Frontends

Main

Extra

  • PS3 - Extra
  • N770 - Portable frontend

Requirements

  • HDMI/DVI out
  • 5.1 audio output
    • Connect to Z5500 (Optical or Digital Co-ax)
  • 1080p video playback
  • mini PCI slot? (for BCM90015)
  • Silent
  • Integrated IR?
  • More RAM than the ATV1?

Hardware

Recommendations thread

Product Platform HD IR Audio miniPCI Price £
AppleTV 1 x86 1080p yes optical yes ebay £100
Celeron NUC x86 1080p no HDMI yes 142+
Zotac ID80 x86 1080p USB optical yes ~300
Zotac ID17 x86 1080p USB optical yes 190
Lenovo Q190 x86 1080p no optical no 158
Acer Revo L80 x86 1080p no spdif 2 190
G-Box Midnight arm 1080p yes hdmi no 70
Nano1 Slim+1 arm 1080p yes hdmi no 50
Pivos XIOS DS arm 1080p yes hdmi no 130
SolidRun CuBox i2 arm 1080p yes hdmi, optical no $80

 

1 Recent Pivos linux builds locked to XIOS hardware. Not compatible with Sumvision or Geniatech boxes ⇑

Cases

http://avrio.co.uk/acatalog/New_cases.html

  • GA-L01 mini-ITX

Bandwith and CPU Power

CPU Power

  • HD needs at least P4 3GHz
  • XvMC necessary for HD
  • GeForce FX5200 fanless and supports XvMC
    • Allows Chromakey hack and has colour and contrast adjustment not present on 6-series

CPU Demand

| Task | Min CPU | || | MPEG2 SD, Play DVD | 600MHz | | MPEG2 HD | 1GHz AMD + XvMC | | DivX, XviD, H.264 | ? | | MPEG4 HD |   | | Rip DVD |   |

Links

http://tvease.net/
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/products/data_hvr1100.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauppauge_Computer_Works#Table_of_products
http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Supported_hardware
MythTV performance Hacks
DVB-T coverage checker
http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_silent.php
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~mfgalizi/epia/index.html - VIA EPIA Compact Flash frontend
HD Hardware requirements
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/resources/appletv/
http://www.apple.com/uk/appletv/
http://www.apple.com/uk/appletv/specs.html
http://www.mactel-linux.org/wiki/Dmesg_appletv
http://www.wikiappletv.com/
Best TV Box for XBMC

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