what hardware would I need?

[stefan]

Hi,

My gbpvr hardware gave up a while ago. I switched from dvb-t to dvb-s, and got a "pvr" box from the provider. I'm sick of it already. It's the worst piece of crap I've ever encountered. I really thought it would work a lot better... It has one feature, though, that I didn't have with my old gbpvr/dvb-t setup, and that is 1080i recording. I love the picture quality of that And it's a dual tuner.

So, if I were to rebuild my gbpvr box from scratch, what would I need? I saw that CI support is coming up, which is good news for me, since I never managed to get multidec working.

I'd really like to be able to record (at least) two shows simultaneously. Can you use one CI module with two tuners? I have two antenna cables running from my dish, so that part's covered.

Are there any dual dvb-s tuners, by the way?

[TornadoTJ]

I have been fighting HD recording for a few years now, and I finally today found the RIGHT combination that does not cost much at all.

The biggest thing I did was get this new motherboard. Gigabyte E7AUM-DS2H. It has HDMI out (including sound), S/PDIF if you need optical (I did), NVIDIA 9400 video integrated on the MB (fanless!). About $100-120 depending on where and when you find it.

CPU: Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.50GHz with a Scythe Mini-Ninja heatsink with NO FAN. This is possible due to my case. $66.

Antec NSK2480 case. About $100 with the green power supply. The VERY QUIET fans line up just right to pull through the Mini-Ninja heat sink. This thing is almost SILENT.

2gb of DDR2 800 RAM, CHEAP.

This seems to be the PERFECT combination for me. I use a Hauppauge WinTV PVR tuner for standard def, and an ATI Theater Pro 650 for HD (it also has an SD tuner in it so I can do 2 SD, 1HD and 1 SD recordings at once). These tuners were cheap and work well.

Pick the hard disk you want, but I installed a Western Digital Green 1.5 TB SATA drive. It's almost silent, uses very little power, was only $135, and it holds a lot of movies.

I am finally thrilled with my HTPC!