I've been looking for the perfect frontend (only) machine for MythTV, and am amazed that I can't find anything that fits my criteria.
Have you thought about a modded xbox? $120 for the console (�99 in the UK) You'll be able to boot linux on it and it fits most of your criteria (you get spdif out with the hi-def av pack)
Add $30 (or �30) for a modchip if you want to play games on it as well as run linux otherwise you can flash the internal bios with a GPL replacement.
Take a look at xbox linux:
http://www.xbox-linux.org/
Though you may need to look though the previous versions of many pages for useful information as since they switched to a wiki format the site has been repeatedly vandalized.
and mythtv-xbox:
http://bit.blkbk.com/bittorrent/
I haven't any experience of this yet (though I am seriously considering an xbox as my mythtv frontend)
Another alternative the the xbox media centre project which runs natively on the xbox os (you need a modchip) and has a "work in progress" mythtv interface written in python (this isn't a full frontend, they're just working towards scheduling and playback of recordings plus livetv as the xbmc software already has most of the other features normally present in a mythtv frontend):
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/
Thread on their forums about the python mythtv interface:
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?s=8e3561c2680b08d0e37b2ee6ba9aa219;act=ST;f=21;t=2676
Sourceforge page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmcmythtv/
Hope this helps _______________________________________________ mythtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
