[mythtv-users] Quiet PC / Frontend recomendation

[jedi]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 05:56:09PM +1200, Nick Rout wrote:
> On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Ian <mythtv at freakzilla.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 13 May 2012, Jason McLeod wrote:
> >
> >> I just bought a Zotac Z-Box HD-41, and it is fantastic. The latest NVIDEA
> >> drivers work on it, and VDPAU does a great job decoding videos. I stream my
> >> HD antenna directly to it without any problems at all.
> >
> >
> > I'll second this opinion. A few years ago I was looking to replace a very
> > aging Mac Mini, which I was using as a front-end because, well, I had it
> > lying around. Before that I had a machine I built, which is where most my
> > computers come from, so I was looking to build another one for MythTV.
> >
> > But since I wanted a small and silent machine, I just couldn't match the
> > price of a ready-made machine. I got an Acer Aspire Revo...
> > something-or-other. It's tiny and it was cheap. It has an Atom processor and
> > some kind of nvidia HDMI output. I too had it booting off the network for a
> > year or so, but recently put a cheapo 8gb SSD drive in it so now it goes
> > from power-on to MythTV in seconds. Again, it's several years old, cost
> > about USD$300 and has absolutely no problem streaming 1080p video off the
> > back-end server downstairs. I'd definitely look into those options.
> >
> > I'd LOVE to try a Raspberry PI for a front-end, though.
> 
> Not much chance of that without openmax support in mythtv.

    Regardless. I could see it making a nice cheap dedicated backend though.

    I still have an old Mini still running as a dedicated backend because any 
of the parts that might not be good enough for a frontend don't matter so much 
for a backend.