Hardware for HD TV Client - would this do? (1 Viewer)

[bob808]

I have a quad core intel pc that I am going to do a fresh XP install on and mediaportal setup - it has 2 DVB-S2 tuners, and a load of drives for movies, music, pictures etc.

I want to make an extender for this system so that I can watch live tv and view all the media hosted on the box - the extender is also to have a dvd drive for local movie playback.

I have decided on the Hiper slimline case (micro atx media chassis) to hold the system, and I will get a laptop dvd-rw drive. I was thinking of a AM2/2+ motherboard and an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ cpu, with 2 or 4GB DDR2 800 ram. I would then get a silent AGP graphics card to connect to a HDTV in the upstairs of my house...

Would that be suitable for HDTV streaming using MediaPortal? Any suggestions or feedback most welcome


bob

 

[petsa]

Hi bob808,

The things that comes to my mind are:

- Consider what type of link you will have to the client, i.e. wireless vs wired. Since the bitrate is much higher with HDTV you have to make sure a wireless link can handle this.

- When deciding on CPU vs gfx card for the client you may want to consider a fan-less gfx card that can do HW acc since then you can cut down on the spec for the CPU. I'm not sure which solution generates less heat but you surely need a powerful CPU to do HDTV/h264 decoding and if you have a choice of gfx card this may be the way to go. Having said that I'm not sure an AGP card is fast enough to do HW acceleration/decoding. How about PCI-E? It would be more future-safe as well.

/Peter

 

[bob808]

Thanks petsa - it would be on a wired lan connection (well, 200mbps powerlines). I currently have a vista mce machine (that is what my quad core is setup for currently) and a linksys extender and it copes ok with HD wmv streaming.

I was going to go for a fanless gfx card, but I think this is where I may struggle with my chosen case - it is restrictive in what it will let me go for... I may need to go around this again...


thanks


bob

 

[funkstar]

How about using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H (GIGABYTE - Product - Motherboard - Overview - GA-MA78GM-S2H (rev.1.1)) add a low end dual core processor, some memory and a ard drive and you are away. The on board graphics does HD decoding and is pasively cooled.

There are a few on here that have build systems around this board.

 

[bob808]

thanks - will look into that... I had been looking at the boards with the nvidia 8200 chipset with integrated hdmi for audio and video such as the ASUS M3N78-EMH: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

Anyone seen a comparison on the nvidia and ATI onboard graphics and what is best for HD?


thanks again


bob