Check a system specification and choosing a TV card (1 Viewer)

[eSCHEn]

Hi, I will be upgrading my current development system to a 64bit platform and so I will have a spare box to play with. I am hoping to install Media Portal on it and I believe that it fulfils the minimum specification but I just wanted to check. Here's the bits and bobs:
Athlon 1600XP
512Mb PC2100
Radeon 9000 Pro 128Mb
HDD not yet sure but likely to be 80Gb Western Digital ATA133 7200RPM
DVD Burner

The second part to my question is regarding the choice of a TV card. I have narrowed my selection of card down to two cards, the Hauppauge Win TV PVR 150 and the Hauppauge Win TV Nova-T PCI. Now I'm a little green on the whole digital TV thing but I presume that as the PVR 150 does analogue only it will be defunct when my region in the UK goes digital in 2008? Also, I see that the Nova-T does Freeview as well as digital but will it accept analogue signals as well? The reason I ask is that I have poor digital reception in my area, as seen here, and I would be unable to recieve two of the main five channels (ITV1 and Channel 4).

Any recommendations between the two cards would be most appreciated.

Almost forgot to ask, if I purchase a separate set-top box for Freeview, would I be able to use this as an input to a TV card?


Many thanks for your time.

 

[Marcusb]

I can't comment much on your tuner cards as I don't use those ones.

For your system specs, MP works quite well with lower end CPUs as it uses DirectX for hardware acceleration in the same way that games do.
On that note, your GFX card doesn't do DX9 hardware acceleration so MP will work, but it won't be as smooth as you would hope and you can only use Overlay, so you won't get any extra features like OSD.
I would recommend trying it out (since it's free, anyway) and then if needed upgrade your GFX card to something like a GF5200 or 6200. These are both very cheap now and your system will work fine with their help.

 

[eSCHEn]

Thank you for your reply. Good to know that the system will work without any new bits (other than the tuner card).

Thanks for that.

 

[FlipGer]

Hi,

your system is quite similar to mine. So no problems there.

TV card:
- Yes, the PVR 150 is only for analog and if it will be turned of, you will have to choose a new one.
- Yes, the Nova-T os only for digital, it will not work with the current analog program
- Not sure about the freeview box. Make a search on the forum. Most TV cards have at least s-video input for external sources.
- You might consider a hybrid card like the HVR-1300. These cards can tune analog or digital. These are no dual tuner cars (receiving both signal at the same time), they are meant for this time of change.

HTH, Flip.

 

[eSCHEn]

Thank you very much for that mate, really makes it clear. I'm not a nugget in terms of computers but you know what it's like when you get an idea in an area you haven't got a scooby about.

I'm going to go for the PVR 150, I'll get the same channels I do now and it is three years 'til my area goes completely digital so that's plenty of time to get some use out of it.

Once again, thanks very much for your help!