the old hardware question -new computer...

[Bathman]

Do you really need such poke? Especially with Nvida 8 series GPU offering HDTV decoding just around the corner. I am running a Dual DVB-T with a lowly 1.4mhz Pentium M with Nvidia 6200 and it runs fine (SDTV admittedly).

[whurlston]

It's overkill for the HDTV but it helps out a lot on the HD-DVD.

[Deusxmachina]

Do you really need such poke? Especially with Nvida 8 series GPU offering HDTV decoding just around the corner.

The current ATI and Nvidia hardware-decoder cards can work well, but they also have plenty of problems. The huge thread on AVSforum for the ATI cards has probably helped more people getting the things working well than ATI customer support has. And the cards still don't help decode all types of HD, just certain formats, so for those other formats you'd still need a decent cpu. Who knows if they'll fix these problems with future versions.

Using the best deinterlacing for 1080i on my C2D and ATI 2400 (on a format it supports), the cpu can still spike to 50 or so percent. Throw transcoding or timeshifting or burning a DVD or whatever else on top of that, and suddenly the cpu may start creeping up into frame-dropping territory.

I was reading a little lately, and probably should start a thread here on, using FFDshow to upconvert SD into pseudo-HD via sharpening and denoising type of filters. Doing that on-the-fly can take a lot of juice. Most people probably don't care to do that, but it's something to consider.

For me it still comes back to how much is someone really going to save by going with something potentially too slow to handle everything they may throw at it now or in the future. I guess I'm just not impressed by most prices on older computer technology. Even selling it used, a lot of people seem to think the stuff is made of gold when instead with a little shopping around you can find a good price on something brand new and faster.

I built my HTPC to handle HD and transcoding at the same time, (just an e2140 with whatever easy overclock I can get away with), and with HD standards probably now set for the next 10 years, the HTPC should also be set for the next 10 years. Sacrificing transcoding and multitasking speed and good deinterlacing and potential dropped frames to save $50(?) over the next ten years didn't seem like a good investment. Part of that is just from how good I consider the Core2Duos to be.