[mythtvnz] Mythbackend on an old laptop ??
Toby Mills
mythtvnz@lists.linuxnut.co.nz
Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:25:41 +1200
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Well, it might be ok,<br>
however with what you would spend on a good enough USB capture thingy
as well as an external USB hard disk.<br>
I would say it would be worth considering buying a brand new bare bones
basic PC and using the laptop as a remote frontend, not as your backend.<br>
You could sink a hell of a lot of time getting it to work 'well' on an
old laptop, drivers especially can be a bit of a mare.<br>
If you have $500 to spend, then consider this a shopping list (lifted
from ascent (no affiliation) and not necessarily the best choice of
gear, but cheapest).<br>
<br>
iCute 0408-5G-BS ATX Mid Tower Case, Side Window, Black $100.70 <br>
Asus P5PE-VM Motherboard, Socket 775, 1066MHz FSB, 2xDIMM, DDR, 0xDIMM,
DDR2, 8XAGP, 3xPCI, 0xPCIe-1, 2xUSB2, Audio, Video, SATA, M-ATX
$106.55 <br>
Intel Celeron D CPU, 2.80GHz, 533MHz FSB, Socket 775, 32/64-Bit $96.15
<br>
Kingston ValueRAM 512MB 400MHz DDR2 Module PC2-3200 SODIMM $66.92 <br>
Seagate Barracuda ST3250820AS Hard Disk Drive, 250GB, 7200rpm, 8192KB
Cache, SATA-2<br>
$133.48 <br>
<br>
Total price $503.80 inc gst.<br>
<br>
The performance of this system would leave your lappy in the dust and I
guarantee it would work better than the laptop in terms of drivers and
crap like that.<br>
<br>
Then you can just throw knoppmyth or something on the laptop as a
frontend (it doesn't need much disk) and use the TV out to drive your
tv.<br>
<br>
The advantage of using a PC like this as the backend is that you can
add a DVB card easily for $120ish so you can get freeview channels off
a sat dish.<br>
<br>
Anyway, just my 0.02c.<br>
If I had $500 and and old laptop, thats what I would be doing.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Toby<br>
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paul arthur wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid742239.92082.qm@web30806.mail.mud.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style>
<div
style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Let
me know why this is a dumb idea please.<br>
<br>
Im looking at setting up a Mythtv solution for a friend who lives in
the deepest waikato - no internet, bad power, no TV signal small budget.<br>
<br>
if we go ahead, we may use a different frontend if there is not enough
grunt in the backend, and get a decent external disk - usb2 200+GB<br>
<br>
Tell me your thoughts on using an oldish 1Ghz+ broken screen laptop as
a mythbackend with a USB DVB tuner<br>
<br>
pro's<br>
* built in UPS<br>
* quiet<br>
* cheap<br>
* built in TV-Out <br>
* low power consumption<br>
* 100mb ethernet port<br>
* CD/DVD drive<br>
<br>
con's<br>
* finding an external usb dvd dongle that works...??<br>
* small internal disk capacity<br>
<br>
Thoughts please<br>
<br>
<br>
Paul.</div>
<br>
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<br>
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