[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[dick at photoclerk.com]

>
> 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.
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>

Yeah, HD won't work, but 480i works great.  I've got three front-ends in
my house at the moment.  The one in the living room is hooked up to my HD
TV, so the resolution is 1280x1024, but I'm only playing 480i signal
through it.  The visualizations for mythmusic are dreadful at 1280x1024,
but it doesn't bother me much...

Last time I bought these I got a lot of 10 through ebay for $800.  They
were actually the 1GHz boxes, same case.  I kept a couple and sold the
rest to friends/family trying to build myth boxes.  They make a great
frontend/backend for single-tuner installs.

-d