The Pico-ITX makes a great server platform for the HD HomeRun. It is also a viable playback platform although the processor is underpowered if it had to display HD video on its own. Luckily hardware acceleration comes into play allowing HD streaming to its display.
I would not recommend a single ARTiGO system as a backend server and front end delivery system if it will also deliver content to other front end systems. Of course, a pair of systems would be better in this instance.
Setting Up The System
The first step is building the ARTiGO. I won’t go into great detail since the manual and the previous article did this. Essentially the hard drive has is mounted in the box along with the small power supply and all the cables are attached to the motherboard.
Operating system installation can get interesting depending upon whether you have an external DVD driver handy. Flash drive installation of Linux is common and Windows 7 can handle this as well. Earlier Windows incarnations are more easily handled with a DVD installation. Those ambitious people can take a crack at network installation. The BIOS handles network-based booting. I’ve used this approach a number of times with Ubuntu and CENTOS using other VIA motherboards.
In my case, Ubuntu was platform of choice although most may prefer to go with Mythbuntu, a custom version of Ubuntu with MythTV as its core application. Installing MythTV from a stock Ubuntu is as easy as selecting it from the Synaptic package manager.
The harder part is making sure the VIA Technologies display driver is used if the platform is handling HD playback otherwise the framerate will be unacceptably low. Configuration of a pair of ARTiGO systems is essentially the same except that the one will be set up as the back end server and the other as the front end display device. The former needs the IP address of the latter that is typically a fixed IP address. It can be a dynamic IP address if you know how to handle MAC address assigned IP addresses and have dynamic DNS configured on the system.
Linking the HD HomeRun system to the MythTV back end server is trivial. It is simply a matter of entering the ID. The rest is standard MythTV set up including scanning for available channels. The HD HomeRun comes with a short pair of coax cables but you need to supply a splitter if a single source is used.
Configuration for other PVR applications is similar. Some require a Windows platform but the Pico-ITX handles this as well. Likewise, the front end can use a couple of other features such as a wireless keyboard or an infrared remote control. The former is easy to come by including a USB Bluetooth dongle. A couple of USB IR remote control systems are also available as well. Configuration of these is product specific but usually straight forward under Windows or Linux.
Bottom line, the HD HomeRun is a very reliable platform that is easy to configure. Its modular and distributed mode of operation makes it very easy to incorporate into a home network. It can easily be linked to an 802.11n network that has enough bandwidth to handle HD playback on a number of systems.
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