Newbie, Will it Work

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SparkyNZL

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#28918 16-Dec-2008 11:26

Im looking at putting a HTPC and I just want to know it should work before I got spending. my main area of concern being using the onboard grahics with a TV tunner card, or do I realy need to get a separete Graphics card (I was hopeing to later on stick a second TV Tunner card into the PCIe x16 Slot to record a second channel, does anyone know if this would work ??).

What Im looking at putting togetter is

Shuttle XPC SN78SH7 with nVidia 8200 HDMI
AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core 8650 2.3GHz CPU
2x2Gb DDR2 800MHz Ram
Seagate Baracuda 500Gb SataII 3.5" 7200rpm 32mb cache Hard drive
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1300 PCI TV Tuner card

I plan on using Ubuntu & MythTv on it to record freeview mainly

any hints, tips, or comments greatly appreciated

eXDee

4032 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#184486 16-Dec-2008 12:11

The 8200 struggles with with viewing freeview HD. Simply doesnt cut it.
The HVR-1300 is single tuner, why not get a HVR-2200? its only a bit more and has dual tuner.
Ubuntu/MythTV i believe do not work well with freeview HD (openmedia might be able to update us on this), and you definitely cannot use video acceleration under linux with the 8200 anyway. I believe ATI is trying to work towards hardware acceleration under linux, but pretty much windows seems to be the only stable way to get it going (haha irony).

CYaBro

4586 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#184487 16-Dec-2008 12:13

Welcome to Geekzone!

I take it, since you are getting a DVB-T TV Tuner, that you are going to be recording/watching Freeview|HD?

I'm not up with the play on that as I live in an area where it is not available

but I do know that you will need a video card that supports hardware decoding of x264.
The onboard 8200 in that Shuttle will not work.
The 8500GT seems to be the most popular here.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Wervie67

71 posts

Master Geek

#185303 20-Dec-2008 13:08

if money is an obstacle
it might be a good idea if you downgrade a little on the cpu. and spend the extra cash on a gpu, a gpu is almost always essential on a HTPC.also the HVR-2200 seems like a good idea

other wise every thing else looks sweet!good luck!

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#185536 21-Dec-2008 20:42

Also, TV tuner cards don't use the PCI-e x16 slot. They are dedicated for graphics cards only. Get an HVR-2200 card. If by some small miracle of NZ TV broadcasting they put enough programmes of interest on, and you have two either x1 or x2 slots; I can't remember, you can get another 2200 & have four tuners.

Either Mediaportal or GB-PVR for your Freeview frontend. Both are great programmes: your choice. So don't buy the more expensive versions of Windows Vista: the ones with their version of media centre, that app is not needed, maybe. Others could probably direct you better, there, I'm still using XPMCE.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector