Multimedia entertainment center PC

[johns]

Has anyone here built one of these things yet? I'm
playing around with components trying to see what works, and what is iffy.
I have a nice game box in
the "computer room" at home, and it shows lots of
promise, but it just doesn't have the "look" for a
living room center. I have the following in my game box.
1. Hauppauge PCI WinTV for cable TV input. It works
well, but I don't have a remote for it.
2. ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, but I have not tried sending
the video to a standard TV yet. The card does
have TV out.
3. AMD64 Athlon 3000+ with nVidia chipset mobo
and 1 gig ddr400 Kingston. This thing is fast !!
4. Sony DVD and everything else dvdrwcombo ....
and it plays dvds very well on the PC monitor
... AOC 19 inch flat screen crt
5. SATA 160 gig with USB 160 gig drives.
6. Creative surround sound speakers.

How much of this belongs in a multimedia PC, and how
much does not? Also, what am I missing here? I
know we are heading into digital TV next year, and I'm
trying to figure out what is needed to generate a high
end adaptive multimedia system. My game box so-far
is kicking the crap out of my present living room center
.... consisting of Bose Speakers, Sony digital TV, and
one of those lord-awful Sony DVD/ VCR combos
from Kmart. Wife and I spend all our time in the computer room watching the
PC, because the living
room set is always goofed up. I just cannot program
chinese technology with 2 remotes.

johns

 

[dawg]

Just a suggestion.Wouldn't the ATI 9800pro All-in-Wonder be a better choice
instead of two cards? You'll free up a pci slot and have all the sofware in
one package.

 

[catisonh]

I have a MythTV box, so that is all I have experience with.
Unfortunately, a lot of what you have will not work with Linux, if you
want to go down that road. Otherwise you might want to get Windows
Media Edition if you want to be able to interact seemlessly without a
keyboard.

If you wanted to go the MythTV route, you would have to replace your
vid card for an nvidia and also get at least a Hauppauge PC250. I
don't think the WinTV cards work until Linux (I may be wrong). The
rest of your computer will work fine (in fact it is overkill).

I really can't say enough about how great MythTV is, though.

Brett
catisonh.net

 

[johns]

Just a suggestion.Wouldn't the ATI 9800pro All-in-Wonder be a better
choice
instead of two cards? You'll free up a pci slot and have all the sofware
in
one package.

I looked at that for a while. The AIW cards are expensive, and at the
same time, the TV input is cheap, and the drivers are a nightmare.
I have had no problems at all with the Hauppauge card, and then
I get the full blown 9800 gaming card instead of an SE / TV combo
that the AIWs seem to be. I even found out that Hauppauge tests
for compatible video cards .. and the 9800 Pro is one, while ATI
never seems to update their AIW TV drivers at all. Maybe that
will change next year, and demand with force the AIW card to
a new level of quality and performance. Right now, I'm a little
overwhelmed by all the new technology. The most interesting
one to me is the wireless box that can push my PC video down
the hall to the Sony TV. I gather it is 2-way, and I can sit there
with an optical mouse and keybd, and have a technology that
actually works ... rather than Kmart Chinese.

johns

 

[David Maynard]

Just a suggestion.Wouldn't the ATI 9800pro All-in-Wonder be a better choice
instead of two cards? You'll free up a pci slot and have all the sofware in
one package.

The price you pay for freeing up a PCI slot is a non-standard video chipset
that locks you into ATI software. Plus, since you cannot simultaneously
stream to and from the AGP port you can't do any pre/post video processing
of what's viewed, even if the ATI software had the capability (which it
doesn't).

Using a separate capture card, with a BTx chipset, opens up a whole new
world of available software (much of which is open source) and capabilities.

For examples: http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/supportedcards.html