How well would this be for a HTPC?

G

Geekling

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2004
Messages
216
Its an older system..

P3 1.8Ghz
256Mb RAM
40g HD


I would but the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150. I would also upgrade HD space later on.
 
what OS? the RAM is the ony thing I see that might help to upgrade. I have a 1.8 p4 with 512 and it works very well.
 
Windows probably. I would be willing to try Linux tho. I've played with it here and there. Not even close to being a expert tho.
 
Upgrade to 512MB of RAM and add a second hard drive for your recorded TV shows.

Other than that it will be more than fine.
 
I'm just now reading about HTPC. Other then the card I'm not sure what else I need to do and install. I'll slowly learn tho.
 
I'm using Windows Media Center on the sig rig. It's the best thing going overall in the HTPC market right now I think. It's solid and easy to setup. All you need is a TV tuner and a dvd decoder like PureVideo. It can also use multiple tuners.

_____________________________________________________________
Windows Media Center 2005
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Athlon 64 X2 4800+
2GB Corsair 3500LL Pro Memmory
2x BFG 7800 GTX 512 OC in SLI
3x Maxtor DiamondMax10 300GB HDD in RAID-0
2x hp dvd740 DVD Writer optical drive | 1x Mitsumi FA404M 7-in-1 USB 2.0 card reader and floppy drive
Antec P180 case
Enermax EG851AX-VH 660W Power Supply
Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21" 1600x1200 LCD Monitor
 
heatlesssun said:
I'm using Windows Media Center on the sig rig. It's the best thing going overall in the HTPC market right now I think. It's solid and easy to setup. All you need is a TV tuner and a dvd decoder like PureVideo. It can also use multiple tuners.

_____________________________________________________________
Windows Media Center 2005
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Athlon 64 X2 4800+
2GB Corsair 3500LL Pro Memmory
2x BFG 7800 GTX 512 OC in SLI
3x Maxtor DiamondMax10 300GB HDD in RAID-0
2x hp dvd740 DVD Writer optical drive | 1x Mitsumi FA404M 7-in-1 USB 2.0 card reader and floppy drive
Antec P180 case
Enermax EG851AX-VH 660W Power Supply
Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21" 1600x1200 LCD Monitor
Click to expand...

Nice rig, but that's more of a gaming setup, not htpc. How many fans do you have running in that thing, and how loud is it?


 
Yes definitely go to atleast 512. With HD you might run into some issues depending on the video card you use. With older processors im not sure how much playback of HD hurts them also. Doesn't hurt to give it a shot though :) .
 
Definitely go up to 512 MB RAM. You shouldn't need more than that in the memory department.

As for the hard drive, definitely add more. A 1 hour TV show takes up approximately 3 GB of space. My system has a 160 GB hard drive and I'm going to be upgrading as soon as possible to 300 just because I'm always running short of space.

As for the processor, it should be fine as long as you go with the PVR-150 or PVR-500. You definitely want a TV card that has it's own hardware encoder like the Hauppauge cards.
 
farscapesg1 said:
As for the hard drive, definitely add more. A 1 hour TV show takes up approximately 3 GB of space. My system has a 160 GB hard drive and I'm going to be upgrading as soon as possible to 300 just because I'm always running short of space.
Click to expand...

It depends on your capture settings. Mine is set to 2 gigs an hour. I could even go lower.
 
on an sd tv, I can go as low as good (I think it's 1.5 an hour) and it looks fine
 
Hmm, last time I tried lowering the size the difference was pretty noticable to me (on a SDTV). Maybe i should look into that again to try to make my 160 GB hard drive last longer ;)
 
IDversusEGO said:
on an sd tv, I can go as low as good (I think it's 1.5 an hour) and it looks fine
Click to expand...

It also depends on how clean a signal you're using. My home cable has some really crappy looking chanels, which look awful at a low bitrate.

 
IanG said:
It also depends on how clean a signal you're using. My home cable has some really crappy looking chanels, which look awful at a low bitrate.

Click to expand...

Indeed.. my tv reception is pretty poor with my pvr-500.. I've been thinking about getting a cable booster but I don't understand why it looks so much better with the cable going straight to the tv??

sorry to thread-jack..
 
oh, yeah, forgot to mention that. with analog cable, it was horrible. I am using directv and have much better results.
 
IDversusEGO said:
oh, yeah, forgot to mention that. with analog cable, it was horrible. I am using directv and have much better results.
Click to expand...

Indeed i've heard that.. not interested in getting any form of digital tv yet though.. doh!
 
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