- March 31, 2006
- 4
- 0
I'm in the process of upgrading my main PC to a dual core system and will have a load of parts left over which i thougt I could use to build a HTPC with mediaportal.
The parts including the following...
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
Abit NF7 V2.0
Zalman CPU Cooler
2GB of DDR 400 RAM
200GB IDE Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
120GB IDE Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
120GB IDE Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
IBM PCI RAID Card (Raid 1/0)
PNY Geforce 6600GT 128MB
Soundblaster 5.1 Live! Player
So my Questions are...
1. I'm going to output the HTPC through my Teac surround sound amp (both Video and Audio) - Is it best to use the Soundblaster for sound or use the motherboards onboard SPDIF?
2. I was planning to use the 200GB harddrive for OS, apps and MP3. I was then going to use the 2 120GB drives in a Raid 0 Array for video recordings. Is this best or would it be better to have the 2 drives seperate and set each TV card to one of the drives? (I'm planning to get 2 Digital (Terestrial) TV Cards)
3. Which Digital TV cards would you recommend? I'm in North London, UK if that makes any difference.
4. Any problems with having no DVD drive in the long term? I wasn't going to bother with a CD/DVD as I will use my Teac DVD drive to watch DVDs and use my desktop to Rip CDs DVDs etc as it will be faster and then copy it over my wired network.
5. Any Suggestions for a suitable case?
6. Do computer remote controls use standard IR setting or do they have special codes? I have a touch screen programmable remote control for my Amp and plan to use this to control the HTPC . The reason i asl is my NTL Cable TV box has special codes that the remote cant replicate.
7. In addition the the 2 Freeview Tv cards which card should I get to connect to my cable TV box (its a Samsung NTL box) and has anyone found a way of controlling NTL STB through a HTPC?
Thanks
Mark
The parts including the following...
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
Abit NF7 V2.0
Zalman CPU Cooler
2GB of DDR 400 RAM
200GB IDE Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
120GB IDE Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
120GB IDE Seagate Baracuda 7200.7
IBM PCI RAID Card (Raid 1/0)
PNY Geforce 6600GT 128MB
Soundblaster 5.1 Live! Player
So my Questions are...
1. I'm going to output the HTPC through my Teac surround sound amp (both Video and Audio) - Is it best to use the Soundblaster for sound or use the motherboards onboard SPDIF?
2. I was planning to use the 200GB harddrive for OS, apps and MP3. I was then going to use the 2 120GB drives in a Raid 0 Array for video recordings. Is this best or would it be better to have the 2 drives seperate and set each TV card to one of the drives? (I'm planning to get 2 Digital (Terestrial) TV Cards)
3. Which Digital TV cards would you recommend? I'm in North London, UK if that makes any difference.
4. Any problems with having no DVD drive in the long term? I wasn't going to bother with a CD/DVD as I will use my Teac DVD drive to watch DVDs and use my desktop to Rip CDs DVDs etc as it will be faster and then copy it over my wired network.
5. Any Suggestions for a suitable case?
6. Do computer remote controls use standard IR setting or do they have special codes? I have a touch screen programmable remote control for my Amp and plan to use this to control the HTPC . The reason i asl is my NTL Cable TV box has special codes that the remote cant replicate.
7. In addition the the 2 Freeview Tv cards which card should I get to connect to my cable TV box (its a Samsung NTL box) and has anyone found a way of controlling NTL STB through a HTPC?
Thanks
Mark