Hi guys thanks for giving me lots to think about since I first came across myth tv about a week and a half ago. Im researching a good hardware setup for a possible myth box and would appreciate some advice.. OK here goes my thoughts.

1) Asthetics - Im ideally after a black shuttle barebones as opposed to one of the bigger ATX - mini atx cases . One problem that ive run into is that Id like more than the 1 PCI slot (2 - wireless card).

2) Quiet - Any decent HD's around 250 GB that run really quiet ?

3) Signal to TV - The standard NForce board with GeForce 4 run with the Haupage 250 PVR does this give a fairly reasonable picture ??

4) Sound - Here i have absolutely no idea - Any advice on trying to get a 5.1 sound setup would be great . Dont i need some form of creative decoder to the sound processing ?

thanks for all your advice folkes

Will

The barebones ive been leering at can be found here ..

http://www.newegg.com/app/SearchProduct ... asp?DEPA=1

With the whole limited PCI slot , im been tempted by the integrated wireless via the Intel Chipset (Intel 865PE + ICH5) but then that brings me away from the whole NFORCE, GFORCE board combo that seems to be recomended for myth setups ..

The SN41G2 is what I'm using. The biggest limitation is the lack of expansion space. I'm also not thrilled with the quality of my TV out (built in S-VIDEO out to a 27" Panasonic TV) despite much tweaking, and amoung other possibilities am considering getting a PVR350. However with only one PCI slot it would leave me unable to use the PVR250 I already have... I have managed to shoehorn two HDs into this box, but don't really recommend it since it doesn't give them adequeate airflow for cooling.

the seagate drives are supposed to be very quiet.

As for the nforce tvout it is personal preference. many people are happy with it and many people are not. Probably just depends on how good you insist your video is. You are not going to get great dvd quality video, however my analog cable isn't that great anyways.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

No doubt!! that makes me so angry that in a day in age where we can fit 100 million trasistor on a small chip we cant make cable / satalite TV look good. I have a 62 inch HD toshiba and both DIsh network .. and now adelphia cable look like crap on it.. I am hoping that the switch to manditory HD in 2006 will help with the quality. But they will probley just push the date back.

actually HD is already mandated. it's just that in 2006 it is supposedly a 100% HD, but you're right I'm sure it will get pushed back just like many of the stations did with the initial switch to some shows in HD.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

tjc or any other Shuttle owner-

Ive just been reading a customer review on this barebones iSN41G2 in which the reviewer stated that Linux does not support the inbuilt On board Realtek 8201BL NW Card ? Is this true ?

I don't know abot the SN41G2V2 but the networking works just fine with the Nvidia or forcedeth drivers on the older SN41G2. They made several minor changes to the motherboard in the V2 upgrade, but I'd need to track down the article I read about what those were... I'll scan the usual sites and see if I can't trun it up...