P3 866.  I'll post the specs when I get home in an hour or so.

Chad