[mythtvnz] Suitable Frontend

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:16:30 +1300, you wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I have go a Pentium 4 3ghz running as a backend with Mythbuntu - as 
>discussed on this list :-)
>
>This machine is okay - cannot quite cope with recording HD TV, or 
>Commercial Flagging *and* serving media to my laptop. But it can record 
>two (sometimes three) channels, and will do for now. It is too loud for 
>the living room though.

I can quite understand that a Pentium 4 can not do multiple commercial
flaggings at once, but I do not see why you are saying it would have a
problem with recording HD TV - all Mythbackend has to do to record any
DVB-T or DVB-S channel is to select out the packets it is receiving
for the program and store them to disk.  That is not a problem for
even quite low spec machines.  It depends more on hard disk
performance than anything else, and a nice modern SATA drive is easily
capable enough.  If your PC has problems recording multiple programs
at once, then it most likely needs another hard disk to record to.
Have you checked to make sure that you are running commercial flagging
jobs at low priority?  Without that setting, you might get problems
with recordings.

>I would like to get a machine for a front end, and any suggestions 
>anyone has. Quiet is good :-)

>Given my backend is a P4 - would this be good enough for a front end?
>
>A number of machines have DVI out - can can I use this to output full hd 
>using a DVI to HDMI cable?
>
>Could I use a vga to rca type cable to get full hd?
>
>Anyway - thanks for the help :-)
>
>DOn

If you have a laptop that is not needed at the times you are playing
back TV, then you may be able to use that.  It will normally be a
reasonably quiet option.  Older ones will need a decent builtin Nvidia
graphics card and DVI or HDMI output.  Modern laptops with "Optimus"
Nvidia graphics (where the Nvidia card is switched on only when
needed) do not work yet with Linux in a way that works with
Mythfrontend, so they are not an option.  But on my over-the-top
powerful MSI GT70 I do not need to use its Nvidia card for
Mythfrontend, as its main processor (Intel Core i7-3610QM) is capable
enough to do all the graphics processing itself without noticeably
raising the fan speed or draining the battery.  It uses the on-chip
Intel graphics for the HDMI output.  I would guess that most modern
laptops with Core i7 processors would be similarly capable, and there
are now some i7 based laptops that are getting reasonably cheap.

The same applies to a normal PC for use a MythTV frontend - you need
either a powerful enough main processor, or an Nvidia card capable of
doing full deinterlace modes.  You can get silent Nvidia cards, but
last time I looked a couple of months ago I could not find one
available in NZ.  It would be easy enough to import one if necessary.
Or maybe you can find a second hand Asus Bravo 220 (silent) like mine
- it does an excellent job.  Of course, since I upgraded my
motherboard in my combined frontend/backend box to use an AMD FX4100
3.6 GHz processor, it too is capable of doing all the graphics
processing on the CPU without excessive load.  And it is a reasonably
quiet box - if you are used to the roar of your Pentium 4 PC, you
would be very pleasantly surprised by how quiet a modern processor fan
is, and mate that with a good low noise power supply and there should
be no problem with putting the box beside or behind your TV and not
noticing noise at all when playing TV.  As long as the video card fan
is not a problem, that is - I have not bought a video card with a fan
for a while so I do not know if they have quieted down as much as the
CPU fans have.  I have my mother's MythTV box next to her TV (older
Gigabyte M85M-US2H motherboard with builtin Nvidia 8200, no GPU fan),
and that works just fine.