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Media PC

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FireMogle

Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2001
Location
Lawrence, KS
I was wanting to turn one of my old PC/Servers into a media computer for my living room. Its going to play MP3, DIVx and be used to digitize old VHS and stuff like this. The monitor is going to be the TV, so I am looking at somthing that will at least play movies on the TV with some good quality.

I am thinking I will prob need a all in wonder due to the fact I need a Vid card that outputs to a TV and a good TV tuner. I am also wanting to record stuff from both cable and old VHS so I want a tuner that can record these with good quality.
My Mobo that I want to use is a Asus P3C-D that is going to be upgraded, what speed procs would you guys recomend? Also the memory needs to be upgraded and I dont really want to buy alot of RDRAM but I (thinkl) Ive seen RDRAM => SDRAM converters somewhere so if anyone knows where to get those that would be awesome.
[edit]
Forgot the questions
what Vid/TV cards, CPUs and amount of Mem would you guys recomend.
[/edit]
That turned out to be a long post.

Thanks for reading it and any help.
 
First off, I'd stay away from the ATI AIW, I've heard there tv tuner isn't that great. Try spending more on the actual tuner, than the video card. You shouldn't need a great video card unless your gaming. A nice tv tuner will run $70-125 with a hardware mpeg2 encoder. This is a must for a serious HTPC (home theather pc) It will allow you to record video or tv without using your processor time. The Hauppauge PVR-250 is a very good card with great picture quality, and is very well respected in the HTPC community. If you want to take a step down there are many good mpeg2 hardware cards for about $70-80 on newegg. Tv card without hardware encoders range from $20-50.

As for the processor, I'd try and max out the motherboard. It should take up to a P3 733mhz, so anything close to that should be good. Another thing to consider is that sense it's a dual motherboard, you may or may not need a hardware mpeg2 encoder on your tv card. but- I haven't done any research on that, so that's up to you. As for memory, I'd say 256mb would be enough, but 512mb would be better if you can spare it.

Setting up the hardware is fairly easy, the software is what makes or breaks an HTPC in my opinion. Good luck~~
 
I would also take a look at the Hauppauge, I don't personally own it, but have heard many great things about it.
 
Awesome guys thanks. I have an old GF2 Ultra with TV out on it, do you guys think that it will give a good Vid playback on a TV?
 
Almost any cards made in the pase few years will have good TV out.....why not try our old GF2 and it does not work very well just get an ATI 8500 or something cheap ( by the way I have an ATI 9200SE on my HTPC and the picture is Awsome)
 
Thanks

One last thing, am I insane or are there really RDRAM cards that allow for SDRAM to be put in? Its only a P3 so I dont really need the RDRAM bandwith or the price.

Thanks again
 
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