newbie says hello...and some help please!

[valmiki]

hi folks,

greetings from Wales! it's cold here....:eek: and wet, but that's nothing new

after having spent the best part of the last week reading as much as I can on gbpvr, I am about ready to jump in and start building my first htpc, but I could really do with some advice please, so I don't make any major errors.

Ideally I will be buying a dual dvb-t tuner (Nova?) and an analogue tuner (not decided which one), so that I have three viewing/recording channels, so to speak.

as a base start, I will be buying an antec fusion case:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/112657

i'm really looking for some help on all the other bits, especially what motherboard to get? the fusion case comes with a firewire socket at the front which I could really use, but most matx boards don't come with this.

also, most matxs have only 2 pci slots, which I guess will be used up with the two capture cards I'll need.

can I rely on onboard vga? see, at this point, I'm getting out of my depth now as I'm not to hot on what would be good to use with gbpvr. I'm looking at boards, with unichrome, shared video memory (what would be recommended minimum?), intel video chips. I have searched but can't really find much. The last thing I want to do is find that I'm underpowering the whole setup.

ebuyer do some good deals, and they've always been good to me, so if an suggestions you make are available from them then so much the better.

I'll be linking the htpc up to a 42" rear projection tv (via scart), which is 100hz, so would it be best to get a graphics card for tv-out, and use that, or could i rely on a tv-card to do this for me, or do some boards come with this?

what is the favoured way of connecting to scart used by you guys, via s-video?

i'm not fussed about using intel or amd, but i'm assuming 1gb ram should be enough for now.

i'll be using the whole setup to watch usual stuff, live tv, streamed divx from another pc, recording, etc. nothing too unusual I think.

i can't think of anything more right now, it's getting late, and have an early start tomorrow. don't really have a budget, i'm not doing this on the cheap, but I don't really want (or need i think) a top-end system! just enough to do the job, got nobody to show off to (well the missis is hardly ever impressed).

i would really appreciate for any and all suggestions, I won't be able to reply unti tomorrow evening but honestly, thanks for all help and advice given

regards

valmiki

[valmiki]

ok, i'm still awake!

looking at this board, but no onboard vga...

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/95354

cheers

valmiki

[edit] scrap that, not matx.....boo...

[-Oz-]

for high resolution tvs the onboard video didn't seem to work for me. I had HTPC2 (see my signature) hooked up to a 48" plasma and at the high resolution it was having issues. For HD people say go with a GeForce 6600+ video card so not having onboard vga may not be a big deal. The problem will become cooling the videocard. Good choice on the case though; its really quiet (until you add that video card maybe).

If you're just gonna run s-video or something similar out I am really happy with both motherboards i've used (only the ASUS one is still available).

[valmiki]

hi Oz, thanks for the reply

as it happens, i've just found these, would appreciate your thoughts:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119042

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/113975

both very similar to the one in yours!

i don't know if it would make a difference, but I won't be using HD.

i suppose i'll need a gfx card for the s-video out?

cheers again

valmiki

[gEd]

well if you will live in wales, what do you expect from the weather!

More importantly, if you are going for freeview, are you sure you can get a really good signal?

Why bother to add an analogue card to your setup? Just go for freeview all the way.

Best way of connecting is good quality cable connecting svideo output from the graphics card to scart. Set the resolution to 720x576 (native PAL)

btw: The projection unit may be 100hz but i think you will find that the svideo input is only 60hz.

I think the second board with the 6150 graphics chipset will be better. I seem to recall reading that they have better mpeg decoding support (and it claims to support HD as well) The 6200 chipset is apparently even better still.

btw: If I were building a new HTPC today, I would go for the intel core 2 duo for low temps and fastest conversion of mpeg recordings to divx

[valmiki]

hi gEd

i still need analogue (unfortunately) as some channels such as BBC2 are not on freeview (yet, maybe after the digital switchover), and I get a pretty good digital signal where I am.

appreciate the info on intel core 2 duo,

what would the resolution need to be for widescreen?

also, to try and get 100hz output, I would need a graphics card, any ideas which one (or what to look for in one)? that second board, the asus m2n-pv, comes with HD-out somewhere but I suppose I can't use this

cheers again

[ricklous]

i still need analogue (unfortunately) as some channels such as BBC2 are not on freeview (yet, maybe after the digital switchover), and I get a pretty good digital signal where I am.

Thats odd, it should be. are you not getting all the digi muxes where you live? I sort of assumed that if you were in range of a transmitter with a good signal you should get all of them, and the BBC ones are usually the strongest signal strength.

[gEd]

widescreen freeview recording are generally 720x579 with an aspect ratio of 16:9. this is the max res. sometimes, they lower it for "lesser" shows and occasionally, shows are 4:3 instead of 16:9

So aspect radio and resolution are apparently not the same thing. confuses the heck out of me but there you go.

the point i was making is that your svideo input is probably (like mine) 60hz and not 100hz so you don;t need to try and find a graphics card with a 100hz svideo output. I would be surprised if any such card exists.

[herbs]

I would visit the Asus site and download the manuals for those boards and verfiy that they have s-video out connectors as thats how your going to connect to your rear projection screen.
I would get a nova-t 500 like you suggest and then a hybrid card for analogue and digital, so in the future when they turn analogue of you can use the card as a freeview. Maybe something like the hvr 1300.

On the Wales front, it was damn cold in London last night too.

[valmiki]

Thats odd, it should be. are you not getting all the digi muxes where you live? I sort of assumed that if you were in range of a transmitter with a good signal you should get all of them, and the BBC ones are usually the strongest signal strength.

hi,

i am getting all the muxes, just that on freeview, BBC2 is actually BBC2W a 'welsh flavour' of normal BBC2, so most programs are usually on at different times, different shows, etc, hence the reason why I would need an analogue tuner as well. for now, at least.

herbs, will look into the hvr 1300 card, and i'll have a look at the manuals later tonight, cheers

do most people here connect up using s-video? there's no other way is there? i did see some stuff on using the vga socket to convert to scart.

thanks again for all your help, i'm pricing this all up at about £400-ish, so I'm trying to make sure that everything is going to be just as I would need! and more importantly I think i'm finally getting clued up as to what I'm doing.