System upgrade - What to do, what to do?

[Big Stan]

Looking for some opinions on what would best improve my system.

Currently I am running a 833Mhz P3/512MB with a PVR 150 and a MX4000 video card with TV out connected to my 32 inch SDTV. The operation has been very good with the exception of live TV (not preview mode). Pausing live TV is out of the question but everything else works well.

I would like to add an MVP and a second tuner to the system but am concerned that it may bog down. First question: Is this something to worry about???

The obvious option seems to be a hardware decoder so I can do one of two things:
Add a Xcard and another 150 for a total cost of $165
or
Add a PVR350 for a cost of $140.

Since the costs are similar I am looking for the best quality video with the smalled load on my CPU.

Any opinions, advice, or stories are appreciated. :p

[sub]

Honestly, I wouldnt recommend anyone gets an XCard or PVR350. They produce a great picture, but are just too limited. No DVD support. No AVI files on the PVR350, and only very few AVI files work on the XCard. The PVR350 is also really buggy, and prone to lockups. I also dont actively develop or support these devices anymore. You're better off with a regular video card.

[Big Stan]

Wow! thats a pretty scathing reply.

OK in the mean time I thought of a third option which would be to get an MVP and skip the TV out from the server all togeather.

I have read some complain about the picture quality of the MVP and the remote response. In your opinion, are these deserved?

Can you think of any other upgrades (short of buying a new CPU)

Thanks

[sub]

Wow! thats a pretty scathing reply.

I've been telling people that for a long time. Better that than saying 'yeah, yeah buy it', then have you disappointed you start asking why wont GB-PVR let me do X with my XCard/PVR350.

[sub]

I have read some complain about the picture quality of the MVP and the remote response. In your opinion, are these deserved?

It produces a bit of a dark picture, but I think the MVPs are pretty good. That said, you really need a faster CPU to use an MVP. It would be pretty slow on your setup.

[Big Stan]

You are right about expectations.

When you say that the MVP would be slow... do you mean response time to the remote or would the picture quality be jumpy?

[sub]

MPEG1/MPEG2 movie playback would be fine. AVI playback would not be possible, since this requires server side transcoding which chews through a fair bit of CPU.

The menus would be a pretty sluggish. The GDI+ library that GB-PVR uses for graphics is a bit of a CPU hog at the best of times, but over and above the normal time it takes for pressing a button on your PC and waiting for the screen to be updated, it needs to do a few extra steps for the MVP. When you press a button the MVP remote, this is approximately what happens:

1) button press notification is sent across the network to GB-PVR.
2) GB-PVR generates new screen
3) GB-PVR converts every pixel from RGB to YUY2 which is used by the MVP
4) GB-PVR compresses the screen images
5) GB-PVR sends compress screen image across the network to the MVP.
6) MVP decompress the image and displays on the screen.

When you use GB-PVR on your PC, it only has to do step (2) above, all the rest are extras for the MVP, and all add time. Steps 2,3,4 are all fairly CPU intensive, so the MVP is much more responsive for users with a fast CPU in their PC.

I hope that makes sense.

[herbs]

Why not buy a mobo, memory and cpu for $160 if your psu is upto the job. A cheap semperon mobo deal will make what you want possible. A socket 754 mobo from newegg is $45 and a amd 64 semperon 2600+ retail (HSF included) is $64 and 2 x 256MB 4200 is $34 add your delivery your near $160.

[daphatty]

I have to agree with Herbs and sub, you are going to get the greatest gains from a mobo/cpu upgrade. If you can manage to do so without having to upgrade your RAM as well (which is rare but possible) then you can pickup an extra PVR150 capture card. That would really make your system scream. Good luck with your decision!

[Big Stan]

Great thought guys. Need to think big instead of tweaking.

Well I spent part of the day looking things over at egg and considering the budget need to decide between a

1.6GHz Sempron with 128KB of L2 for $64
or
1.4Ghz Sempron with 256KB of L2 for $66

Is the extra cache worth giving up 200Mhz???

Any recomendations on MoBo brands in the 40 to 50 price range? Never heard of some of these guys. (Feast, Chaintech, PC Chips, Jetway). I know poor computer builders can't be choosers but wouldn't mind avoiding any headaches others have gone through.

Thanks again for the idea.