Low cost PVR: Breathing life in older machine

[Tiger11]

Hi,

I currently use a Compaq Deskpro SFF (small form factor) desktop machine. This machine is very cute, with a relatively small and quite case.

Here are the current specs of the machine:
- Pentium III 866 Mhz
- 512 MB RAM (Maxed out)
- 15 GB hard drive
- Three PCI slots
- Integrated VGA, sound, ethernet, etc...

I am getting a new computer this fall, and rather than sell this machine (best case: $120), thought I should invest a couple of hundred dollars and create a PVR. I am very intrigued with GBPVR (Thank you! looks like a great software).

I am thinking of doing the following upgrades:
- 200 GB Hard drive ($60)
- PVR-150 (comes with Remote, IR blaster and IR sensor) ($75)
- PCI Video card with TV Out (Probably an older ATI) ($30)
- Crossover ethernet cable to network with my new pc ($10)
- DVD Burner ($50)

So for a bit over $200, I am building this PVR. What you think? Did I forget anything?

[daphatty]

This PC would probably function well (although I'm a bit skeptical on the CPU) capturing regular old analog cable channels but it would definitely suffer should you decide to step up to HDTV, multiple tuners, etc. I too am using a compaq SFF chassis although it is of the 2.4Ghz P4 type so I can push it much harder.

The biggest obstacle I have been faced with thus far is finding a video card that can output a decent signal AND fit in the chassis. Unfortunately, the onboard video that came with the unit was less than capable and the 4x AGP slot it came with will only accomodate a Low Profile video card. Not too many manufacturers make Low Profile cards so you can see the dilemna. I haven't seen the design of your SFF but if it is anything like mine then I'd suggest you look at the Low Profile cards made by Powercolor (since you mentioned you were considering ATI). They seem to have the best selection of Low Profile ATI cards amongst the various card manufacturers. I bought a Radeon 7000 LP for around $40 from newegg.com and it worked fairly well. I just recently had to replace it because I found it wasn't strong enough to play back WMVHD movies which is a no-no since I have an HDTV.

Good Luck in your new hobby!

[reven]

im sure ive seen some new ATI and/or GeForce cards that are low profiles like the 9x00 series of ATI and 6x00 series for GeForce (just have to shop around). also, yeah you might want to upgrade the mb/cpu (but that would pretty much mean a new system, so errr maybe just prepare for that fact that you will want to upgrade later). oh and 512 mb ram should also be upgrade at that time to 1GB (yeah a lot of ram, but gbpvr needs it, and it makes the machine run a lot better).

[Tiger11]

Thanks guys for your responses.

daphatty my machine does not even have an AGP slot! LOL. I have to stick to PCI cards. You are right, those cases are nice but do limit your options.

I know the PVR-150 requires at least 733 Mhz processor to give a good performance, hence I know that my 866 MHz will be really borderline. I have a good experience with Windows (worked as a sys admin when I was a graduate student) so I am planning to do a clean install of Windows and disable all unneeded processes (multiple users fast switching, ups, the fancy interface, etc...) to give GBPVR all the resources of the system. I wish I could upgrade the RAM , it is borderline.

I have a basic cable service (all channels less than 100), I refuse to upgrade to digital cable, my company charge an arm and a leg for it. I am planning to eventually go to DISH, and go for HDTV / buy a widescreen TV. When this happens, then yea, I guess I need to build a new system alltogether.

[Tiger11]

Ok been thinking about expandability for a bit. Though I know that in the near future I don't have any plans to expand to HDTV, I am thinking, maybe it is worth it for me to get rid of the older machine, and upgrade the new coming machine a bit so that it functions as both a personal PC and a PVR.

I know GBPVR can work nicely side by side with other apps, but my question is, can I have the TV out port of a video card show GBPVR while my monitor is showing a completely different screen (i.e. windows desktop with email, explorere, etc..)?

I guess I need to list the pros and cons for each approach. Cost wise, they are almost the same.

[jasjol]

I read a post regarding this issue this week - search in the forum.

They had problems with having GBPVR showing up on the primary monitor instead of the secondary (TV-OUT) . They kind of solved it via nvidias programs included with their card.

[Zod]

I built a low-cost PVR from an old system, and it proved functional, but not quite sufficiently functional:

Windows XP SP2
AMD Athlon 900Mhz Thunderbird
Gigabyte Radeon 9250 AGP graphics adapter
ATI TV Wonder Elite TV input and MPEG-2 encoder
Abit KT7-RAID Motherboard
512 MB SDRAM
Seagate ATA/100 7200 RPM Hard Disks
Creative Audigy 2 Value sound card

The system records and plays back video fine, but cannot play back video smoothly while recording. The CPU is the bottleneck, as far as I can tell, it spikes at 100% and the playback slows down. Recording, it averages around 30-35%, and playing back, it averages around 50%. So if you're building a PVR that you want to play back smoothly while recording, you'll probably need more than a 900Mhz Athlon.

By the way, you might want to check out my "TV-Out Graphics Adapters" thread. Not all tv-out graphics adapters are made equal...the only one I tried that I liked was the Gigabyte Radeon 9250, though someone else said they had tried a Radeon 9250 (different brand?) and were very dissatisfied with it.

[Tiger11]

Thanks guys. I decided to go ahead with the original plan (Buy a separate machine, and use my old machine as PVR). Of course, either case I need to buy the PVR-150 and a good graphics card. If it turns out that my old machine cannot 'handle it', then I guess no harm done; I will just remove the cards, move them to my new machine, and will probably need extension cables and a couple of other accessories.

Zod this is a very interesting observation about the Athlon 900. I hope that my Pentium III chip (866 Mhz) should be able to handle it. I heard mixed reviews between who is better for multi-media, but most of the opinions I heard lean towards Intel.

It will probably be tight, but if it works with my ancient analog cable for the next few months or so, I will be happy. This machine has given me over two excellent years of service (bought it as a returned lease PC when I was a graduate student), and anything else it gives me now is extra.

[LoneWolf]

I'm doing something similar, but I think your configuration will be cutting it very close. Here's mine at the moment

Sony VAIO PCV-308DS minitower
Tualatin-core Celeron 1.3GHz (running on a PowerLeap SlotWonder)
512MB RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120GB hard disk
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150
Sigma Designs XCard
I have a D-Link wireless ethernet card in it, and the system has onboard audio (Aureal Vortex) and onboard video (Matrox MGA-200 8MB). While mine is mostly up and running, the XCard gives it quite a boost; without it I'd be cutting it fine myself.

One problem using the XCard though: For best use, you need to use the TV out. This is fine, but it really stinks for testing, because I test using my CRT monitor, and at times the signal is directed away from it and through the XCard's video out (also, GB-PVR cannot reroute signal back to my CRT if I exit the program, causing me to have to restart to get VGA signal if only my CRT is connected). Shortly I'll have to hook the box up to the TV to do the rest of my testing, and if that works.

I'd upgrade your CPU to a higher-end P3, preferrably a Tualatin or Tualatin-S core if your mainboard is compatible. Without a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 or Sigma XCard, you're at your limits.

[Zod]

I couldn't settle for a PVR that I couldn't use while it was recording something (hello, timeshifting?), so I upgraded the mainboard, CPU, and RAM with the cheapest name-brand stuff available at Fry's (I did admittedly try a cheapie ECS motherboard first, but I never even got it to POST). The system runs great now (can easily play back recorded video or watch DVD's while recording), and as long as the recording service is running in AboveNormal or High priority (configurable in the config.xml file under an attribute called something like "ForceHighPriorityRecording"), I can even play MAME arcade games on it while it's recording (otherwise MAME eats up all the extra CPU cycles and frequently starves the MPEG-2 encoder). The system specifications are:

Windows XP SP2, GBPVR v92.11
AMD Sempron 2500+, Abit VA-20 Motherboard w/ 512MB PC3200 DDR RAM
Gigabyte Radeon 9250 128 MB VIVO AGP
ATI TV Wonder Elite PCI w/ Remote Wonder Plus
Creative Audigy 2 Value
2x Seagate ATA/100 7200RPM 60GB IDE