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PC / PVR For Television
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
I'm getting Sky's Max package next week and if all works out I'll have 16 mb/s and unlimited downloads ... So was thinking I have enough computer bits laying unused in the loft to make and entire PC, including TV Cards, etc and turn it into a PVR,
Have a 160 MB HD and Athlon 1800+ XP and 512 MB of RAM, and two graphics cards with Video Out and all that stuff, but don't think Windows XP will display all that well on a TV screen
So any recommendations on the case and software to make it happen?
Is there anything I can use to automatically record programmes?
or some kind of Linux made for this kind of use?
i.e. PVR, TV, Playing DivX/ Xvid / Basic Web Surfing?
Have a 160 MB HD and Athlon 1800+ XP and 512 MB of RAM, and two graphics cards with Video Out and all that stuff, but don't think Windows XP will display all that well on a TV screen
So any recommendations on the case and software to make it happen?
Is there anything I can use to automatically record programmes?
or some kind of Linux made for this kind of use?
i.e. PVR, TV, Playing DivX/ Xvid / Basic Web Surfing?
0
Comments
As for the best way to go, personally, if you can stretch to it (or download :angel: ), a copy of xp media centre is fantastic. Using Vista's media centre (which is the same, except sideways scrolling rather than up and down) and it's so lovely, quite similar to sky's guide thing except runs much quicker, makes much more sense etc. "160 mb hard drive" - that's a typo, isn't it?
You'll also need a tv card / tuner, these can be had for about £30 (I got mine for £15 off a trusty member from thesite). With the two graphics cards, buy two samsung 226bws (just bought one meself) for two 22" HD monitors for £250 each
But looking at cases they're around £100 for a decent one that wouldn't look out of place under a TV - and for that money i could buy a sky + box.
1. Decent PC case
2. Good components
3. Good cooling
However, there are various advantages of a media PC compared with a Sky+ box:
1. You can capture Sky through the Sky box's output --> tv card (Hauppauge PVR150MCE for around £30 now)
2. You can play stored movies, videos, music, pictures, games etc. I have a 26" HD Samsung, and whilst I mainly use my media PC for watching TV and movies, it's also great to double up for playing games on.
3. You're not relying on Sky+ - the guide is slow and sluggish at best. With Windows MCE, you can customise the guide to show only the channels you subscribe to, or just the channels you want (i.e. cutting out the crap TV shopping channels).
Some common misconceptions:
1. RAM. 512mb IS fine - you don't need more. I've been running a 2.4ghz P4 / 512mb / 160gb SATA / Asus T2P case for around 18 months without any issues and extremely stable.
2. Graphics. I used to use an nVidia MX440 64mb passive AGP card. Worth about £10 now, it's fine for TV and movies. Of course, for gaming, you'd need something more.
Just make sure you get:
1. Windows MCE. Most TV card software is rubbish (but you'll still need the card's MCE drivers)
2. nVidia PureVideo decoder. It's one of the better MPEG decoders on the market, set you back about £15 - mediapc.tv offer it. Of course, install other codecs - but NOT codec packs (they're too bloated). DivX, Xvid, AC3 and mkv will be fine.
Hope that helps for now - will try to post anything else I come up.
A quick list of possible additional costs:
Case - £100
PVR150 Card - £30
nVidia Codec - £15
Got a 1 Ghz AMD Athlon PC streaming TV channels off the net via Wifi and working perfectly even fully encrpted. So if a 1Ghz can do it that well then I have no doubt my existing Athon XP 1800+ will work just fine for what I want - i.e. to relay Internet TV to a real TV.
Out of interest do you guy actually know who to tweak windows? I see so many people that know their hardware but aint got a clue how to tweak windows, disable the right services, change their TCP settings, etc?
All I need is a case that will fit under the TV on the TV Stand. Thin kI'll jus keep an eye out on ebay for the case.
Have to admit though, trying to run stalker at high settings at 1680 x 1050 resolution was impossible
I just installed Nero, and oh my god, what is this? I wanted the burning rom, but it comes with it's own media centre, which looks as good as windows mce from what I saw (before I clicked close).
Although I have to say read up on the ram, because I was fairly sure watching TV requires a fair bit - but if mac says you can do it on half a gig then so be it
Currently Laptop has 2GB of RAM which I got dead cheap off Ebay - but don't see much improvement over 512 MB, even after tweaking. There is soe for huge uses like JPEG to DVD programmes buy not much as windows XP is crap at using RAM to it's max anyway. And still create a Paging File even if you say not to.