Best way to hardware upgrade? (1 Viewer)

[mvdlans]

At the moment I have the following hardware:

Abit NF7-S
AMD Barton MP2400+ running on 2,0GHz
1GB PC3200
200 + 400 GB ATA harddisk
Geforce4 Ti4600

Media Portal works fine on this hardware, but it randomly freezes. Windows is working fine, so every time Media Portal freezes, I have to kill the process MediaPortal.exe in Task Manager.

I think the videocard may be the problem, because it don't support Directx 9.0c.

So I'm looking for some new hardware:
Hauppauge PVR 500 MCE (specially for hardware encoding)
ATI Radeon 2400Pro 256MB DVI/HDCP (specially for powerfull HD video acceleration)

Would this help me a lot or can I better go for a new HTPC with Core 2 Duo E6550?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Spragleknas]

Hi, and welcome

A 2400pro would be a good choice, considering the price.
Also: Remember that PVR-500 has two tuners - do you really need this?

If you are satisfied with the noise level for your system (XP CPU's generate a lot of heat) than you should be able to play around with MP...

 

[mvdlans]

If you are satisfied with the noise level for your system (XP CPU's generate a lot of heat) than you should be able to play around with MP...
What do you mean with this? I'm dutch, so my English is not so good.

2400Pro should help me a lot?

Which TV card can I use with one tuner and a remote?

 

[Spragleknas]

Q: 2400Pro should help me a lot?
A: Yes

Q: What do you mean with this?
A: That I would guess that you never get a silent HTPC using your HW. Nothing else

 

[ThaClown]

Sorry in dutch:
mvdlans ik ben bezig met een uitgebreide howto voor MediaPortal in het Nederlands hier:
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/29240352#29240352

Ik heb zelf een HD2400Pro, ben er zeer teverden mee, is een erg goede keus!

 

[mvdlans]

Spragleknas: thanks for your answers!

ThaClown: dankzij jouw topic heb ik nu een HTPC! Heb complete serie van Friends, alleen lastig te importeren in TV Series, dus moet nog kijken hoe en wat. Ben bang dat ik elke aflevering toch afzonderlijk als AVI moet converteren...

 

[Spragleknas]

ThaClown: Not to hi-jack this thread, but I actually understand some dutch, so:
Can you force (even if it is not supported by TV's EDID) the HD2400pro to do 50 Hz - independent of resolution (in my case 1080p) w/Catalyst 7.11

 

[ThaClown]

Spragleknas: Maybe stupid question but why would I want 50 Hz?
Will try Catalyst 7.11 (have 7.10 atm)

@ThaClown: dankzij jouw topic heb ik nu een HTPC! Heb complete serie van Friends, alleen lastig te importeren in TV Series, dus moet nog kijken hoe en wat. Ben bang dat ik elke aflevering toch afzonderlijk als AVI moet converteren...

Mooi zo, blij dat het werk wat mensen blij maakt.
Als je Friend in TV Series wil wel ja... je moet de afleveringen los hebben...

Je zou de DVD's van de serie ook onder films kunnen plaatsen, maar ikzelf wil ook netjes films onder films en series onder series.
Dus ik rip idd ook alles

 

[Spragleknas]

Eh... for PAL material...?

Countries and territories that once used PAL
(...)
Netherlands Netherlands (switched to DVB-T)
(...)

 

[ThaClown]

Haha oops my bad!
*studying all about basic TV and PC standards now*