Finally.... a MBE I wouldn't mind leaving on 24/7.

http://www.marvell.com/products/embedde ... mputer.jsp

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ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

I saw this. I started to dream up uses for it- its got a usb host so you could connect an external HD or a USB cam, and its got an ethernet port so you could connect it to a wireless access point.

So its kind of a modular version of stuff you can already get. Don't get me wrong- its neat and I'd still like one to play with, but I wonder if its not a solution looking for a problem.

Actually, what I was thinking of was adding a NAS and a USB tuner and then you have a fully functional BE server for $99 plus the cost of the NAS and tuner:

http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/ ... v-kit.aspx

The FE could be a diskless slim box.

Alternatively, I could change my MBE/FE box running mythwelcome into a SBE/FE using WOL. I could then access mythweb remotely because the MBE would be running 24/7.

Admittedly, I probably won't do this right away. But I would like to go smaller/quieter at some point.

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ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

Wow that WOULD be neat, but there's a good deal of sweat equity there too- including the challenge of compiling Mythbackend for ARM. I've done a bit of openembedded linux for Marvel ARM cores (specifically gumstix stuff), but I'm short on free time since the new baby came (well, 8 months ago anyway).

If you ever pull the trigger on this project, I'd love to know about it- I haven't done any research yet, so I wonder what it would take to make it play with an HD-PVR. Since its BE only it works in theory!

It supports Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/etc. There setup instructions describe using ubuntu jaunty to install samba. I just checked and Myth appears to be in the arm port of ubuntu jaunty. Not sure about debian.

The chip itself has pins for SPDIF, mpeg2-TS, PCI-e and SATA that are unused in the development kit. I think I might wait a bit and see what they do with them in future form factors.

The chip itself uses 2W MAX (DC). Pretty impressive for 1.2GHz.

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ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

Of course the Atom doesn't use much more than that at 1.6 GHz and is x86. They just need to get the power down on the rest of the system.

Martian

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ABIT NF-M2 nView | Athlon 64 X2 3800+ | 2GB DDR2 800 | HDHomerun | GeForce 6150 (onboard) | WD 640 GB SATA HD | DVD-RW (sata) | StreamZap IR receiver with Logitech Harmony remote

Vizio 37" LCD HDTV (1080p)

I've looked at the atom and, as you said, the problem is the rest of the system. It's more of a PC than an appliance. IMHO, 35W is too much for an always-on appliance.

This is definitely an appliance. It will be interesting to see where it goes. Some of there future designs include HDMI and S/PDIF which seems to imply that one of the things they are looking at a multi-media appliance.

It will be interesting to see where they meet. The Marvell is half my dream system--extremely low power always on BE. Now I just need a zero noise on in <10s FE. I think I might need to wait a couple of years....

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ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

Which would be a hell of a lot simpler if one didn't have to
build X11 and Qt for a headless backend database and file
server server box.

[I _so_ don't understand that decision...]

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Grant