[mythtv-users] Myth on WD HDTV Media Player for $99

[TJ Harris]

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 10 October 2009 07:44:46 Michelle Dupuis wrote:
>> I saw a Western Digital HDTV Media Player advertised for $99.  Has anyone
>> attempted to get Myth up and running on this?  My wiki search turned up
>> empty
>
> If it's the one I saw it doesn't have a network port. There are similar units
> that fall into the "Networked Media Tank" category, Popcorn Hour being one,
> Myka being another, that do have networking capability. There's also the $99
> Netflix box made by Roku, that might be hackable.
>
> I'm not aware of anyone getting a Myth F/E running on any of this sort of
> hardware. I'd like to get a F/E working on my Myka unit, it seems to have the
> best chance since it runs from the hard drive, so I won't have to fool with
> flashing a new image etc. Most of these units use a Sigma chip for decoding,
> and I think hardware decoding is the way to go, the Broadcom Crystal HD looks
> promising. VDPAU is a halfway measure towards true hardware decoding, but
> more is possible without the complicated driver and RAM requirements.

I think the newer WD media player does have an ethernet port:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/08/16/wd-tv-2-spruces-up-western-digitals-already-attractive-media-pl/

If someone did a port of the frontend to any one of those embedded
devices it would be a great frontend.  But, that doesn't seem likely.
   Until that holy grail of the $99 HD frontend is available, starting
with a general purpose system that can do VDPAU, like the Acer Revo,
seems like a good way to go.  You have more flexibility to add memory
or disk, and run any software you want on it.   The form factor is
almost as small as the embedded media players, and it's only $200.