Opinion on a possible new DVR

[Drakula]

Hi guys, need an opinion on a possible new DVR. Currently have a system that acts as a DVR, it is an Athlon XP 1800+ cooled by Thermaltake Volcano 6 Cu cooler given by my brother's friend, Asus A7V8X-X, GeForce 5200, hard drives, a TV tuner card and powered by Ultra V series 350W PSU. It was originally put together by me few years ago as a media PC so that the family can use it to watch whatever they want on TV instead of using monitor. Eventually it evolved into a DVR because I accidentally killed a motherboard on another system that temporarily serving as DVR. The system itself is fairly sufficient because recording does not use too much CPU power. Recently, my brother wanted to replace it with a something that uses less power and quieter, the current system consume about 120W or so when running according to Kill-a-Watt and when running at quiet nights, it sounded similar to a helicopter flying overhead. He looked into one of those media player as well as computer that can be transformed to do the same job. At the moment, he narrowed down to two choices, a TViX media player made by DViCo or a Zacate platform.

Zacate
Pro:
-Can use whatever OS and software wanted as long as compatible with hardware
-Can handle most things as long as have the right codecs
-Can be turned into a general use PC later
-Can use some of the existing hardware
-*(Can have USB 3.0 support, depend on the board)
-*(TV tuner can be reused)
Con:
-Possible higher power than media player
-Driver support
-More than one hard drive might be required, one for booting and one for recording
-*(Might need a new TV tuner card if going for Mini-ITX Zacate)

Cost(Mini-ITX): $135+$50(TV card)+$20(2GB RAM)=$200(without Mini-ITX case and PSU); $248(with Mini-ITX case and PSU)
Cost(mATX): $150+$20(2GB RAM)=$170

TViX
Pro:
-Low power when running
-Limited number of media can be played
Con:
-Firmware updates, everything will be up to the company
-Cooling is factory set, fan speed can be adjust (unknown if it will have overheat problem)

Cost: $300

Both need to have a fair size of hard drive to be installed. The Mini-ITX did not include like cost of OS because Linux might be used if it supports the TV card.

Any advice and/or opinion will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[lamedude]

Another con for the TViX is the guide. You're limited to what the station puts out (most stations here only put up few hours worth here) and if you're using cable hope the cableco passes it along but I take you're using OTA since you didn't list no NTSC as a con.
My biggest gripe with it is no gigabit/eSATA (new Slim has eSATA but its DVB-T only ATM) so moving files is slow.

 

[Drakula]

Another con for the TViX is the guide. You're limited to what the station puts out (most stations here only put up few hours worth here) and if you're using cable hope the cableco passes it along but I take you're using OTA since you didn't list no NTSC as a con.
My biggest gripe with it is no gigabit/eSATA (new Slim has eSATA but its DVB-T only ATM) so moving files is slow.

Ah, yes, I forgot to mention that the possible unit of getting is a 6620 for ASTC, and will be using OTA, not using cable at the moment. Moving files should not be a problem at the moment, but that is all preliminary talk.

Also an update, last night, the current DVR powered by Ultra PSU shut itself down suddenly, was not really paying attention to it because it does that sometimes possibly due to software problem. However, few minutes after, there is some weird burning smell. Went and took a look, the top part of the case is hot and upon opening the case, hot air came out. Was not sure what happened at that time, but when touching the PSU, it is burning hot. The system at that moment would not turn on. So it was the Ultra PSU that burned out. Currently, the system seems to be okay and is powering up with another PSU. Good thing that Ultra PSU did not cause more problem and quit working while we were at home. So much for possibility of reusing that PSU.