[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[Andrew Cope]

Brian Wood wrote:
> 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.

For those of us in the UK, there's a few for sale on ebay.co.uk :
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Compaq-Deskpro-Pentium3-1GHz-128MB-4-3GB-CD-ROM-PC_W0QQitemZ8805850711QQcategoryZ179QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

In fact, I just bought one!  Thanks for the recommendation Dick.

Cheers
Andrew
--
Email:    andrew at evergreencomputing.com
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