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<blockquote data-quote="Anonymous" data-source="post: 6519"><p>Hi everyone... it's my first post here and I'm looking forward to building my HTPC and using MP. I was really happy when I discovered MP was a .Net project as I'm a .Net developer myself so am hoping to get involved in the development in 2005 when I have the time (too many clients right now!).</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I have an older PC, a Dell 420 Workstation with dual 600Mhz P3's, 512MB of RDRAM and 3 18GB SCSI drives... in it's day (in '99 when I bought it) it was simply the fastest thing in a beige case but now, clearly, it's getting a bit long in the tooth - so I thought I'd convert it to an HTPC... but I have some questions I'd love to get some input on:</p><p></p><p>1. I live in Australia and am connected to pay-tv via satellite (DVB-s) so, given my PC is not the fastest thing around anymore, I am assuming I will need a DVB-S card with onboard MPEG2 encoding and decoding. I've been looking at the PVR350 and it looks excellent but also very expensive - can anyone recommend any other cards out there?</p><p></p><p>2. My graphics card is a pretty old 32MB Elsa Geforce 2 - will I need a new graphics card as well?</p><p></p><p>3. Ditto for the sound card - it's a Soundblaster and still does an adequate job but will I need a new one of those too? </p><p></p><p>(I'm not planning to use this PC to watch TV on a CRT/LCD - I want it to play back through my TV as you'd expect)</p><p></p><p>4. It's a pretty noisy machine (fans mostly) so can anyone recommend some good quiet fans... it's not an area I really know anything about.</p><p></p><p>5. I need a nice quiet drive - think I'll go for one of the Samsung's everyone's recommending.</p><p></p><p>Anything else I need to think about? If I put in a DVB-T card later on will that also work with MP?</p><p></p><p>Looking forward to some expert input!</p><p></p><p>Mike</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Anonymous, post: 6519"] Hi everyone... it's my first post here and I'm looking forward to building my HTPC and using MP. I was really happy when I discovered MP was a .Net project as I'm a .Net developer myself so am hoping to get involved in the development in 2005 when I have the time (too many clients right now!). Anyway, I have an older PC, a Dell 420 Workstation with dual 600Mhz P3's, 512MB of RDRAM and 3 18GB SCSI drives... in it's day (in '99 when I bought it) it was simply the fastest thing in a beige case but now, clearly, it's getting a bit long in the tooth - so I thought I'd convert it to an HTPC... but I have some questions I'd love to get some input on: 1. I live in Australia and am connected to pay-tv via satellite (DVB-s) so, given my PC is not the fastest thing around anymore, I am assuming I will need a DVB-S card with onboard MPEG2 encoding and decoding. I've been looking at the PVR350 and it looks excellent but also very expensive - can anyone recommend any other cards out there? 2. My graphics card is a pretty old 32MB Elsa Geforce 2 - will I need a new graphics card as well? 3. Ditto for the sound card - it's a Soundblaster and still does an adequate job but will I need a new one of those too? (I'm not planning to use this PC to watch TV on a CRT/LCD - I want it to play back through my TV as you'd expect) 4. It's a pretty noisy machine (fans mostly) so can anyone recommend some good quiet fans... it's not an area I really know anything about. 5. I need a nice quiet drive - think I'll go for one of the Samsung's everyone's recommending. Anything else I need to think about? If I put in a DVB-T card later on will that also work with MP? Looking forward to some expert input! Mike [/QUOTE]
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