Hi.

I am looking at setting up a mythbox, and am wondering what is the better setup for me.

What I want to do:
I have a number of videos (avi, mpg, etc) currently stored on my gentoo server (shared via NFS and samba). The server is in a closet. My computer is upstairs, but I don't want to watch these there, I want to watch them on my tv (obviously), so I want to put a myth box next to my TV (already have a Cat-5e cable run). I have a Tivo, so I do NOT want to record TV at this time (tho I do have a tuner card I can put in there).

So I figure I have two options:
1. Setup a stand alone myth box by the TV, and NFS mount the video directory on the gentoo box.
2. Install myth on my gentoo box as a backend, and run myth as a frontend at the tv (possibly from the CD).

Here's the hardware I have available:
Server: AMD Duron 900, 512M ram, ~150G hard drive space available
Mythbox: P2 300, 512(?)RAM (gotta check), ATI capture card (can't think of the model off hand, but I know it works in linux), 10G hard drive

I need to purchase a PCI video card still (newegg has numerous nvidia cards with tvout), and a remote control/IR receiver.

I am leaning towards #2 at this point, as I think that will allow more versatility in the future.

Will that P2 be enough for playback?

Thanks for any advice here.

-john

Not even close. Even the server box is ssomewhat underpowered for this application, although it might be able to do lowres capture and playback. We've got a a few semi-regular posters using hardware of your sever's class with maximal hardware assist for recording and playback (PVR-350s and the like).

Are you sure about that? Please note that I do NOT want to any capturing. I am only interested in playback.

I haven't used a P2 in ages, but I was using the Duron for a while as my desktop machine, and was playing the videos with no problem.

-john

IIRC, the mimimum processor needed for playback of DVD quality MPEG2 is a 400Mhz P2.

You might be able to get that 300Mhz one to play back DVD if you had hardware assist (PVR-350, Nvidia card with XvMC, or some kind of Holywood+ DVD card) but without those I think you'll be unlucky.

If you're not using the server to capture, then why have it? Setup the Duron as a dual frontend/backend box and then have that playback your video. As long as it's not doing software encoding at the same time, it should be ok.

Mephi

Well damn it all on the P2. Oh well.

Reason for not having the duron as the mythbox: It's my file/email server, and it'd be too easily accessible to 2-year old hands over by the TV.

However, I was digging thru my box-o-computer-crap, and discovered that I have a MB with an integrated VIA 1G CPU (Samuel I think). Just needs some RAM.

I'd forgotten that I had that board. It was a Tigerdirect purchase from a few years ago, and I'd only picked it up because it was $5 after rebate.

So I think I'll give that one a try.

thx,
john