I'm really quite happy with MythTV at this point, except that the ITX system
just isn't quite cutting it as the machine to go into the family room media
center.  Mostly because it only has one PCI slot.  If the ivtv driver could
support both input and output on the PVR-350 at the same time, it'd be nearly
right... but...  

I have an unused ATI Radeon 7500 All-In-Wonder card.  The video input and
tuner sound like a lost cause for MythTV, but with the 
[GATOS](http://gatos.sourceforge.net/) ati.2 driver the card
reportedly works fine for output including NTSC.  The card also came with a
UHF remote control that would adequately replace our "dependency" on the Sony
DirecTV UHF remote we are using today.  So, this feels like a good output and
remote control support card for the media center frontend.  Thus, we need an
AGP slot.

I have a Hauppauge Bt878 capture card in the ham shack machine that is unused
since it doesn't seem to work well in the dual Celeron motherboard.  With an
available PCI slot, MythTV should be able to use it just fine if there's enough
CPU to compress in software.

I also have a 4dwave NX audio card with optical S/PDIF output if I have a PCI
slot and inadequate sound output support on the motherboard.

So, I ordered parts for a new machine from 
[newegg.com](http://www.newegg.com/).  My first order from them, but
others seem to think they're OK.  The components I ordered will make a 
fairly fast
Micro ATX system.  As long as it's not too loud, it should work out fine.

* Asus [A7N266-VM](http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7n266-vm/specification.htm) 
motherboard.  This board is cheap, has what I need, and apparently works 
well under Linux. 

* Athenatech Micro ATX Case w/200W Supply, 
[A100BB](http://www.athenatech.us/a100bb.htm).

* AMD Athlon XP 2400+, the fastest 266 FSB boxed Athlon in stock.

* 512Mb PC-2100 DDR266 RAM

So, hopefully, by the end of the week I'll have a more immediately suitable
box to run MythTV on...

[[!tag tags/pvr]]