R wrote:
(On the backend, I plan to have multiple tuner cards, 300GB+ SATA hard
disks, 1.5GB RAM, etc.)
I need a frontend to mainly view Live TV and recorded shows.
What would you recommend as the minimum hardware requirements for a frontend?
Assuming that you are planning to view MPEG2 encoded Live TV and
recorded shows, then you can get by with a VIA EPIA ME6000 for SD or a
VIA EPIA ME6000 for HD. You can network boot from you backend, so there
is no need for hard drive in the front end. You should be fine with
512MB of RAM. I have both these setups and they work well.
These VIA boards work fine with their pathetic CPUs because they have
MPEG2 hardware decoders. However, if you plan to use a video format
other than MPEG2 for you shows, then they may be too underpowered.
Another choice is an AMD processor on an NVIDIA chipset based
motherboard. I have been playing with an AMD Athlon64 3200 on an ASUS
A8N-VM CSM. Even without the NVIDIA XvMC support (it is broken in the
drivers for the motherboard chipset), it has not trouble with SD. I have
not tried it for HD. The nice thing about this setup is that it has DVI
and enough horsepower to handle MythGallery and non-MPEG2 video formats.
Again 512MB of RAM should be enough.
I run MiniMyth <http://linpvr.org> on my front ends. Currently, it
support the EPIA boards. While I have not released a version that
supports the ASUS motherboard, I have it working and am using it for my
primary viewing.
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