Ongoing Am I on the right track with this hardware for my new HTPC? (1 Viewer)

[sirquack]

My main concern is compatibility with MediaPortal, I'm sure I'll be fine, just wanted your feedback. I'm currently testing it on an old AMD 1.2 Socket A system with 256Ram and a GeForce2 card and it works pretty good.

My next step is to buy a compatible OTA ATSC tuner card, any advice would be appreciated. I also need to know if I'll run into any problems using the VFD display on my new case with MediaPortal?

So far this is what I'll be starting with:

Ahanix D4 HTPC Media Case
http://www.directron.com/x232.html

Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard

GIGABYTE GV-NX66T128D-SP Geforce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card Passive Cooled

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory

Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive for O/S

Thanks Randy

 

[moullas]

I can comment about the case... i have an Ahanix MCE601, and i think they utilize the same VFD, it works fine most of the time, but it gives some strange characters after some time of usage.
I could pinpoint the problem , since i didn't bother much..
Other than that, the Ahanix build quality is very good, and i think the D4 has plenty of space to do whatever you want inside..
Btw, i'm also having some issues with fan noise from the Ahanix PSU, so maybe you should invest in a silent PSU for that one...

 

[sirquack]

Thanks for the reply, I see a lot of people have read my post with no replies, so thanks again.

I see the VFD on the Ahanix case comes with software installation disks. One of them being for MCE2005. If I am using Media Portal, I assume I would not need to worry about that installation, or does Mediaportal look at the same drivers, etc...?

In regards to the Fans and PSU Fan, the description mentioned that they are silent versions. I'll have to wait and see. I will be installing XP Pro on this machine.

Was also looking at Theatertek. I wonder how the image quality compares to the built in scaler. Does everyone use DScaler, or one of the other options?

Thanks again...

 

[moullas]

MP has the external display plugin, and you set that to the Hitachi 44740 (or something similar, can't remember by heart) after you install the drivers from the disks, and that's it...

Btw, i also read the description of the MCE601 before buying it, and it also said silent, but still it's a bit noisy for my standards.... (i can hear it from 4.5m away) but you can always change the psu later