New to HTPC and needing some suggestions please?

[greminn]

Hi There, OK. I have some stuff:

- AMD Athlon 64 3700+ CPU with a thermaltake fanless cooler
- Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI
- 2GB DDR400 RAM
- 2 x 200GB SATA drives
- Thermaltake W0032RAD, Silent Purepower 410W
- Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro (256MB)
- Windows XP Pro SP2 or Windows XP MCE 2005
- A DVDRAM/DVDRW Drive
- A Dlink UBS wifi (so i dont have to use up a PCI slot)
- TV: A flat screen sony 29" CRT. Currently looking at a 42" Toshiba LCD unit.
- Got all the other SRS equipment, speakers, AMP etc. And a DVD player.

A few questions i have from here are:

- The mobo has Realtek ALC850 onboard but i also have a SoundBlaster Audigy4 PCI card available. (FYI: but only 2 PCI slots and one PCI-X slot available). Should i use the SB card?

- What do i need to make this into a HTPC in terms of PCI cards etc? I would like to be able to connect the standard UHF arial and also my sky dish so that i can get freeview NZ. (BTW:I dont have sky). Also what else do i need beyond this?

- Case: I know that this is more personal, but i was looking at something like a Accent HT-400 case in black. Any good tips for what i should be looking for here?

- Logitech Harmony 785 Universal Remote was what i was going to get. This seems like a good suggestion?

- What OS do i install?? XP or MCE?

Any suggestions/tips on any of the above would be really fantastic!!!

Thanks

Simon

[greminn]

Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro (256MB)

Note: I also have a GeForce4 Ti 4400 card. Its got dual DVI and a Svideo output) available.

[-Oz-]

much of what you have is plenty if not overkill for most simple mediapc type things.

For sound: you don't need a super advanced soundcard unless you have surround sound. On that note, just go with optical out to the receiver and you're good to go so whether or not you need a card depends on if you have SPDIF headers on the motherboard.

I love the logitech harmony remotes. I don't have that one but mine works great. You'll need an infrared receiver for it to work with the PC though. I documented mine here:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=21936
but some tuner cards have them.

Regarding tuner cards, I only know American stuff so I can't help you but you will need one and it will most likely be PCI.

XP will work fine but MCE won't hurt. You won't be using any MCE functions really.

For cases: look for something with good airflow so it can be quiet. Loud computers in the living room suck.

[greminn]

Thanks for the reply...

For sound: you don't need a super advanced soundcard unless you have surround sound. On that note, just go with optical out to the receiver and you're good to go so whether or not you need a card depends on if you have SPDIF headers on the motherboard.

From the mobo specs, it includes "Coaxial S/PDIF input/ output" so i guess that answers those questions!

Can anyone help with the tuner cards for NZ?

[psycik]

Does the card actualy include a coax SPDIF port or just the headers?? - Requiring a daughter board.

For your analogue requirements, most people look at the Hauppauge PVR 150 - single, PVR500s dual capture cards. Available most places (ascent.co.nz, computerlounge.co.nz) and many more.

Not sure which sat card to look at. There was a thread before on freeview (last week or so) where they were talking about it - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...t=freeview

[greminn]

Does the card actualy include a coax SPDIF port or just the headers?? - Requiring a daughter board.

Yep, both an in and out coax SPDIF port on back.

[greminn]

- Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro (256MB)

OK. Duh. The graphics cards i have are AGP and the mobo is PCI-X. What do i need in terms of a graphics card? Id rather go Nvidia. Am thinking of something like a Asustec 7600GS SILENT/HTD Series which has DVI, Dual VGA, HDTV-Out.

Would this be a good future proof card?

Do i really need 512... will 256 do?

Simon

[flyswatta]

I may be corrected, but I believe 256 will be fine - I've 128 MB on my ATI 9500 and it's plenty. The big thing is to get the right decoder that will utilize the onboard hardware for mpeg decoding - Nvidia PureVideo Decoder. I haven't used this decoder myself, but there's a sticky at that talks about it in some detail.

It pretty much sounds like your system has more than enough horsepower, you'll just need to get the right tuner cards and you should be good to go

[greminn]

I may be corrected, but I believe 256 will be fine - I've 128 MB on my ATI 9500 and it's plenty. The big thing is to get the right decoder that will utilize the onboard hardware for mpeg decoding - Nvidia PureVideo Decoder. I haven't used this decoder myself, but there's a sticky at that talks about it in some detail.

It pretty much sounds like your system has more than enough horsepower, you'll just need to get the right tuner cards and you should be good to go

Thanks for the feedback!.. The gfx card i think i'll get at is a Gigabyte GeForce 7600GS Silent-Pipe. Its got 256MB GDDR2 memory, DVI-I / D-sub / TV-OUT, supports HDTV up to 1080i. Also includes PureVideo HD. Pretty good for a couple of hundy.

This is a shoe-in im guessing?

Simon

[-Oz-]

yea, i'm pretty sure that card will do you plenty well