Dell Dimension 4100 make a good PVR?

[me6]

I have a Dell Dimension 4100 with following specs:

800 mhz Pentium 3

512 megs ram

40 gig hard drive

Windows XP Pro

21" monitor

CD drive only


What Im wondering is if I could make a good PVR (Tivo clone) outta
this thing? Does it have enough horsepower and resources??

Initially Id just like to ut a DVD drive in this thing and be able to
hook it up to a standard 32" analog TV and play DVD movies with it.
Can that be done cheaply to start with?

Then....Id like to put a TV card and PVR video card in it to record TV
programs to the hard drive....and watch them later on the 32" analog
TV

Advice? Can I do this at reasonable cost with above hardware?

 

[Wooducoodu]

you can add a dvd rom for about $35 or a dvd writer for about $85 and play
dvds on your tv if your video card has tv out.

your system might be a little slow for real time mpeg encoding but you can
find out for about $50 with a leadtek winfast tv2000 deluxe card.

 

[Will Dormann]

I have a Dell Dimension 4100 with following specs:

800 mhz Pentium 3

512 megs ram

40 gig hard drive

Windows XP Pro

21" monitor

CD drive only

Coupled with a PVR-250, that should make a decent MythTV machine. You
might grow out of that 40GB drive real quick, though.

If your capture card doesn't do hardware encoding, your CPU isn't going
to cut it.


-WD

 

[Gary Tait]

you can add a dvd rom for about $35 or a dvd writer for about $85 and play
dvds on your tv if your video card has tv out.

your system might be a little slow for real time mpeg encoding but you can
find out for about $50 with a leadtek winfast tv2000 deluxe card.

Or go right an buy a Hauppauge PVR250 board for $120 or so.

If you have OTA DTV you can get an ATSC tuner board (or if you are
Europe, a DVB-T board)

 

[me6]

Or go right an buy a Hauppauge PVR250 board for $120 or so.

Well PC Mag did a review of such software and hardware awhile back

I think they recommenced the Hauppauge 350 in conjunction with a
SnapStream Beyond TV3

see link

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/

What do you guys think of that setup?

And ....I wonder why they recommend the Hauppauge 350 rather then the
250 model you mention above?

 

[Will Dormann]

Well PC Mag did a review of such software and hardware awhile back

I think they recommenced the Hauppauge 350 in conjunction with a
SnapStream Beyond TV3

see link

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/

What do you guys think of that setup?

And ....I wonder why they recommend the Hauppauge 350 rather then the
250 model you mention above?

The 350 has high quality TV-out functionality, but I do not believe this
is supported if you're running Windows.




-WD

 

[Wooducoodu]

you'd be better off with the leadtek.

Well PC Mag did a review of such software and hardware awhile back

I think they recommenced the Hauppauge 350 in conjunction with a
SnapStream Beyond TV3

see link

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/

What do you guys think of that setup?

And ....I wonder why they recommend the Hauppauge 350 rather then the
250 model you mention above?

 

[Wooducoodu]

the hauppauge includes crappy software and drivers which you must use. there
are many programs you can use with the leadtek and capture in pretty much
any format you want.

if you want a decent hardware capture card and dont live in the us look for
the Vidac VMagic instead.

 

[me6]

the hauppauge includes crappy software and drivers

The bundle only uses the Haupauge card.....but uses SnapStream
software....and Snapstreams software got good reviews