Is my old PC specs good enough? : newbie to MP and HTPC

[simon_lkl]

hi guys

I am trying to salvage as much from my old PC to build a budget but working HTPC for my living room to watch and record TV programmes. Below is the specs of my old PC and my view on them:

AMD Duron 1 GHZ (sufficient?)
256 MB RAM (i think need to be at least 1 GB)
CD RW (DVD burner?)
NVidia GeForce2 MX 400 (good enough)
10 GB HD (bigger capacity HD I guess for TV recordings)

What you guys think about it?

What other components do I need to purchase other than the above? TV Tuner? And any recommendations?

Really hope to get some opinions and suggestions.

Thanks

[FlipGer]

Hi,

Originally Posted by simon_lkl

NVidia GeForce2 MX 400 (good enough)

Not at all! MP uses VMR9 and DX9 technologies like a game. So you really need a DX9 capable card, escpecially because of your low CPU power.

Flip.

[simon_lkl]

Any low-cost graphics card to recommend?

[FlipGer]

Hi,

DX9 begins at:
nVidia 5200
ATi 9550

Personally I would recommend at least nVidia 6200. Depends on what you want to do.

Same goes for the TV card tip. What do you have / want? Analog / Digital? Terrestrial / Cable / Satellite? Encrypted / Free?

Flip.

[simon_lkl]

For tv tuner, i am looking at this brand Hauppauge and this model WinTV-PVR-150 http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/produ...ta_pvr150.html

Is it ok?

[Callifo]

Yep, looks fine. About the ram, 512mb should be plenty. CPU might be enough but the minimum requirements do state a P4 (or Athlon) 1.4Ghz and a duron is the equilant of a cellery.

[simon_lkl]

a question:

how do i get the video and audio (L/R) signals out from my pc to my plasma tv?

video - vga or composite or rca? from which card?
audio - from which card?

for video, if there can be more than 1 possible kind of connections out, which one give the best quality?

thanks

[Callifo]

On a decent size plasma (or LCD), composite and svideo come out fairly rubbishy. Id put it at component/vga or DVI a preferred minimum in this case.

Audio out can be done in two ways, analogue out which if your plugging into a plasma will most likely only support stereo sound. A 3.5mm jack to 2x RCA will do the job. If you have a receiver you can use a digital input which would be better as you can actually get proper 5.1 sound that way.

[Asmo]

I installed MP for my brother ona 1GHz AMD and he's running it with the Razor widescreenskin without any probs. He has the 350 from Haupauge as TV card. Sorry, dont know the GFX card, but it wasnt a really beefy one.

I run it with a NVidia 5200 myself on a 2200+ system to satisfaction. (main use is as PVR and watching movies)

[simon_lkl]

Originally Posted by Callifo

On a decent size plasma (or LCD), composite and svideo come out fairly rubbishy. Id put it at component/vga or DVI a preferred minimum in this case.

Audio out can be done in two ways, analogue out which if your plugging into a plasma will most likely only support stereo sound. A 3.5mm jack to 2x RCA will do the job. If you have a receiver you can use a digital input which would be better as you can actually get proper 5.1 sound that way.

Thanks for the advice.

Let me say it again:

1. video out - to use vga or dvi if possible. the video signal will be coming out from my graphics card

2. audio out - coming out from my sound card using the phone jack out (the one which we usually use for speakers or ear-phone), goes thru a jack-2-RCA convertor and to my plasma tv

am I correct?