Hi all.
I'm building a media centre PC from some bits I had lying around (I'm a self employed IT bod) - but I now need to purchase some bits - and as I'm buying my first house, I'm now on a tiny budget!!
So media centre stage 1 has to:
Display digital TV preferably with timeshifting etc
Record TV to HDD
Play DVD Video's
play Internet radio / 'freeview' radio stations
Play all my cd / mp3 collection/
My Specs (and currently owned components) are
Athlon Xp2700 (with cheapish heatsink / fan)
Abit Socket A motherboard - inc Audio and SATA
512mb DDR400 Curical RAM
160gb Seagate SATA HDD
CDRW/DVD combo drive
Windows XP Pro
I intend to run Mediaportal and purchase a Viewsonic 30" LCD TV (N3000W)
So I need recommendations for:
A digital TV card - needs BDA drivers to work with mediaportal / MS MCE
A decentish Grafix card - looking at geforce 6200/6600. Doesn't have to be brilliant as it won't be used much as a games machine. It does have to support a 30" LCD TV using DVI though. Oh and passivly cooled.
A Case (with PSU) - at the moment I have a cheaper silver tower and a smaller but higher quality black case with window. Ideally I'd like a small (but full height) desktop-type case but I might not be able to stretch to this straight away.
Finally, any advice on running a media centre through a CRT TV. I've already saved/allocated funds for a LCD TV with DVI/VGA inputs. But if I can get a decent picture though a normal TV this would obviously save money!
Oh, and any decent 5.1 PC speaker systems about - more of a Christmas pressie this one though!
I'm building a media centre PC from some bits I had lying around (I'm a self employed IT bod) - but I now need to purchase some bits - and as I'm buying my first house, I'm now on a tiny budget!!
So media centre stage 1 has to:
Display digital TV preferably with timeshifting etc
Record TV to HDD
Play DVD Video's
play Internet radio / 'freeview' radio stations
Play all my cd / mp3 collection/
My Specs (and currently owned components) are
Athlon Xp2700 (with cheapish heatsink / fan)
Abit Socket A motherboard - inc Audio and SATA
512mb DDR400 Curical RAM
160gb Seagate SATA HDD
CDRW/DVD combo drive
Windows XP Pro
I intend to run Mediaportal and purchase a Viewsonic 30" LCD TV (N3000W)
So I need recommendations for:
A digital TV card - needs BDA drivers to work with mediaportal / MS MCE
A decentish Grafix card - looking at geforce 6200/6600. Doesn't have to be brilliant as it won't be used much as a games machine. It does have to support a 30" LCD TV using DVI though. Oh and passivly cooled.
A Case (with PSU) - at the moment I have a cheaper silver tower and a smaller but higher quality black case with window. Ideally I'd like a small (but full height) desktop-type case but I might not be able to stretch to this straight away.
Finally, any advice on running a media centre through a CRT TV. I've already saved/allocated funds for a LCD TV with DVI/VGA inputs. But if I can get a decent picture though a normal TV this would obviously save money!
Oh, and any decent 5.1 PC speaker systems about - more of a Christmas pressie this one though!