Ongoing Travla 1U rackmount Geforce8200 based HTPC (formerly Atom-based) (1 Viewer)

[MegaPVR_Rack]

First tests with the new components arrived yesterday


DIY needed and still waiting for CPU

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Here we go... more tests and more DIY



CPU shoud arrive next week

 

[Hildebrandt]

This is interesting....

I'm currently researching my possibilities for setting up a separate TV-server box, that also will act as a NAS, run my SqueezeCenter and maintain my torrent/ed2k needs...

And i'm considering either a dualcore atom OR the JNC62K combined with an 4850e/5050e...

What do you think - the server would only have to handle dvb-t (not HD); will the dualcore atom have the strength to do the job, or should i go for the jetway/amd combo???

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

^hildebrandt
Dual core Atom N330 can even play HD1080, it's the 945G graphics chipset it is paired with that's too slow and lacks any HW DX9 video acceleration. In SD DVB, when My TV is on and in windowed mode, user interface reaction speed is too slow for a modern HTPC. In TV fullscreen mode with VMR Exclusive mode enabled everything's fine and no tearing . I could've lived with the slow UI responsiveness in windowed TV, but I wanted at least a DVI port and HW accelerated HD too, so Atom+945G based boards (D945GCLF2, JNC92-330, etc) for me they're simply not enough . JNC92K has no built-in HDMI but an adapter is provided to convert DVI-I port, if you want native HDMI then there's JNC81LF with AMD780G two-piece chipset (Geforce8200's a single-chip solution): native HDMI and DVI ports, native eSata, no direct 8-ch analog outputs, no SPDIF-in.
PS: JNC62K has both SPDIF in and out in optical 1/8" TRS jack type, so to connect a Toslink cable you'll need an adapter , SPDIF I/O uses the Blue (IN) and Yellow (OUT).

 

[Hildebrandt]

Thx for the swift reply!!

This looks good - the box i'm considering won't be depending on the graphics at all, since it'll stream the tv it records to my clients...

Now the choice depends solely om the prices of the hardware...

Thx!!!

- and of course i'll post results in these forums... ;o)

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

^hildebrandt
D945GCLF2 and its siblings are cheap and work fine for just small servers or boxes . You can have one for less than $80 I think . JNC62K requires at least $130 plus CPU and heatsink ($100) .

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Almost there...



Still something's missing though...

 

[Hildebrandt]

I know - but i'm not sure it'll have the power to run all the apps required AND record tv reliably AND strream video/audio to my MP clients...

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

When I had Atom setup, streaming BBC HD to my Quad home PC via the integrated Realtek gigabit LAN resulted in 2% CPU usage. And remember, MP 1.0 tries to slow down everything to keep TV recording in sync and not drop frames in the recorded file. Windowed SDTV from the Skystar card was something like 4-5 fps, fullscreen no problem, changing between windowed and fullscreen or changing audio language while recording, resulted in no dropped recorded frames whatsoever . Remember, N330 Atom's H.T. compliant, so Win will see 4 logical CPUs and try to use 'em all .

 

[xsiv4ce]

very nice. I was wondering about the case though - Its hard to tell from the pictures, but the drive trays seem to have 3 light pipes for the drive status (power, activity, and failure I supose)
does the backplane have 3 LEDS to support this? From your pictures it looks like there is only 1 blue one.
I am wondering if I added a raid card to it whether or not the LEDs could be used to signal a drive failure and rebuilding status.. if the LEDs are there, is there a connector to hook them up to a raid card?
I emailed casetronic/travla asking them and they are not replying...