Building / Buying a MythTV box

[Greg Rundlett (freephile)]

I'm finally going to purchase the hardware to make my
Myth(dora|buntu|TV) dreams a reality.  My goal is to have a free
software Home Theater that does movies/photos/music/TV plus Internet
browsing and email.  I'd even like to be able to use applications
(e.g. gnucash) or games from the couch using a wireless keyboard and
gyro mouse like the famous LinuxMCE video.  I don't have a big budget
~ $900 or so.  At that price point, the Monolith looks like a perfect
match. http://monolithmc.com/techspecs.php  I guess one of the
limiting factors is that I don't have an HDTV, so I'll need to add
that (or monitor) to my list of things to buy.  I do have Comcast
Digital Basic service (with a settop box).

I was thinking of getting the Dell Studio Hybrid
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studio-hybrid?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19,
or the System76 Koala Mini
http://system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=83  They
could serve as front-ends but neither of those has the tuner card nor
the expansion space to add one + storage so I'd have to get a separate
box for the backend.

I would build an all-in-one, but I am not a hardware geek and the
choices seem limitless (meaning I'll mismatch components).

The eRacks people sell a nice-looking "studio" setup that you add a
PCI tuner card to http://eracks.com/products/Quiet
Systems/config?sku=STUDIO except that stretches my budget.  I
configured an example setup as eRacks/STUDIO 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Dual
Channel 800MHz, 1 TB SATA II Hard Drive, HDTV HD-5500 TV Tuner Card
which comes out to $1565.00

If I assembled a system similar to the eRacks studio using parts from
NewEgg, would I end up spending less?  Anyone want to offer
suggestions or share their success stories?

Also, I was going to add a tuner card to a PC that I own, but I bought
the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1800 which is a PCI-e card without realizing
that my PC only has PCI slots.  Although the card can certainly be
used in a new system, I'm re-thinking using my existing PC for the
backend b/c it's only a 1.2GHz Athlon with 768MB of RAM with similarly
old motherboard and only USB 1

I'm undecided about whether it's going to be easier/better/cheaper to
run a single unit with maybe a USB external drive attached or run a
front-end that is small and pretty with a backend on the rack in the
basement.  I do have a wire shelf rack in the basement with UPS and
the house is wired with CAT5.

-- 
Greg Rundlett
Web Developer - Initiative in Innovative Computing
http://iic.harvard.edu
camb 617-384-5872
nbpt 978-225-8302
m. 978-764-4424
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