Hardware requirements ?

[DavidT]

Hi, I hope I'm in the right place. I am new and started to look at PVR/HTPC earlier this year. I was looking at Meedio - well they sold out and Yahoo are not very accommodating.

I just came accross GB PVR a few weeks ago and it seems what I may need.

I am in New Zealand and worry about some of the limitation of our TV services - but hey, let's see what I can do.

Can anyone confirm I have found a great treasure in GB PVR and suggest what minimum hardware specs I would need.

Thanks, David

[sub]

GB-PVR is developed a few miles away from you in Wellington.

The recommended minimum specs are a 1GHz PIII class CPU or higher. 512MB of RAM or higher. Supported video capture device.

[jksmurf]

You are definitely in the right place. The author (sub) is from Wellington NZ (my birthplace/secondary school too as it so happens!).

• http://www.gbpvr.com/ will give you general requirements.
  
• This wiki section will give you some more detailed requirements: http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Hardware/Hardware
  
• This page http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Hardw...reCardList details supported Capture Cards. Note! Get one with Hardware Encoding. GBPVR does not (natively) support cards that do only software encoding.
  
• This forum http://forums.gbpvr.com/forumdisplay.php?f=11 is where you should start searching for specifics on Hardware like Graphics cards and Capture Cards and CPU and requirements. A search on minimum and PIII in that forum is a good start.
  
• Sub nearly always quotes "The recommended minimum CPU for GB-PVR is a 1Ghz PIII class CPU with 512MB RAM". Note that you will however need considerably more than that if you wish to perform any transcoding from one format to the other e.g. you wish to try to play anything other than MPEG2 on an MVP.
  
• There have been some very good threads on Video Cards recently. Here's one.

Here are some highly recommended keywords for the Hardware Forum:

• Video Cards: DXVA, Hardware Acceleration and Author csy.
  
• Capture Cards: Hardware Encoding.

There is a ton of information here and you will get lots of different recommendations, but I think after a bit of reading you will generally find out what not to buy and what is a good idea.

An example of this is Capture Cards. Sub often recommends Hauppauge cards with Hardware encoding, (not an endorsement), simply because time has proven them to be quite reliable and with a minimum of "issues" that some other lesser well known encoders might have. Digital cards are another field entirely, and I have no experience with these, so am not qualified to comment.

HTH

k.

[sub]

Sub nearly always quotes "The recommended minimum CPU for GB-PVR is a 1Ghz PIII class CPU with 512MB RAM". Note that you will however need considerably more than that if you do any transcoding from one format to the other and try to play anything other than MPEG2 on an MVP.

Hey, what can I say - people are usually wanting hear number. As you say though, yes there are lots of things that could raise that bottom line (running MVP servers, transcoding, HDTV etc)

[jksmurf]

Hey, what can I say - people are usually wanting <to> hear numbers. As you say though, yes there are lots of things that could raise that bottom line (running MVP servers, transcoding, HDTV etc)

LOL ... don't get me wrong, it's a direct quote from a bunch of your posts and it wasn't meant as a criticism that this spec is too low. I use a PIII 1.2 GHz Tualatin/512MB myself and I'm happy with it (MVP/Good Video Card) so I'm living proof it's "enough" .

What I was trying to do with the statement suffixing your general quote was simply pre-empt the posts that might say "that's not enough because of ... ".

I really like the idea of all these "old" PC's finding some use (provided folks want to stick a PC close to their TV). It's a shame TV's weren't made (in large consumer-type numbers) to attach to network cables directly, then Ethernet cables around the house could help you keep the noisy old PC in the basement and feed the TV via Ethernet. I guess better and better MVP-type devices will fulfil this function in future.

k.

[DavidT]

Thanks for all the replies. So this is what you do with those rainy days eh Sub !