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Minimum requirements questions
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20765
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Author:  WanderingOak [ Mon Jan 11, 2010 3:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Minimum requirements questions

I have an old AMD 550 box with 1GB of RAM that I would like to make into a MythTV Backend. I know it's a low end machine by today's standards, but it is what I have on hand. If I were to use a newer video capture card such as the Hauppauge PVR-150 which handles all of the video processing onboard, would this system have enough power to record and watch video simultaneously?

My second question is regarding MythTV frontends. I've heard tell that I can use a game console such as an XBox, but I haven't been able to find any documentation of that in the MythTV wiki. Has anybody here done that? Could I use an Apple TV as a frontend for myth TV? Would something like a [url="http://www.roku.com/roku-products"]Roku Digital Video Player[/url] have enough brains to act as a frontend?

Author:  Big boy stan [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 7:05 am ]
Post subject: 

Here is a whole write up on the Xbox
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Xbox_Frontend

Author:  WanderingOak [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:23 am ]
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Thanks, I guess I needed to dig a bit deeper in the wiki. Does anybody know if any of the MythTV Xbox mods will still allow me to use the Xbox to stream Netflix videos?

Author:  nharris [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:19 am ]
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You should not have a problem with the backend setup as long as all you want to do is record. Don't expect commercial processing to be fast. Also, I would recommend you don't use it as a frontend too.

If you are looking for a super cheap frontend, you might want to consider the Acer AspireRevo (around $199 at Amazon or Newegg). You will just need to add an IR remote (like the MCE remote or a StreamZap).

Author:  kmkittre [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:30 am ]
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I would also add the caveat that you should not expect to be able to handle HD content with any of the hardware mentioned.

Author:  nharris [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 10:02 am ]
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True, you lack HD capture capability in your system. However, should you choose the Acer AspireRevo as a frontend, it should be able to playback HD fine using VDPAU.

Author:  Greg Frost [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:57 pm ]
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I just setup a revo as a diskless frontend and it can certainly keep up playing HD.

Author:  nharris [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:22 pm ]
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Greg,

How noisy is your Revo?

Author:  Greg Frost [ Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:37 pm ]
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Very quiet. I can hardly hear it from a couple of feet away. I still have the 320 G drive in it that it came with. I should remove that to save power (and perhaps make it a bit quieter still - not that it needs it).

Author:  Greg Frost [ Wed Jan 13, 2010 4:51 am ]
Post subject: 

I have the revo 3610 with 2G ram, SPDIF out and the dual core atom. The $199 revo at newegg is the older single core 1G ram model without SPDIF out, so YMMV.

Author:  nharris [ Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:16 am ]
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Yeah, currently the 3610 is not available (at least easily in the US).

Author:  Big boy stan [ Wed Jan 13, 2010 8:43 am ]
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Greg, have you opened the Revo up? What size hard drive is inside? Is it a 2-1/2" (laptop) or standard 3-1/2"? I was going to buy a hard drive for another system and this would make the Revo cheaper still (or at least feel that way).

Author:  Greg Frost [ Wed Jan 13, 2010 8:15 pm ]
Post subject: 

The model I got has a 320G HD and it probably comes in at ~300 USD. I hane not cracked it open, but it is so small it would only fit a laptop HD.

Author:  tjc [ Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:09 pm ]
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That's also what the detailed specs for it said.

Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:30 pm ]
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Greg Frost wrote:
I just setup a revo as a diskless frontend and it can certainly keep up playing HD.

Greg, I'm trying to get my Revo R1600 to work as a frontend. I've installed R6 but it doesn't seem to be able to keep up with playback of 1080i content using bob2x deinterlace. I've selected XVMC and made the various tweaks to xorg.conf, but CPU utilization maxes out and I have glitches on playback every 2-10 seconds.

Did you need to do anything special to get hardware accelerated playback to work?

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