HELP: Converting/Upgrading to htpc

[LeeD]

Hi there,

I want to add TV/Home Theatre-style capabilties to one of my machines, but not 100% sure what else I'll need.

The spec on the PC I want to use is as follows:

Motherboard: Asus K8V SE Deluxe

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200 (Socket 754)

Processor Cooling: Gigabyte G-Power Pro

Memory: Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2 x 1GB)

Graphics: ATI Radeon 9800XT with Arctic Cooling silencer

Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro

Storage: Western Digital Caviar 200GB (SATA)

Optical Drive(s): Sony 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer, Sony 52x CD Writer

Case: Antec P100

PSU: Jeantech 500W

OS: nLite'd Windows XP Pro SP2

I'm looking for a new, slightly smaller case, and a digital tv card that has a digital input (so i can plug a digital cable into the cards input rather than normal aerial) with recording capabilities. Also some decent speakers to complimentmy current sound card (at the moment I'm outputting to a Kenwood amp and into 2 speakers, but getting rid of this). I've been looking at the Soundgraph iMON VFD also to turn my PC on and off via remote etc. Is this a decent piece of kit?

Can someone give me some advice please?

Sorry if it's a little too vague!

Edited September 30, 2006 by LeeD

[ripken204]

well as for case its totally up to ur preference.

as for tv tuner, hauppauge makes pretty good analog and digital cards.

and as for sound card, i would recommend looking into the auzentech x-plosion or x-meridian. they will allow you to connect to ur receiver thru a single optical cable and it can encode anything to surround sound.

[bonestonne]

is it going to be for video editing alone, or video and audio?

either way, 2 gigs of ram will hardly do good for you, the tech director at my school just got a mac G5 with 4 gigs of ram for video editing, a 250GB SATA, and dual DVI out, im pretty sure his audio comes from USB, and thats strictly for video editing. it also depends on your program of choice...but as for sound, theres no 'best' system for sound, just more speakers in one than the other. i have two polk audio unpowered speakers on my desk and i do audio editing and get everything i need from it. just stick with the setup you have, unless you've got 7.1 sound [the only exception i accept] and you plan on having dolby 7.1 surround sound [which i have upstairs] and soon to have a computer up there.

[ripken204]

well im guessing its just for recording and watching movies, it is a htpc...

[puntoMX]

I would do the following:

Drop that AGP card and don’t get a motherboard with AGP. Get a new AM2 motherboard like the http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&am...amp;modelmenu=1 M2NPV-VM. No fans, no noise.

With that you have to get DDR2 667/800.

For the CPU take a Sempron 2800+ or so, you can always upgrade to a X2 later if you want.

Just think about it, that onboard 6150 VGA isn’t that bad and not slower then a 6200 when you put in 800MHz and 2 channel, giving you 128bit, RAM.

And are we talking here about a video editing system? I can´t read that in your post. How much you like to spend on speakers and amps?

[LeeD]

No video editing required!

I have another machine for all my audio editing / general computing needs.

I want to use the EXISTING hardware I have in the machine stated in the first post for my media PC (providing it's adequate) and just wanted advice on what extra hardware I would need.

So far I have purchased the Thermaltake Bach case with the Media bundle. All I want advice on really now is TV card I think. I want something that will accept a digital signal in (i.e. the cable I use to connect tomy current cable set-top box)

cheers:)

[bonestonne]

i know they make them, i just can't think of the name of the card, my older sister has one in her computer....but what program are you going to use? it all depends on what you're aiming on record to, what quality you're looking for...just do a google search for TV tuner card...i doubt you'll ever use it for bnc, but i could be wrong...bnc cards are 3000 a piece...so there goes that idea.