first htpc build

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mbben

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#87327 26-Jul-2011 03:20

hey another htpc noob lol looking for advice on building a htpc (on very cheap side) for mostly freeview , watching hd moives and maybe a bit of recording

I've all ready got some parts from old rig

*m2n-sli delux
*amd 64x2 3000+ (with CPU fan)
*1 gb ddr2-800 adata ram
*old 80 gb sata hhd

so would need everything else
TV card\s, video card, and psu
looking at the following on trademe
*nividia 8800 gts
*500w psu

Not to sure about tv card and also what would be needed for software

thanks for the help
ben

Gilco2

1556 posts

Uber Geek

#497959 26-Jul-2011 12:01

I see you have PCI-e slots so I would reccomend Hauppuage HVR2200 card for Terrestrial Freeview. If you want Terrestrial and satelite or just satelite I find the Avermedia Trinity a nice card. I also like the ATI 5450 or ATI 5670 cards but some dont. Nvidia I would go with something like nv210 to keep price down. Also I like windows 7 for media center and use it for recording and playing my media files

HTPC Intel Pentium G3258 cpu, Gigabyte H97n-wifi motherboard, , 8GB DDR3 ram, onboard graphics. Hauppuage HVR 5500 tuner, Silverstone LC16M case, Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Nextpvr and Kodi

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tonyhughes

Hawkes Bay
8476 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#497960 26-Jul-2011 12:08

Gilco2: I see you have PCI-e slots so I would reccomend Hauppuage HVR2200 card for Terrestrial Freeview. If you want Terrestrial and satelite or just satelite I find the Avermedia Trinity a nice card. I also like the ATI 5450 or ATI 5670 cards but some dont. Nvidia I would go with something like nv210 to keep price down. Also I like windows 7 for media center and use it for recording and playing my media files

I just built one.

Had a Pentium D 2.8 w/2GB DDR2 lying around and a board with 2x PCI slots.

Added:
HTPC case (Ahanix D4)
HVR2210 (dual FreeviewHD tuners) ($130)
Asus fanless Nvidia GE210 ($59)
2TB HDD ($130)

And built it on Vista Ultimate and Mediaportal.

Vista sucked. Badly. DONT GO THERE. Use XP or Windows 7.

Rebuilt from scratch the next day in Windows 7, and so far looks good and stable.

Recording a couple of HD channels, an SD channel, and watching HD playback all at the same time goes smoothly as!

Everyone I know keeps pushing Nvidia cards, saying they cope better with BluRay and HD stuff. I certainly am impressed with the low end card I got (still has HDMI out).