hardware is getting so cheap. slimline cases, motherboards with sound chips and built-in video cards with svideo out, dvd burners...

Reminds me of the old Brick computer. No fan because the entire case was a heat sink.

At the moment, someone could probably build a front-end only machine in a small quiet case, with plenty of ram, a dvd burner, and burn linux and mythtv to a boot chip. The only problem is that it would have to be modified to search out the master backend.

Right now, except for the boot chip, it *might* be barely under $200. With an economy of scale, it might be worth doing.

I'm not so sure.

I've been on the Myth/HDTV kick since February, and I don't think you can build a silent FE that'll do HDTV (1080i) within the 'brick' concept.

I've been looking at EPIA boards/cases, and there's nothing that'll do that res. with the current state of Linux drivers. windows? Maybe, but if that were the case, we wouldn't be here on the KnoppMyth board.

I'd love to build a FE that would do 1080i to either component or SVideo with a DVD drive for playing the occasional disc, but for about $200?

We ain't there yet.

Edit:

The BE I'm working on will have three tuners (1 NTSC 2 ATSC) with about 600GB of storage. The HD's alone have cost me $140, and I remember paying $400 for 10MB MFM drives!

Maybe in another year the $200-$500 HDTV Myth box will become a reality...but I'm building now, and will pay the price.

PS: I'd LOVE to get a hold of the GMC cases that they have here:

http://www.gmc.co.kr/products/itemList_ ... &cateID2=1

These are awesome cases. Worth every penny if/when they become available.

Well, I did say *might*, but $200 is pretty low.

I was thinking of mostly the MB, Memory, and no HD. DVD Burners are dirt cheap now. Memory isn't too bad either. I was kind of lowballing the price of the components because I was basing it on what I thought a reseller might pay. In addition, I neglected the price of the case too.

Definitely end-user prices vs wholesale will be more expensive though.