[mythtv-users] The perfect HTPC frontend?

[Jean-Yves Avenard]

Hi

2008/9/12 Brad DerManouelian <myth at dermanouelian.com>:
> The only disappointing part of the mini for me is that it only has
> 802.11g wireless. Not sure why they have chosen to not include 802.11n
> since the rest of their wireless machines have gone that way.

I installed an Apple (Atheros) 802.11n card in my mini...
Was disappointed and IMO it wasn't worth the money I paid for ($49
with antennas).

The 802.11n drivers for the atheros are very new in linux and rather
buggy. It would only connect at 130Mbit/s (which if I used OS X it
would connect at 270Mbit/s).
The maximum speed I would transfer files at was 3MB/s not that much
better than when using the 802.11g access point (linksys WRT54G)...

That speed was too slow or too unreliable for the mini to stream HD
material consistently.
So I'm back to using ethernet.

The other disappointing thing with the mini is that I've been unable
to watch a bluray. I exported the Pioneer BD-ROM drive on my frontend
using iSCSI to the Mini running Windows Vista.
None of the bluray player I tried managed to play the file: PowerDVD
states the video drivers are incorrect ; Nero will just crash and
TotalMedia would only play sound ; not video.

When used with AnyDVD the transfer rate over iSCSI would drop to
around 600kB/s and that isn't sufficient to watch bluray obviously.

My mini is using a T7600 (C2D 2.33GHz processor) with 2GB of RAM and
250GB of hard drive ... can't make it any faster