- February 26, 2009
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United States of America
So I've dreamed of one day having a HTPC. With the economy being as it is, and well me having a PC laying around the house I decided I wanted to build an HTPC on teh cheap.
I currently use this PC to Stream Video's from it's External 800gb Hard Drive to my PS3 using a program called TVersity. But this limits my ability to record shows, as well as view the PC screen on my Hitachi 42" Plasma
So with a Google search, I stumbled on to MediaPortal and FELL IN LOVE.
So far I've Updated the crap out of this PC, so that is all up to date.
The PC is an old Dell Optiplex running Windows XP Professional
It has a C3824 Processor,80547,Pentium 4 Prescott DT,3.0GHZ,1 MEGB 800FSB Processor.
Internal Hard Drive,80GB,I,8M,7.2K Serial ATA,Maxtor-Calypso
1GB of Ram
Intel 82915g/GV/910GL Express Chipset family onboard video
I just purchased a GIGABYTE GV-R455D3-512I HD4550 HD video card.
This was taken off another users choice in a recently built HTPC.
Now I'm NO GAMER, so won't be playing games on this PC. Maybe the occasional Pogo visits but nothing like COD or WOW. This will basically be a PC that I can hook up to my TV and either play downloaded video's, use with my video surveillance system or watch TV recordings.
So with all that being said my first question is will MediaPortal work on this PC. Right now I get to the Initializing DirectX and it hangs. I've verified I have the latest DirectX installed. So my thinking was that the onboard video chip is not working great with this program.
My second question is what for the $$ Is a good and not blow the budget TV receiver card? I'd like one that can record the HD Channels I get from my Comcast Cable Provider(if possible). And one that will take advantage of the 16:9 aspect ratio with out stretching the users to be fatter then they are.
Any tips would be appreciated. and If you think the PC is too old or inferior to got his route, plese feel free to let me know.
Thanks![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I currently use this PC to Stream Video's from it's External 800gb Hard Drive to my PS3 using a program called TVersity. But this limits my ability to record shows, as well as view the PC screen on my Hitachi 42" Plasma
So with a Google search, I stumbled on to MediaPortal and FELL IN LOVE.
So far I've Updated the crap out of this PC, so that is all up to date.
The PC is an old Dell Optiplex running Windows XP Professional
It has a C3824 Processor,80547,Pentium 4 Prescott DT,3.0GHZ,1 MEGB 800FSB Processor.
Internal Hard Drive,80GB,I,8M,7.2K Serial ATA,Maxtor-Calypso
1GB of Ram
Intel 82915g/GV/910GL Express Chipset family onboard video
I just purchased a GIGABYTE GV-R455D3-512I HD4550 HD video card.
This was taken off another users choice in a recently built HTPC.
Now I'm NO GAMER, so won't be playing games on this PC. Maybe the occasional Pogo visits but nothing like COD or WOW. This will basically be a PC that I can hook up to my TV and either play downloaded video's, use with my video surveillance system or watch TV recordings.
So with all that being said my first question is will MediaPortal work on this PC. Right now I get to the Initializing DirectX and it hangs. I've verified I have the latest DirectX installed. So my thinking was that the onboard video chip is not working great with this program.
My second question is what for the $$ Is a good and not blow the budget TV receiver card? I'd like one that can record the HD Channels I get from my Comcast Cable Provider(if possible). And one that will take advantage of the 16:9 aspect ratio with out stretching the users to be fatter then they are.
Any tips would be appreciated. and If you think the PC is too old or inferior to got his route, plese feel free to let me know.
Thanks