[mythtv-users] Motherboard / CPU recommendations

[Stephen P. Villano]

On 12/22/13, 6:24 PM, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Kenni Lund <kenni at kelu.dk> wrote:
>> 2013/12/22 BobW <bob_pub_mailbox-mytv at yahoo.com>:
>>> Does anyone know of any useful links or resources for selecting a
>>> motherboard and CPU, (and video card), for a Mythtv, (Mythbuntu), build?
>>> []
>> Zotac D2550ITXS-B has an onboard GT610 and shares the fan between the
>> CPU and the GPU. I use it in one of my frontends with VDPAU + advanced
>> 2x as deinterlacer and it works nicely.
>>
>> I believe you can choose the -A version if you want to reuse an
>> existing power supply.
>>
>> It only has an Atom CPU, but if you're only playing back video
>> material which is supported by VDPAU, then you should be fine.
> The Atom CPU is a bit controversial on this list.  Some people really
> like them.  Some people like them for frontend only systems, with the
> backend on a more capable machine.  And other people just plain hate
> them all around.
>
> I looked into Atom CPUs a while back and ended up coming to the
> conclusion that they just weren't flexible enough.  None of my mythtv
> systems are pure mythtv systems, in the sense that they're never asked
> to do anything else.  So, really, there is no single "best" solution.
I personally have two pure mythtv frontend machines. That is *all* that
they do.
The shame of it is, they're quite capable machines that are largely
underutilized.
An Atom machine or a CuBox would be perfect to replace both units.
> There are tradeoffs of performance, power, noise, cost, and size.  The
> appropriate trade offs depends on your specific use cases.  Do you
> want to do HTTP live streaming to transcode HD MPEG2 to MPEG4 for
> delivery to a phone/tablet?  That's just plain not going to work on an
> Atom CPU.  Do you only have one tuner capable of only receiving 5
> channels and outputting video to an SD television?  Maybe you can get
> by with just and Atom without even noticing the difference.
>
> For me, I chose not to worry so much about size and cost and decided
> to over-provision the CPU/ram/disk of the backend so I just don't need
> to worry about having enough.
>
> Eric
> _______________________________________________