[mythtv-users] Minimum hardware recomendation

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Allen Edwards<allen.p.edwards at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:11 AM, jedi <jedi at mishnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:27:51AM -0700, Jim Stichnoth wrote:
>> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Allen
>> > Edwards<allen.p.edwards at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > My daughter told me my father's day gift was that she was moving out
>> > > (have
>> > > you heard of boomerang kids?).  She was kidding but had heard that was
>> > > a
>> > > recommended gift.  We went to her new place yesterday and got OTA
>> > > broadcast
>> > > from her Menlo Park apartment with and old UHF antenna I have had for
>> > > 50
>> > > years and a single dipole at Channel 7 taped to her balcony.
>> > >  Everything
>> > > comes in very strong.  Now she needs her own MythTV system.  She also
>> > > needs
>> > > something cheaper than buying cable w/DVR for a year.  Perhaps that
>> > > cannot
>> > > be done...
>> > > I know with the Atom-ION systems things are changing fast so perhaps
>> > > it is a
>> > > good time to ask this.  I looked at newegg and realized I don't know
>> > > anything about these solutions.  What kind of power supply, case, etc.
>> > >   Can
>> > > you get a barebones or complete version of these systems?  Lots of
>> > > questions.  I looked on Tom's hardware and didn't find anything
>> > > useful.
>> > >  Perhaps someone on this list can help.
>> > > Allen
>>
>>   Since this is an MPEG2 based system for "someone else" perhaps a VDPAU
>> approach isn't the best idea. Anything with good xvmc support should be
>> more than adequate for playback. If you aren't planning on transcoding,
>> requirements for the rest of the system should be pretty meagre.
>>
>>   An i945 or nv7x00 based system might make more sense at this point.
>>
>>   Without the HDPVR, which is driven by the fact that I have cable and
>> would like to tune in to HD channels, I wouldn't personally see the need
>> for VDPAU myself.
>>
>>   My i945 and nv7x00 systems do well enough for the OTA HD stuff.
>>
>> [deltia]
>>
>>   After the reviews of the early ION systems I would tend to be worried
>> about lack of CPU power should the need arise. You never know extra CPU
>> hungry sort of thing might present itself.
>
> Could you be more specific about what i945 or nv7x00 system you are
> suggesting?
> I like the idea of a low power fanless system and she doesn't want to spend
> a lot of money on this.  VDPAU is both intriguing and frightening as it is
> not released and perhaps not either stable or simple to set up.  It took me
> about 40 hours to get my first myth box running right.  Now I can do one in
> an hour -- but only if it is just like my last one, Mythbuntu 8.04.  Much of
> the 40 hours was because the PC would not boot with the drivers installed in
> the order that Mythbuntu wanted to install them but that is another story.
>  The point is, I am pretty good with computers but have never done a compile
> of a Linux system and really have no idea how difficult that is to learn how
> to do.
> So, how difficult is it to make a VDPAU system work?

If you use mythbuntu its as simple as adding another repo and
updating, then changing to a vdpau playback profile.

Of coursee thats a backport that is unsupported by myth's devs, but
IMHO the repo maintainer does well at support.

Nick.