I want to make my pc a dvr... Do I have enough?

[fastcat314]

Ok I have an older pc it has an amd sempron 2800 (1.8ghz), 1gb ram (2gb max), and a geforce tc 5900 ultra vid card (256 ram). Running xp. All I want to do is surf the web, watch movies, and record digital cable. Is my system fast enough? Or do I need to upgrade it start from scratch. I want to record in hd and I want playback to be smooth, with zero chopping. And what type of tv card should I look into?

 

[pete1229]

I am sorry to say with that system you will more than likely be terribly disappointed. The processor is way to slow. the video card memory is bare minimum so you will get choppy streaming and the system memory needs to be at least 4Gb. Do some research, tom's hardware is a great website that will guide you through what you need.

 

[Murloc]

just try it and see if it can run full hd video, I have my doubts though.

 

[denis280]

I am sorry to say with that system you will more than likely be terribly disappointed. The processor is way to slow. the video card memory is bare minimum so you will get choppy streaming and the system memory needs to be at least 4Gb. Do some research, tom's hardware is a great website that will guide you through what you need.

Agree 100%. you should start thinking for a new built.

 

[Cerb]

For OTA or in-the-clear cable HD, a good capture card will do. For NTSC capture, a used PCI Hauppage PVR-150 is easy to get ahold of, and excellent. When you say, "digital cable," though, that makes me think a cable box, which means you'll have to tune the cable box from the PC, which can get involved.

But, otherwise, it's just too old, and was low-end when it was new. It should play back HD OK (based on using a Turion 1.8GHz), but don't expect 100% smoothness 100% of the time, and 1GB RAM is a serious limitation for just web browsing, these days.

On the bright side, anything from a used Core 2 Duo on up, >=2.4GHz, with 4GB+ RAM, will have the oomph necessary and then some, if you want to be cheap, and anything but an Intel Atom or AMD C-/E-series will have the power, when it comes to new stuff.

Due to the digital cable part, my thinking would be to check out the logistics of tuning and recording, before going about figuring out a new computer.

 

[fastcat314]

Ok looks like ill build a new pc. And yea it will he a very cheap one. And when I say digital cable, I'm just referring to the cable wire running straight to the tv, no boxes, and the only hd channels are local stations. So would I still need a special cable card, or what everything be plug and play? Also I need advice on processors becuase I'm out the loop on them. I just need something cheap and powerful enough to do what I want.

 

[denis280]

when you get your motherboard.or pc. get one with hdmi output

 

[fastcat314]

when you get your motherboard.or pc. get one with hdmi output

Is that for a built-in vid card?

 

[Cerb]

Is that for a built-in vid card?

Whichever you happen to use.

 

[fastcat314]

Ok, well I haven't really played around with pc hardware in about 10 yrs. So I need a crash course in mbs and cpus. I seen a XFX 8200 Geforce motherboard mb, it has an hdmi out, and I also found a phenom II 965 QUAD core. Would this be sufficient? What's the deal with the cores? I'm assuming the more the better. I can reuse me old hdd and dvd burner and add some ram and I'm almost there right?

And is 80 bucks cool for that combination

 

[denis280]

now you should post in General hardware and fil the sticky http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=80121

 

[Cerb]

Ok, well I haven't really played around with pc hardware in about 10 yrs. So I need a crash course in mbs and cpus. I seen a XFX 8200 Geforce motherboard mb, it has an hdmi out, and I also found a phenom II 965 QUAD core. Would this be sufficient?

Maybe. The CPU will be far, far, more than needed. The IGP, I dunno.

What's the deal with the cores?

Multiple processors in one, the likes of which used to take multiple sockets. Due to historical vocabulary having already used up, "multiprocessor," to mean what we call a single processor, today, they had to name it something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_processor

I'm assuming the more the better.

Not necessarily. Each one only goes so fast, and not everything can use many of them.

But, seriously, the first thing you need to do is figure out the logistics of tuning, with your cable, if you want more than just the free and clear channels. There's plenty of hardware capable of doing the processing, but if you have to tune a cable box, that can take some real work, depending on cable box you have, and could affect what DVR software you can use. It could be as simple as an IR blaster with plain old Windows Media Center, or even just plugging it into your network, you might luck up and be able to use a CableCARD, a firewire card and middleware, needing to use Linux, needing to hunt down a suitable cable box/dvr supported by your cable company, etc..

When I'm having issues, I generally up at AVSForums or Ars Technica's forums.