Mostly Completed MP Setup

[puzio0]

I wanted to thank everyone on this site for the great info - below are my current specs and setup.

Case: Coolmaster CAV-T04
Motherboard: Biostar P4M800-M7
CPU: Pent. 4 630 Prescott 3.0 Ghz
HD: RAID, 2 SATA WD80JD
RAM: 768 MB
Video Capture Card: PCHDTV 5500
Video Card: FX5500
Video Codec Used: Cyberlink SAC Video Decoder
Audo Codec Used: DScaler Audio Decoder
Antenna: DB2 HDTV
MP Version: 0.2.2.0 Stable Release

With my specs I was trying to go for a low cost machine, that could still perform well enough to output HDTV. I don't watch enough TV to get cable so I went with OTA (living in Philadelphia all signals are strong).

My project actually began with creating a MythTV box in order to pull down and record HDTV with the functionality to stream my movies and music from my main computer. I have a XBMC setup currently so I was a little spoiled with the movie and music features. I was able to get Myth up and running well enough to pull in great HD (after many months of reading and trial and error). My choice to switch to Media Portal came with the mounting of shared NTFS drives and streaming music and movies. On top of that it seemed like every update made to Myth caused it to become unstable.

I found Media Portal which is unbelievable. The help on this forum and the great directions posted got me up and running within a week. The HD is perfect, streaming is great and the machine is easy enough for my GF to use. Thanks for all the help.

Take a look and let me know what you think and suggestions

Setup Inside
Full Setup
TV Schedule
HDTV

Next Steps - Quiet and cooling
CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS7700 (ordered)
80mm Fan: Nexus SP802512L
60mm Fan: Papst 612F

Transcoding all DVR-MS to Xvid by my main computer through a network share. Figured this would take a lot of the processing burden off my Media Portal machine and have my dedicated computer do all the work.