[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[Brian Wood]

On May 9, 2006, at 9:09 PM, Mike Angstadt wrote:

>
> > I run a PIII 800mhz with 512mb of ram.  I use a PVR-150 and the
> > video is
> > fine.  I believe that's about the lowest anyone should go.
>
> So that would be MPEG-2 video. I've seen slower machines play DVDs
> pretty well, and seen some really slow old Dell laptops with hardware
> MPEG decoders that did pretty well at it.
>
> But I tend to agree with you that I certainly wouldn't purchase
> anything much slower than you mention, and remember a Myth system has
> to do other things besides playing back MPEG. I see that HogPaws
> suggests a PIII 733 as a minimum for using a PVR-350, presumably
> using its output, and they suggest a PIII 1.2Ghz. for a PVR-150.
>
>
> Actually right now I'm running a PII 300mhz with 256mb RAM as a  
> backend with a PVR-150 and WinTV card.  My frontend is a fanless  
> 600mhz Epia board.  Now that I've got all the kinks worked out over  
> the past two weeks they're working fine.  Obviously I try not to  
> use the WinTV tuner as much as I can avoid, but I don't tend to  
> need two tuners that often anyway and I'm just waiting to pick up a  
> second 150.

Wow, I guess you aren't running very good quality on the WinTV, but  
at least you don't have the load of decoding the compressed video.

Do you have to fend off the guys from the Smithsonian who come around  
wanting to conserve your B/E?

Actually a PII is a very powerful machine, we are all jaded by the  
more recent CPUs mandated by the bloatware foisted off on us. Even a  
486 is a very pretty good CPU. I remember the first AutoCad system we  
bought at work, we had to decide between the 33Mhz. 386/387 system,  
or the "screamer",a 25Mhz. 486. I remember running AC release 9 or so  
on an 8Mhz. 8088 with an 8087 and I thought it was pretty fast. Paid  
around $100 for that 8087 in 1985, and it was obsolete then.

They *were* fast CPUs, it's just that they got even faster.

With PVR cards I would think the only CPU you'd need for a B/E would  
be enough to handle the I/O and the database. You could run commflag  
jobs at a low enough priority that it wouldn't bother you, so what if  
you have to wait 3 days for the program to be ready to watch  
commercial free ?