First of all, congrats to Cecil & the LinHES team for reaching the milestone that is R8! I used R5.5 for years on a combined frontend/backend machine with a PVR-350 with TV out until about a year ago, when digital cable came along and the box was unhappily powered off. I'm looking to get back into LinHES with a hardware upgrade (HDMI out hopefully - wow, that'd be an upgrade!), and had a question, please. I noticed in the release notes for R8, it mentions this:
- Standalone system type has been dropped, because of network changes within MythTV it's no longer feasible.

Just wanted to confirm that I'm reading this correctly. Can I not run both the frontend and backend on one machine anymore?

Thanks all!

This can still be done, install a Master backend system and check "Run frontend". This will run a a backend and frontend on the same system, just like standalone used to do.

Thanks very much, Jams! Now to figure out a good, cheap hardware setup that'll work with my Logitech Harmony One and HDHomerun Prime (Unencrypted QAM tuning usage)!

I recently priced a system based on a Zotac ZBOX-ID41-U with a 750Gb HD and 4Gb of RAM at under $350.

Roughly $230 for the bare bones system, $80-90 for the HD, and $30 for the RAM. Clever shopping can probably knock that down by $20-30.

Thanks, tjc, that's awesome! Looks like it also has VDPAU support through the nVidia ION onboard video too? Are you using it as a backend/frontend box, and do you like the performance? With my HDHomerun Prime, if it can be an all-in-one (MBE/FE) box, I think all I'd need to figure out is what's the best IR receiver to use with it and my Harmony One remote.

Priced not bought. It was a system design for someone else.

The ION2 does support VDPAU and HDMI output, and it's got enough CPU power, and more than enough RAM and HD to act as a combined FE/BE.

As far as remotes go, something that plugs into a USB port is your best bet. I've frankly been living without and using a small wireless keyboard.

For the IR receiver I would also suggest usb, but NOT the mce device. Not because they are all bad, but more that it's an every changing spec. One "mce" device may work while another one also labeled MCE will not work.

I would say either the streamzap, commandir or iguanaIR. There is also the pcs2-ma that doesn't even use LIRC, but instead translates MCE codes into keyboard codes.
-jm