HTPC card?

[nanaki333]

What's a good HTPC card to use these days? I haven't really seen very many All in Wonder choices. I had (and still have it) an X1900 AIW, but the card is very long, very loud, and gets very VERY hot, so I took it out and put in a 7950GT 256MB. It's a good card and all, but I lost all my inputs I had with my 1900 AIW.

Any recommendations with links?

 

[speckedhoncho]

If you have enough room, get a tuner card separately. This way you aren't limited by what power your GPU has.

Then a 8xxx Nvidia or ATI 2900xt would be good depending on the resolution of your monitor/tv.

Also, you can get HDTV tuners. I don't think any AIW's can process HD signals.

 

[nanaki333]

i used to have a hauppage in my old xp2400 HTPC with a radeon7200 (yeah, REALLY old school). it worked great, but the hauppage card i would say probably got just as, if not more hot than my x1900. i forget the exact model, it was pretty old and just had the 1 coax input with a line-in. any recommendations on an HD tuner?

 

[Matte979]

Try DVICO for HD card and use ATI 2600 XT silent from MSI for HD decoding etc.

I use these with windows vista media center and it works great. I also have an XBOX 360 HD-DVD player which I play HD-DVDs through PowerDVD. BestBuy has this now for 179 and you get King Kong and 300 in HD + ofcourse the 5 other HD dvds you get when you buy it. Pretty good price for HD.

I still think Bluray might win so I am getting an internal Bluray ROM soon.

Blockbuster has both formats online so for now HD-DVD fullfill my needs.

 

[heyheybooboo]

HDTV PCI Tuner Card & USB HDTV Tuner Chart

 

[Binky]

If it's really just an HTPC and not a gaming maching, then stick with either the Nvidia 8500-8600 series, or the ATI 2400-2600 series. The 8800 series Nvida and 2900 series ATI cards are overkill. Noise and quality of video output are key for an HTPC card, not gaming power.

All of these cards include the capability to decode hi-def signals in the GPU, altough the cards in the lower end of the range (8500 and 2400) might not have the raw power to actually pull the decoding off cleanly. I think a fanless 8600GT is the best of the bunch right now. Make sure to look for (and buy) a DDR3 memory card, since the DDR2 cards are slower and not much cheaper.

As mentioned above, get a separate TV card. Most TV cards are combo cards now, and they can receive both hi-def and analog signals. The WinTV HVR-1600 is a good example that includes two discrete tuners. "Hybrid" cards usually have a single tuner that can be either digital or analog, but not both at the same time. Also - make sure the TV card has a video input for your cable/sat box!