Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

Quiet HDTV frontend: AOpen XC Cube EY855-II?

Index | Next | Previous | View Threaded

joel_123 at hotmail

Mar 21, 2005, 4:54 PM

Post #1 of 4 (1229 views)
Permalink

Quiet HDTV frontend: AOpen XC Cube EY855-II?

Hi, all,

I currently am using a MediaMVP as a frontend system, and I'm happy with it.
Despite a lack of features, it does play video with acceptable quality.
But I've been thinking of what happens when I
eventually go with HDTV (Comcast says Real Soon Now). I'd like to put
together a frontend system that can do the HDTV equivalent of the MediaMVP,
and also do LiveTV from a cable STB firewire feed. Beyond
that, my main criterion is quietness. I prefer to boot diskless and store
things on a backend server. I also have the luxury of being in no hurry.

Has anybody looked at <a
href="http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/aopen-ey855/index.x?pg=1">
TechReports review of the AOpen XC Cube EY855-II mini-barebones system <\a>?
It's based around the Pentium M, and it seems to be exceptionally quiet.
Other nice features for a frontend are builtin firewire
and optical digital audio inputs and outputs. There's a 4X AGP slot (but
not a very wide one) as well as one PCI slot. The main drawback is the
price of the Pentium M, but the low power consumption of that processor is
also what makes the quietness possible.

Here's a list of prices for what I think would be needed for a diskless
frontend system. Prices are as of 21 Mar 05, from newegg.com:

AOpen XC Cube EY855-II
$304
Intel Pentium M 725 1.6GHz, 400MHz FSB
212
Corsair XMS3200 256MB DDR RAM (x2)
110
Gainward fanless FX5200 video card FX5200 FX PowerPack! Pro/660 70
Zapway.de lirc receiver
20
TOTAL:
$716

One question I have is whether anybody has used a Pentium M with HDTV. I
have selected fast memory that would be run at DDR333 and is amenable to
overclocking, but would the 1.6 GHz clock part do 1080i
even with overclocking? There's still a steep price ramp to the 2GHz
Pentium M 2Ghz at $435. Also, will the fanless 64-bit FX5200's do 1080i?

Cheers,
Joel

tracy at amphibious

Mar 21, 2005, 5:11 PM

Post #2 of 4 (1139 views)
Permalink

Re: mythtv-users Digest, Vol 26, Issue 147 [In reply to]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2005 at 12:55:04AM +0000, joel_128 [at] hotmail wrote:

> One question I have is whether anybody has used a Pentium M with HDTV. I
> have selected fast memory that would be run at DDR333 and is amenable to
> overclocking, but would the 1.6 GHz clock part do 1080i
> even with overclocking? There's still a steep price ramp to the 2GHz
> Pentium M 2Ghz at $435. Also, will the fanless 64-bit FX5200's do 1080i?

FWIW, I am able to play 720p MPEG4 video (1280x768 screen resolution) fine
with my 1.1GHz Pentium-M laptop using the internel GM855E video.

I am also looking into building up a pentium-m based frontend.

brad+myth at templetons

Mar 21, 2005, 5:25 PM

Post #3 of 4 (1153 views)
Permalink

Re: Quiet HDTV frontend: AOpen XC Cube EY855-II? [In reply to]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2005 at 12:54:42AM +0000, Joel B wrote:
> Hi, all,
>
> I currently am using a MediaMVP as a frontend system, and I'm happy with
> it. Despite a lack of features, it does play video with acceptable
> quality. But I've been thinking of what happens when I
> eventually go with HDTV (Comcast says Real Soon Now). I'd like to put
> together a frontend system that can do the HDTV equivalent of the MediaMVP,
> and also do LiveTV from a cable STB firewire feed. Beyond
> that, my main criterion is quietness. I prefer to boot diskless and store
> things on a backend server. I also have the luxury of being in no hurry.
>
> Has anybody looked at <a
> href="http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/aopen-ey855/index.x?pg=1">
> TechReports review of the AOpen XC Cube EY855-II mini-barebones system
> <\a>? It's based around the Pentium M, and it seems to be exceptionally
> quiet. Other nice features for a frontend are builtin firewire
> and optical digital audio inputs and outputs. There's a 4X AGP slot (but
> not a very wide one) as well as one PCI slot. The main drawback is the
> price of the Pentium M, but the low power consumption of that processor is
> also what makes the quietness possible.

I have an aopen xcube as my frontend, but it is a much cheaper version.

In any event, it's pretty quiet, but gets noisy when doing commercial
scanning or transcoding as the fan revs up. Fan does not rev up playing
video though. Keep it well ventilated.

However, the TV's own fan (projection tv) is much louder so the noise of
this has not been an issue.

stangage70 at gmail

Mar 22, 2005, 9:43 AM

Post #4 of 4 (1141 views)
Permalink

Re: Quiet HDTV frontend: AOpen XC Cube EY855-II? [In reply to]

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:54:42 +0000, Joel B <joel_123 [at] hotmail> wrote:
> Has anybody looked at
> TechReports review of the AOpen XC Cube EY855-II mini-barebones system?
> It's based around the Pentium M, and it seems to be exceptionally quiet.

> Other nice features for a frontend are builtin firewire
> and optical digital audio inputs and outputs. There's a 4X AGP slot (but
> not a very wide one) as well as one PCI slot. The main drawback is the
> price of the Pentium M, but the low power consumption of that processor is
> also what makes the quietness possible.
>
> One question I have is whether anybody has used a Pentium M with HDTV. I
> have selected fast memory that would be run at DDR333 and is amenable to
> overclocking, but would the 1.6 GHz clock part do 1080i
> even with overclocking? There's still a steep price ramp to the 2GHz
> Pentium M 2Ghz at $435. Also, will the fanless 64-bit FX5200's do 1080i?

I have also been considering using an 855GM or 915GM chipset based
Pentium M arrangement. The later has dual-channel DDR, PCIe, and
integrated TVout (including component HD). However I don't know how
well either of them are supported under Linux. Anyone using a
"Centrino" system with a non-Windows operating system? I expect the
915GM is too bleeding edge.

With regards to horse-power, the 1.6 PentiumM is similar in
performance to a 2.4 Ghz P4. The 1.8 version (dothan has a larger
cache) might be a good compromise between 1.6 and 2.0.

Right now I am using an 865 based system. My CPU and powersupply are
quiet enough (~22db), but the drives make more noise than I would
like.

Although the FX5200 should be able to drive 1080i, getting it to work
has been troublesome for many.
_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users [at] mythtv
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Index | Next | Previous | View Threaded

Interested in having your list archived? Contact Gossamer Threads