[mythtv-users] Secrets for low powered front ends ?

Raymond Wagner raymond at wagnerrp.com
Wed Oct 12 19:17:24 UTC 2011


On 10/12/2011 14:22, Patrick Ouellette wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Raymond Wagner wrote:
>> Don't make the mistake that it is an "equivalent" system though.  A
>> single 2.4GHz SandyBridge core is going to be considerably more powerful
>> than the fastest Atom chip on the market.  The point were trying to make
>> is that should hardware decoding fail for whatever reason, you have
>> nothing to fall back on.
> Unless I'm using the system for commercial flagging&  transcoding, that extra
> processing power is going to go unused.  Since the purpose is a frontend,
> commercial flagging&  transcoding are not going to be happening on it.

Yes.  The frontend is to be used for playback.  If you wish to play any 
content other than what VDPAU offers support for, you need CPU power.  
That means codecs not supported, codec options not supported, and even 
some data corruption from a bad recording that ffmpeg can push through 
but VDPAU chokes on.  If you want to do flash video, which still does 
not provide hardware accelerated scaling and colorspace merging, you 
need CPU power.  Having a worthwhile CPU offers the flexibility to do 
something you may not have initially planned for, without having to buy 
all new hardware.

>>> VESA mountability
>> So get a mini-itx 1155 board, and a case that allows VESA mounting.  
> Find me a mini-itx 1155 board and mini-itx case that allows VESA mounting
> at the price point we are discussing.  I haven't been able to find one.

Foxconn MiniITX H67 board            $55
Intel Celeron G530                            $57
2x2GB Mushkin DDR3 1333             $26
Rosewill MCEUSB remote                $25
M350 Case (VESA compatible)        $40
PicoPSU-120 + 102W adapter         $60
                                     Total                $263

The cheapest ION barebones on Newegg is is $240, but then you have to 
add memory and infrared.  You can find ION motherboards for $153, but 
then you have to tack on a case, and power supply, and memory, and IR, 
putting you right back up there with that Celeron system.


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