Home Theatre PC websites

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Biotech

Steve, the PIII should work well.

I just turned my old Dell Dimension 4100 into one using the Hauppauge WindTV-PVR-250 card. I upgraded the RAM to 512MB and put another fan in there for cooling. So far so good.

I still need to upgrade the hard-drive as the one I have in there is only 30GB. Decided to go for an external hard drive instead as the old Dell only has a CDburner and no DVD burner (my new computers have DVD burners). Planning to build one and am waiting for the drive and HD enclosure to arrive.

what video card are you using with the 250?

Steve

[Biotech]

NVIDIA GeForce FX5200

[StirCrazy]

hmm ok, I wish there was a good page for how to build one instead of haveing to filtering through little tidbits of info here and there.

with your video card and tv tuner, the 250 only has hardware encoding, where the 350 has hardware encoding and decoding, how do you handle your decoding?

Steve

[Biotech]

This may be useful
http://www.tv-cards.com

[Samw]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

hmm ok, I wish there was a good page for how to build one instead of haveing to filtering through little tidbits of info here and there.

with your video card and tv tuner, the 250 only has hardware encoding, where the 350 has hardware encoding and decoding, how do you handle your decoding?

Steve

London Drugs has the 250 on sale this week at $149 (reg $199). Steve, do you think your CPU isn't fast enough to decode MPEG2? Basically, you only need to decode when you watch DVD's. I think my Celeron 300A was fast enough to decode DVD's without hardware acceleration.

[StirCrazy]

well the min requirments for the 250 and 350 look like a 700Mhz cpu, I have decided to go with the 350 I think, but I will try it on the 450 and see how it works I guess.

Steve

[Samw]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

hmm ok, I wish there was a good page for how to build one instead of haveing to filtering through little tidbits of info here and there.

Steve

Here's a website called Building Your Own Personal Video Recorder

http://www.byopvr.com/

They just had a review for your card. Apparently the 350 doesn't decoded DVDs even though it has an MPEG decoder onboard. Strange.

[Samw]

My EPIA MII 12000 arrived last week. So, this week, I'm ordering the Silverstone LC02 (Right, I changed my mind on the case yet once again).

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc02.htm
http://www.pcunleash.com/bbs/view.ph...emReview&no=14

I also bought the Hauppauge PVR-250.

I'm almost there. Slowly, but I'm getting there.

[DiscusZ]

What software you going with Sam? I have upgraded and now I am running Myth-0.16 lots of good changes, and a new Theme. I have dumped Winblows for my desktop machine and now I am running FC 2 on my desktop (rock solid and faster than my windows evert could be) I also run a Myth Frontend o nthere as wbell, I have streamed LIVE TV from my Main MythBox to my Desktop flawlessly, I have even watched my recorded shows.

Oh and The guys at myth (well MythWeb) added some of my code on the web part and now shows total recorded time for all shows you have recorded.. Very cool

I just wished my tuner card I have in my Desktop was compatible. once I can afford it I will get another PVR-350 card, or wait for the nbew Dual Tuner 350 card to come out


Jim

[Quinn]

Man I thought I was a bit of a geek... I have no clue what you guys are talking about except when you bring Windows and NVidia into the picture.