Setting up a media PC - what's good at the moment?

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ezytiger

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#72985 31-May-2007 11:06

OK, so I have bought a hauppauge WIN - TV PCI card. I've got cold feet since I ordered it, as I'm not sure it's the right card for PVR. Although it does say you can record using an application called softPVR. Guess i'll have to see what happens when it arrives.

lchiu7

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#73044 31-May-2007 14:42

If I were you I would send it back. The WinTV PCI card does no compression so if you don't turn it on, you will get something like 10G/hour. I have one and used it with a product called iuvcr and turned on MJPEG compression. Even then the compresion would only reduce the files by about 50%. Some products allow MPEG2 compression on the fly but they need fairly grunty PC's.

Instead look for the WinTV-PVR-150 which has onboard MPEG2 compression in hardware. I have a WinTV-PVR-250 which is an earlier model and it can record directly in MPEG2 and only have my modest Athlon 2000+ running at about 5-10% CPU.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

gehenna

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#73049 31-May-2007 14:59

i've built a couple of these over the last 2 years and can say:

I wouldn't buy a pre-made media center pc. It's far better to be in control of all the components and to know the guts of your rig because it really doesn't work as well as it should and you're guaranteed to have to do some tinkering now and then to get things working that you want.

choose wisely between xp media center edition and vista. vista is still very buggy in terms of the background stuff. the user interface is much nicer, but again, getting it working the way you want is a challenge. there are a lot of good resources out there for xp media center and its at the stage where most if not all of the kinks have been ironed our - or there are at least some good solutions out there.

decide early on whether you want this for just viewing media/music/pictures, or whether you want to incorporate tv/pvr into it as well. it can be a challenge to integrate the tv side later down the track.

also, if you decide to build your own, go for the quietest gear you can. silent graphics, cpu coolers, power supplies, hard drives. when you wwant to use this as a media center for movies/tv then you want to have it as quiet as possible. when you start relying on it as your one stop media hub then you'll quickly get tired of a noisy rig.

i recommend building it yourself, its a hell of a lot of fun!

gehenna

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#73052 31-May-2007 15:01

ezytiger: OK, so I have bought a hauppauge WIN - TV PCI card. I've got cold feet since I ordered it, as I'm not sure it's the right card for PVR. Although it does say you can record using an application called softPVR. Guess i'll have to see what happens when it arrives.

i have a hauppauge pvr150 in my rig, works perfectly for displaying tv and recording within vista media center. i highly recommend it. if you want freeview though you'll need a digital card.

ezytiger

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#73107 1-Jun-2007 08:34

As it turns out I might be in luck with the WinTV card. I bought it off TradeMe and the guy also sells PVR150's so hopefully I should be able to swap it and pay the difference.

Discovered this week that the mobo for the computer I was going to use is stuffed so am going to need to get a new one. Grrrrr. Might get this one - Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-775 VIAM800 DDRII ($77.44 from PC online shop).

Any recommendations for a nice quiet cheap case?

gehenna

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#73110 1-Jun-2007 09:37

ezytiger: As it turns out I might be in luck with the WinTV card. I bought it off TradeMe and the guy also sells PVR150's so hopefully I should be able to swap it and pay the difference.

Discovered this week that the mobo for the computer I was going to use is stuffed so am going to need to get a new one. Grrrrr. Might get this one - Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-775 VIAM800 DDRII ($77.44 from PC online shop).

Any recommendations for a nice quiet cheap case?

I'm in love with the silverstone cases, check them out at www.ascent.co.nz or www.silverstonetek.com.

i've got an lc14 and i love it.

Mighty Ape

Shop now at Mighty Ape (affiliate link).

ezytiger

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#73113 1-Jun-2007 09:50

Those are pretty nice looking cases. I get a bit annoyed that they charge so much for what is essentially about 5 LED's and a few bits of cheap metal stapled together with some brushed aluminium on the front.

Especially since, if I had the time I could probably make a nicer looking case than about 75% of them.

gehenna

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#73114 1-Jun-2007 09:54

ezytiger: Those are pretty nice looking cases. I get a bit annoyed that they charge so much for what is essentially about 5 LED's and a few bits of cheap metal stapled together with some brushed aluminium on the front.

Especially since, if I had the time I could probably make a nicer looking case than about 75% of them.

don't be fooled by the other sub-standard cases you can get. the silverstone ones are high quality! i'm constantly impressed by the design and materials used. its heavy though, damn heavy. so thats a good sign imo!

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