[mythtv-users] koolu frontend

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Tue Sep 18 17:36:29 UTC 2007


Jon Larson wrote:
> 
> 
> Brian Wood wrote:
>> James Orr wrote:
>>   
>>> I'm thinking about separating my backend from my frontend.  They are
>>> currently combined, but it gets a little noisy sometimes.
>>>
>>> I found this as a possible frontend ... http://www.koolu.com/
>>> <http://www.koolu.com/>
>>>
>>> I searched the list and was quite surprised not to get any hits as it
>>> even has a mythtv frontend running in the product demo video.
>>>
>>> Obviously this box won't have the horse-power for playing back HD, but
>>> that is not a concern for me at the moment, or indeed for the forseeable
>>> future.
>>>
>>> Is anybody using one of these?  The one downside I see is that I use
>>> MythDVD as my main DVD player, and this obviously does not have a DVD
>>> player in it.  I could use an external USB DVD player, does anybody know
>>> how well those work under Linux?
>>>     
>>
>> Hmmm... A 500Mhz. CPU is right on the edge of being able to decode
>> DVD-quality MPEG2 without any hardware assistance, and that assumes
>> highly-optimized software.
>>
>> Obviously you couldn't use a PCI capture device, but USB or even a HDHR
>> might be a possibility.
>>
>> I'm not familiar with the LX800 graphics, but I'd guess it doesn't offer
>> any help with MPEG playback.
>>
>> It might work, for SD, then again it might not.
>>
>> No way to tell except for some brave (or well-financed) soul to try it out.
>>
>>   
> They actually have a demonstration video in which the unit is running
> Mythfrontend in Ubuntu--it seems to do so quite well with SD, but I
> think their listings are a little off (never seen NASCAR like that):
> http://www.koolu.com/content/view/28/211/

I said that a 500Mhz CPU was wnat's needed for DVD-quality mpeg2. If
they reduce the resolution and/or bitrate of the recording they could
obviously reduce the CPU requirements for playback.

I'd be curious as to the parameters on the demo-ed video.

> 
> The price is quite good considering it's a 'finished' product. Would
> anybody care to comment on how this might compare to a similar
> EPIA-based machine in terms of processing power, etc?

No argument that the price seems good.

Guess somebody just has to be first out on the dance floor (he said
while checking his bank balance) :-)

beww


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