Any ideas for thin clients?

[mattsm]

Anyone here have a big server machine in another room and a thin client near the TV? What are you guys using? Any reccomendations?

Thanks,
Matthew

[PGPfan]

Hi Matt,

I use, and recommend a Hauppauge Media MVP. You can find them for about $70 bucks, and there is a Sage plug-in giving you full Sage support. (nearly full, that is. No DVD playback)

-PGPfan

[mattsm]

Well that won't quite work out for me. I need DVD support, and something with VGA out so I can use my HDTV Transcoder and have a high quality display output to my TV. Good idea, but any other sugggestions what to do?

[x[corwyn]]

Either rip your DVDs to MPEG2 on the server and watch it via MVP or you will need to step up to a whole client box if you must have DVD capabilities on the same box.

If you go client box you will need a video card that has TV-Out if its a SDTV or if you have a DVI input then get a video card with DVI out, which one to get is always good for a debate but people have made recommendations in previous posts. I use an xcard for TV-Out and it works well but Sage refuses to put an OSD for it so you have to have a separate screen for the OSD. An xcard has the added benefit of having a good digital audio out built in on the card though and on a SDTV it looks better than the TV-Outs on regular video cards. So choose your kick to the gnads if you aren't doing HDTV. Superior video with a separate video screen or reduced video quality but fit in one screen...

Audio if not using an xcard, and there is no built in digital out on the motherboard, people recommend the chaintech for a cheap audio card.

newegg.com is a good place to get cases, motherboards, chips and various peripherals for your HTPC, but there are other sites as well that I'm sure others recommend. YMMV. I trust egghead. For a good client I would recommend anything above a 1.4GHz T-Bird and at least 512MBs of ram with an xCard running (since I can say absolutely that works well) and if with a regular cideo card anything above 2GHz and 512MBs of ram will work well though I'm sure you can probably use a slower PC but I can't honestly say since I never tried with anything slower.

With a good case, chipset, ram, and video card etc etc, everything you need to run a client on Sage I'd say $600 would be a fair estimate to pay for the client box though I am sure it can be made for cheaper, or for more depending on what you buy for parts...

[nielm]

I am running my sage system on a fanless Via EPIA M10000 mini-PC (1Ghz V3 CPU == 600Mhx PIII) and apart from being a bit slow in some of the complex screens (Tv guide, WRS) it works fine. Just to give you an idea of how low you can go