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I threw a heap of old parts together to build my HTPC (specs below) and it worked fine. I originally had a cheqp crappy ATI video card that didn't make the grade with picture quality so I lashed out and bought a new Nvidia 6600 card. I then bought a new HTPC case and quiet PSU but other than that the rest is very similar to what you have.
My system has similar specs and is working fine with 3 tuners in SD mode. Digital TV recording doesn’t take much CPU power, just send the data straight to the HD pretty much.
Might want to get a bigger HD, depending on how much you are going to record.
Don’t forget a MCE remote.
My system has similar specs and is working fine with 3 tuners in SD mode. Digital TV recording doesn’t take much CPU power, just send the data straight to the HD pretty much.
Might want to get a bigger HD, depending on how much you are going to record.
Don’t forget a MCE remote.
Cheers SPG.
Yeah, i was thinking of a bigger hdd. My original plan was a 200gb HDD but as the shipping of components racked up its gone to a 120gb. I might be able to scrape together some money for a larger hdd. How many GB is it for 1 hour of TV?
Most tuners come with a remote, is this compatible with MCE?
No probs with the CPU and RAM on my low spec system, I'm sure if it was running MCE side by side with a top of the range HTPC on a CRT TV you would not be able to pick the difference.
I previously had an ATI Radeon 9600 series video card (128mb) and the VGA output was fine by the s-video output looked crap. If I was connecting it to a plasma or LCD monitor via VGA it would have been fine but s-video to my rear projection TV was poor.
In answer to you HDD storage issue - 1hr of recorded SD digital TV is about 3gb. If you download and install Crunchie from the downloads section of this site you can then crunch that 3gb down to about 900mb without losing any picture quality.
Most tuners come with a remote, is this compatible with MCE?
Not that I'm aware of. Mine weren't anyway.
The MCE remote has MCE specific buttons and can be programmed to turn your telly on and of and turn your AV receiver volume up and down.
It is must have in my book, for the full MCE experience.
excellent, so i wont be worrying about my cpu/mobo under spec.
Originally i thought 1gb per hour was about right so using that program Crunchie i should be fine. Does Crunchie crunch the files automatically, or is it a process i go through afterwards?
I know nothing about Digital and HDTV in Australia. Is there any digital broadcasts? can you get regular channels (ABC, SBS, TEN, PRIME, NBN) in digital? is digital better than analog? is there any problems with digital?
Sometimes we get some interference on our Analog tv, will watching TV through a HTPC make it look any better or can you tweak it to look better. Sometimes we get ghosting of the reception and flicker.
My HTPC is running on an epia sp1300. Thats a 1.3Ghz C3 processor! It has 512Mb ram and a 20Gb hard disk (im working on a network storage hack). Im also using the onboard graphics card that uses 64Mb shared ram and has hardware mpeg 2/4 decoding. Its fine 95% of the time. Its a little slow in my movies but thats all. You can run an MCE box on a relatively low spec machine and be happy with it, so you'll be fine with the hardware you're using.
Im going to hook it up to the TV via S-Video, my TV is a regular CRT 59cm. What do you think? is it enough? is there anything that needs improvement?
Wayne
The only thing i'd change is the ram, upgrade to 1Gb as it makes for a snappier system with less swapfile usage - you can buy 2x 512mb sticks for around $150 Total.
I run the ati radeon 9550 via component and it does a great job and is passively cooled.
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HT Media Center PC: Vista Home Premium, Athlon62 X2 4200+ 65w, GigaByte GA-MA770-DS3, Radeon HD2600Pro 512MB PCIe, 2GB DDRII 800, 2x 400Gb HDD RAID0, Pioneer DVR-212BK SATA DVD Burner, 5x DNTV Live! HDTV Tuners, SilverStone LC17 HT Case & ICE Guide + WebGuide4.
Family Room: Xbox 360 Pro extender
