2006-12-08, 04:19 PM
I am definitely a newbie with the pvr thing and it's been a while since I was up on components so I apologize in advance.
I have converted an old desktop into a dedicated only PVR machine. This is what I have so far:
- Athlon 1.1 Ghz
- ECS Motherboard (Socket 462)
- 384 mb RAM (256 and 128) 2 slots available
- Dead DVD Rom Drive
- ATI All in Wonder Card 128 Pro (wasn't designed for W2K or XP)
- Hauppauge 150
- Running Windows XP
- 40 GB Hard Drive
- Connecting to old analog TV
- Directv Satellite (D10 Box used beta settings from Hauppauge web site)
- Connecting to TV through composite
- Soundblaster Live! Card
- PCI Firewire Card (had the original ipod running on a pc)
- 1.1 USB (deadly slow)
- Intervideo Decoder
I am surprised that I am getting relatively good quality. However, I am mostly playing stuff on my laptop when traveling. TV is a lot better now that I don't have to see commercials and can watch what I want when i want.
I have turned everything off that I wasn't using: parallel port, serial ports, etc made sure there are very few processes running in the background. I don't even run real time virus protection.
The first thing I thought would improve things would be to get a better video card than the ATI All in Wonder. I was thinking of spending 40 - 50. So far I have my eyes on a NVidia 6200 or 5200; or ATI Radeo 9550. I am not a gamer but can see connecting to a HDTV at some point. Any thoughts?
The next thing I need is another hard drive. I wondered if an external firewire hard drive would be okay? Would the system be able to record to this okay? Or am I alot better off with the normal internal IDE drive?
Any other suggestions??
Thanks, Andrew
I have converted an old desktop into a dedicated only PVR machine. This is what I have so far:
- Athlon 1.1 Ghz
- ECS Motherboard (Socket 462)
- 384 mb RAM (256 and 128) 2 slots available
- Dead DVD Rom Drive
- ATI All in Wonder Card 128 Pro (wasn't designed for W2K or XP)
- Hauppauge 150
- Running Windows XP
- 40 GB Hard Drive
- Connecting to old analog TV
- Directv Satellite (D10 Box used beta settings from Hauppauge web site)
- Connecting to TV through composite
- Soundblaster Live! Card
- PCI Firewire Card (had the original ipod running on a pc)
- 1.1 USB (deadly slow)
- Intervideo Decoder
I am surprised that I am getting relatively good quality. However, I am mostly playing stuff on my laptop when traveling. TV is a lot better now that I don't have to see commercials and can watch what I want when i want.
I have turned everything off that I wasn't using: parallel port, serial ports, etc made sure there are very few processes running in the background. I don't even run real time virus protection.
The first thing I thought would improve things would be to get a better video card than the ATI All in Wonder. I was thinking of spending 40 - 50. So far I have my eyes on a NVidia 6200 or 5200; or ATI Radeo 9550. I am not a gamer but can see connecting to a HDTV at some point. Any thoughts?
The next thing I need is another hard drive. I wondered if an external firewire hard drive would be okay? Would the system be able to record to this okay? Or am I alot better off with the normal internal IDE drive?
Any other suggestions??
Thanks, Andrew