How taxing is eyetv on a mac mini

[badgermac]

Hi,

I'm planning to build a mac mini media center with:

- either the new model coming out soon or a refurb of the current one
- eyetvHD as a DVR
- either a few external hard drives or a lacie Network Space to store and/or serve my media library

My question is, how stressful is eyetv on the mac mini? For example, absolute worst case scenario: it's winter break, I'm watching/recording 4-5 hours of 720p TV per day, and also watching movies in 720p/1080p concurrently. Should I be worried that I'm asking too much out of this setup?

I suppose one compromise could be to split the component video out of the cable box so that I don't have to use the mac mini to display live TV when I'm only watching it and not recording.

Any thoughts/comments would be most appreciated.

[philiparcario]

running eyeTv at 720p to record and watching netflix at 720p is okay.

I have never done double 1080p or 720p and 1080p.
_________________
2010 Mm 2.4 C2D oem 320gb hdd 8gb ram
2012Mm base 2.5 with 16gb ram diy fusion drive
2012Mm quad with 8gb ram oem 1tb hdd

promise pegasus r6 3x 3tb + 3x 4tb =21tb hdds
lacie little big disk 2x 512gb ssds
synology 2tb disk station

[geeji]

I use a Mac Mini 2009 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 4GB, running Snow leopard 10.6.7.
It is connected to a video-projector, using 1920 x 1080 @ 60p resolution.

Watching a single Blu-Ray (with Plex) or HD program with EyeTV is OK (about 2 x 80% CPU usage).
Registering a program in parallel with EyeTV (HD or not) is OK too.
Watching TWO HD programs in parallel is NOT OK.

[badgermac]

Great, thanks guys

[macmanmacman]

Also make sure you have enough ram i would recommend 8 gig for a HTPC
it works so much better and plex is wonderfull with snow leopard and lion but you will need it in lion because front row is gone from lion