Newbie here!

I've been reading this forum with interest. I'm planning on using an Epia motherboard (yes - I've seen the warning) and I'm trying to get as low a spec. as possible because I'm trying to keep the power/noise down.

My box will be frontend/backend and I've noticed a few posts describing performance issues. I want my box to be DVB-T only (no analogue) and I'm wondering if this will relieve the processor of a lot of work allowing me to get a lower spec. board.

In short, yes there is less of an overhead with dvb-t than with a mythbox that is having to decode anologue signal. Can't be much more specific atm than that tho'

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Version:R8
Intel C2D 7400, Nvidia 5600 via HDMI to Samsung B37B650TW (PAL), Asus P5QL-E mobo, 4Gb PC6400 DDR2 ram, Samsung Spinpoint 500 Gb & 1Tb drive, Nova-HD-S2 (x2)

Thanks, that's what I was hoping

The card I'm thinking of using is an Epia ME6000. I'm sure I've read it somewhere (I've lost the link) that with the Unichrome (or possibly OpenChrome) drivers using XvMC, watching video gives a processor utilization of around 35 - 40%. As I want to record at the same time then this should give me enough headroom because, as you say, there's no need to decode an analogue signal.

Cheers,
Geoff

Are you going to be playing back HD? If so, that's the hefty processor requirement.

No that's not my plan, I'll just be getting the standard DVB-T signals in the UK and I'll connect to my cheap and nasty widescreen CRT TV via S-Video and Line-out for audio.

If everything works ok I'll buy a widescreen LCD monitor and some speakers/amp and the use VGA for video and SPDIF for audio.

At least that's the plan, I'm still very new to this but I'm not new to building PCs and installing Linux.

Cheers,
Geoff