yet another noob seeking advice & thought... (1 Viewer)

[boma23]

Hello All

I've been thinking building a media pc through ever since i first stumbled across MediaPortal about a year back. Despite being a techy by trade, i've rarely ever delved into the media side of things, so i'm pretty much green as far as this is all concerned. I have been lurking for a while though

Please bear in mind, I'm hoping this whole unit is going to be a reasonable budget (say no more than £350 total, exc TV, including bits i have lying around)

So, I'm hoping this thread will live as my build up tale...


The first point that stuck was "what are you going to use it for mainly?"


so, in no order:

* TV playback, and occasional recording. Digital AND analogue, as digital cannot be relied upon in my area, yet.

* Music & video playback (meaning any PC or DVD based media, i.e. MP3, WMA, MPEG1-4, AVI, WMV, MOV etc.)

* MAME32 - this unit will also be home to all ye olde arcade games of olde


so far, i've amassed/assembled some of the hardware:

- Antec case & PSU: NSK 2400 (couldn't afford the fusion!):
http://www.antec.com/uk/support_productInfo_details.php?ProdID=00241

-Western Digital 250 GB HD (16mb cache, 300mb write spd, very "cool 'n' quiet" lol

-recent Asrock MB (can't remember details, 5.1 onboard sound, VGA, LAN, 2 PCI expansion ports, 1 x PCI express/AGP, 1x IDE +1x SATA II) - EDIT: ASRock Alive NF6G-DVI

- Sempron 3000 (cool running CPU, should cope with most stuff)

- 2x DDR2 512mb PC2-4200 553mhz DIMM CL4 240pin Non-ECC (1GB total)

*********************

so, onto my first question:

1. does anyone have the link to that blog/site which used to be listed on the main mediaportal site, detailing one IT bloke's trial and errors, ending in using a macmini? really useful site with lots of guides, but can't find it now.

2. the eternal "which TV card" question - the above bloke recommended a Haupage USB unit; for a dual analogue/dvd hybrid, a Haupage 1300MCE is recomendded.
At home my situation is different - digital freeview is fine 60% of the time using my Pacific set top box, but i often have to resort to analogue with BBC channels. Is there a card similar to the Haupage 1300 MCE hybrid available which can watch AND record at the same time??
NB - please bear in mind that my reception isn't always great, so a sensitive tuner unit is pref.

3. Graphics Cards - I've alwaye read (and sometimes experienced) that Nvidia are sh1t compared to ATI when playing back PC format encoded video. Is this still true, or can I use the Nvidia GeFoce I have spare??

4. not got there yet, but is there a "codecs for beginners" guide out there that will ensure i only stall the bare minimum of codecs in the right order to leave me problem free


I have already searched on these topics, but not come up with conclusive answers. The TV card is the main one currently standing in the way of the build

Thank you in advance for any input offered.

Dom

 

[Marcusb]

My bit of advice is to go for an Nvidia motherboard with the 6150 chipset. This has built in graphics, but it's actually a really good built in gfx.

These boards only cost a small amount more than a board with basic built in gfx and will save you upgrading to a separate video card.
As long as the gfx natively supports DX9 then your CPU doesn't work very hard at all (unless you get an analogues software card that doesn't have built in encoding hardware).

 

[boma23]

thanks for the reply

i've already go the mobo (it was chosen as much becase i got a good deal on that with the sempron cpu on a bundle from my supplier)

i've just found the empty box, and it's a ASRock Alive NF6G-DVI with free DVI card. The integrated graphics is listed as PixelShader3.0, and is DX9 compatible with up to 256MB shared. I'm not really sure if the bundled DVI card is an output of this or it's own standalone card. I'm guessing the former, looking at it's small size.

 

[Marcusb]

Looking at the model number of the board, I would guess it's a 6100 board, still quite good and with dx9 capability, just no extra hardware for DVD playback or TV out. Still won't be an issue with a 3GHz CPU.

I really like the Compro t300 for the TV card. It's hybrid, so you get DTV and ATV but the analogue is software only. Your CPU should handle it fine, but you will have reasonably high CPU usage when recording analogue.

I've also read that the t300 may not be so good in UK. The Australian version is excellent (and very cheap) but a few UK'ers were having issues a long time ago.
Check out www.comprousa.com

 

[Spragleknas]

The Sempron 3000+ is not 3 GHz; clock freq. is set to 1.6 GHz.
There are two ver., one "EE" (32 W) and a standard editon (62W - I guess you have the last). More info.

The case you have picked is great (considering price), although I'm not to keen on WD-disk. Consider a Seagate or Samsung (Samsung supports AAM).

4. If you only "need" FFDSHOW and codecs included with MP (although Purevideo os perfered).

 

[boma23]

yes, mine is the 62w CPU, and it is indeed 1.6Ghz. I'm now guessing that people would now encourage me to choose a TV card with all hardware based encoding...


Actually, now that I've double checked the supported Hybrid cards page (I need Hybrid as I only have 2x PCI expansion slots), there is only a choice of 3 different:

AverMedia M115
Hauppage HVR-1300
Hauppage HVR-1300(MCE)

The AverMedia page (i've added details in comment) is:
http://www.avermedia.com/cgi-bin/products_odm_M115.asp

but it doesn't make it clear if the card is hardware encoding for both DVI-T and Analogue

Does this mean that there are no Hybrid cards available with hardware encoding on both digital & analogue? Gap in the market!!



The Antec case is very impressive, intelligent design & well built.
The WD HD was a very good price!

 

[boma23]

i've been doing a bit more digging:


Avermedia Cards
http://www.avermedia.com/cgi-bin/products_digitvtuner_hybridPCI(A16D).asp?show=1
http://www.avermedia.com/cgi-bin/products_digitvtuner_hybridPCI.asp?show=1

the above two may need a quicker CPU, and don't specify whether or not they are HW or SW based.


Leadtek
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?lea-dtv2k&P=1

again, HW or SW?? how do i tell?



Finally your suggestion Marcus, along with it's brother:
Compro
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?cmp-dvbt30&P=1
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?cmp-t750&P=1

absolutely any advice on the above would be fantastic, my head's starting to hurt



Also, i've just notice my rather unhelpful thread title - if any mod wants to alter it to "Hybrid HW TV card choice" or something more useful that's fine (I can't!)

 

[Marcusb]

most (if not all) hybrid cards are software encoding for analogue.

My advice would be to go with huappauge cards, as this is what most of the devs use and therefore are most stable. Their drivers seem to be a little fiddly, but still good.

I always stay away from Aver, ever since the debacle with them not releasing BDA drivers for my DTV A771 card. They were going to, then decided it would be better if everyone just bought a 777 instead. Ever since then, I have always recommended away from Aver if that's how they treat their customers.

 

[boma23]

I understand the last comment - many PDA people are now of the same way of thinking, after their PDA manufacturers refused to develop Windows Mobile 5 releases for older WindowsMobile 2003 machines, to encourage buying new models. As a result, many are now choosing their next PDA manufacturer with regard to expected future support, as much as new tech.

TBH, given that this will be a pared down system, possibly not even running AV (running in Ltd account mode instead), I'm sure I'll be fine with software encoding.

Right, 1300 it is...

thanks for the help - i'll no doubt be back in due course

 

[Marcusb]

The extra difference with Aver was that this was a current card and they had said earlier that BDA drivers were coming. then their minds changed.
Dman (the dev here who does most of the card compatibility work) and a couple of others tried entering dialog with Aver many times to see if tehy would be allowed to do the work themselves, but were constantly blocked.

There are a lot of card makers who actually work quite closely with MP and similar products, as they realise that this is a gerat thing for their business too. They should be rewarded for that view ;-)

I'm sure we'll see you back here. There Devs do a lot to make the install and config process painless, but when dealing with such large scope there are bound to be questions. At least the process is (mainly) a lot of fun.