Is GB-PVR right for me?

[der Karl]

I wasn't finding the specific answers to my questions on the site or wiki, so I decided to levy them here.

First off I'll describe my situation. I was recently relaxing when I decided that I wanted to start playing the game Earthbound, on an emulator that is. I was
sitting in my living room and I thought to myself, “I've got to get something set up so I can play this on my TV not my computer.” I've been kicking around the idea of making a cheap little computer to put on the home network so I can watch all of the digital media I acquire, listen to my entire music library on the big stereo (sans iPod relay that is), surf from the couch, emulate, etc...

I have some spare parts lying around from when I upgraded my PC last fall, processor, RAM, HD, DVD drive. So I finally decided I should buy a barebone PC off of newegg and get this done, relying on the fact that I'm being thrifty not impulsive so as to spend the bare minimum. I should point out that I'm not hugely computer savvy, but I'm computer literate and have an engineering background, so I can pick this stuff up with the proper resources. I've built a computer from parts once, and upgraded it once w/o complications, but thats not saying much.

I then got to thinking that paying $300 for digital media playback, web browsing, music access, and game emulation on my TV might be not be cost effective, when my XBOX360 can now handling video files on my TV, I'll always have my main PC for the web, my iPod hooks up to my stereo, and earthbound will always be on my PC. Which led to the epiphany, if I can make this potential little box that could into a DVR with all of the above mentioned to boot, that would be worth it.

Heres my current entertainment setup:

• 37” Olevia LCD TV, 720p
  
• standard cable (HD not worth a cent more, well not a few thousand cents more per month)
  
• cable highspeed internet
  

Computer parts wise I've got laying around:

• 3.0GHz Pentium D processor
  
• 1 Gb of RAM
  
• a 150 Gb HD, IDE
  
• obtaining windows XP not a problem
  

For this prospective box I'm thinking of getting:

• Shuttle SG31G2S, barebones computer, would be hooking up the DVI to my TV
  
• Open to a bigger HD
  
• DVD ROM drive
  
• One of those Haupguage TV capture cards
  

So now comes the negotiation part, would the above equipment be workable with GB-PVR? If I couldn't use that processor lying around I wouldn't be happy, I'm also quite partial to the form factor of those shuttle barebones.

As far as functionality of the program itself, I would stress that I'm really looking at being able to have this box as a fully functional PC as well, it wouldn't just always be stuck in PVR mode, I still want to surf the web, browse my main PCs files, and use existing applications like a normal computer. So, all of that considered, does anyone think that GB-PVR is right for me or not?

[wtg]

Your parts attached to a motherboard with on-board video should be more than enough for your PVR. I think you'll be quite satisfied as long as you aren't gonna try HD. HD would take little more coin being spent on your graphics card.

When you go for a Hauppauge card, you need one of the ones with a hardware encoder, so look for the PVR-150 or 500, or if you want SD now but HD as an option in the future, the HVR-1600 seems like a pretty popular choice. Depending on your cable provider, there's a good chance you'll find the local HD stations in clear QAM - no cable box or extra cable charge.

[Deusxmachina]

Specs look plenty for non-HD. Should be fine being a normal computer at the same time unless maybe you're trying to play a heavy game on it while the computer needs resources for other things.

Using the same computer for regular computer stuff is generally "fine," but when wanting a computer to handle basically all of one's media needs other than heavy games, tweaking and fiddling and rebooting can need to be done. You're basically making a high-powered Tivo here, and it's nice to have it dedicated to Tivo-like things. So, yeah, looks like you're off to a good start.

You probably meant DVD burner instead of DVD-ROM. If not, there's not much point in getting a rom when a burner isn't much more. It only takes one time of wanting to burn something with it and can't to turn into, "Damn, I should have spent five more bucks and got the burner."

[stefan]

Yeah, like they said, the specs will be fine. Bigger HD... you'll always want that when starting to record stuff What you also might want to consider is a wireless keyboard/mouse. If you go for the hauppauge 150/500, be sure to get one with a remote. There are cheaper versions without a remote.