Originally Posted By: Phil.
I can only help with the PC components here. I specced my PC to run quiet and cool but still being able to handle HD and multiple recordings etc. I'd imagine you know what your doing in that area though?


Not really. Every small PC I've tried to make has either broken due to overheating, or sounds like a hovercraft trying to get up a cliff.

That's why I'm thinking separate front-/back-end -- I can keep the front-end nice and quiet: just for viewing content from the backend, or for occasionally viewing/playing DVD/CD media. All the noisy/hot stuff goes in the server which can be put in the spare room or something.

I can spec out the back-end: quad core Core2, plenty of disk space, couple of DVB/T cards. Where I'm struggling is the front-end. It's got to be beefy enough to do the video decoding, but would ideally be fanless. This implies video-accelerated decoding. What's MythTV support for that like right now?

My server's nice and quiet, but it's way too big for the living room -- it won't fit on any shelf, which means it's on the floor. And Charlie's just started crawling smile
_________________________
-- roger