Greetings All,

Just built my first HTPC after much time trawling this forum..and I can see this becoming a very addcitve/expensive/frustrating/fun hobby :-)

Specs :- Silverstone LC16 Case, Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H M/B, Phenom X3 CPU, 2GB RAM, Hauppauge 2200,2 x 512MB HDD, Vista 64bit, MCE.

I currently only have a Sky digi decoder as an input as have a PS3 for blu-ray, and prior to this build the sky was direct into a 720P Sony 40" via svideo. Since putting the sky into my nice new  htpc i noticed a marked drop in video quality...I assumewd this was due to going via a standatrd antenna cable, so thought I would try going in via Svideo. I have now hit the issue that i cant set this up in Vista MCE as it expects to see IR hardware which i dont have at the moment.

So - some questions i have at the moment..is there a way to bypass the need for an IR blaster in Vista MCE TV setup?  - I will get one asap, but want to  placate the wife who says "why did you spend all that money, and yet the picture quality is worse" :-)
Also a basic question around this- how do these IR blasters connect at the htpc end? - i've seen some which are just a 3.5mm jack?

And following on from this quality issue - should i really be looking for a dedicated video card (GT8600 or similar) instead or should i expect good resutls from the integrated ATI HD3200.

Thanks In Advance. I'm sure there will be a few more posts for help as i get into it!!!