[mythtv-users] what is the cat's ass of integrated "set top box" like hardware now?

[Raymond Wagner]

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 11:20:12 -0400, "Brian J. Murrell"
<brian at interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:
> On 11-07-20 11:12 AM, Tim Draper wrote:
>> if i were buying now, a core i3 and passive nvidia card would be high
on
>> my
>> list.
> 
> OK.
> 
>> i3's should give low power consumption- comparible to the atoms but
with
>> a
>> higher TDP and more processing capability for transcoding. (not that i
do
>> transcode.. some people do though)Cheers,
> 
> An Atom has served me very well since I have (and I should have
> mentioned this in my original posting) a separate backend that can have
> transcoding/commflagging horsepower if need be.

Rather, the nVidia graphics has served you well, the Atom was simply along
for the ride.  Should you need extra power for any reason, you won't have
it.

> Who is building an i3 based machine with a passively cooled nvidia card
> in a "set top box" format like the acer revo?

The Acer Revo is not fanless.  It has a tiny blower fan that if right next
to you rather than hidden behind a noisy tv, would be very audible. What
Tim was suggesting was an i3, and that's it. A Pentium branded Sandy Bridge
chip (missing hyperthreading) can be had for under $100.  A Mini-ITX board
is around $75, and another $15 for 2GB of DDR3.  You use the integrated
graphics on the Intel chip, and the whole thing would be well under $200. 
An M350 case, PicoPSU, and power brick will be another $100.

So what do you lose going with Intel graphics.  OpenGL performance is
every bit as good as that on the ION and ION2 systems, and plenty for
MythTV's OpenGL renderer and painter.  You lose the high quality scaler
that comes with later nVidia cards, but most people don't even bother to
enable that in the playback settings.  You lose VDPAU, but VAAPI will be
supported in 0.25.  Some people swear by the nVidia deinterlacers, however
those don't require special hardware.  They simply run in shader code,
built into the VDPAU drivers.  Nothing is preventing anyone from writing
new deinterlace methods into Myth's OpenGL renderer.