[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org
Mon May 8 15:35:31 EDT 2006
On May 8, 2006, at 12:05 PM, dick at photoclerk.com wrote:
>
> Looks like it MIGHT work, but then you need to buy a harddrive &
> RAM...
>
> I put together a front end for $115 (in fact, I've built 5 now).
>
> Very small & quiet. I don't have pics or anything, but it's a Compaq
> SFF Deskpro EN (PIII-866, but 733 will work too), you can get them
> on eBay
> for $80 (+shipping, unless you find one w/in driving distance, like I
> did). And a eVGA GeForce MX 4000 / 64MB DDR / PCI / VGA / Video Card
> (E145-5102) for $34.99.
>
> Here's a link for the computer:
> http://cgi.ebay.com/Compaq-Deskpro-ENS-SFF-P3-866-866Mhz-128-
> Linux_W0QQitemZ8805041735QQcategoryZ51119QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZ
> ViewItem
>
>
> About $10 more for remote - about $3 in parts for an IR receiver and
> circuit (which can be mounted internally - I replace the HD light
> on the
> front w/the IR sensor), and a $7 remote control from Target.
>
> These boxes are super quiet as long as the HD you get with it
> doesn't make
> much noise. I just pawed through old 10GB hard-drives until I found
> an old IBM that was noise-free.
>
Are these machines fast enough to get good MPEG-4 playback, SD
obviously, as I'm sure they wouldn't do any HD.
Seems a little "computerish" for a living room, it wouldn't bother me
but some folks seem sensitive to their decor, in my case the
computers *are* the decor.
I suppose you could build it into a "decorative" cabinet.
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