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Looking at the Dell 22" and this LG

Just a quick add on.
I would bet that if I wanted to do a PC and TV both ...I would need a good video card that would have digital TV capabilities for that spare PC I have in storage.
Am I on track? Recommendations?
Thanks
 
so that DR787T is sort-of like a DVD Tivo and a cable box into one? Thats pretty cool 🙂

I have a PVR-150 and it is ok, the max signal you will get is the 720x480(i think) which you will have to upscale it somehow to fit the LCD height/width. The only way to do this effectively i've found is using FFDShow for the decoding of the video. But doing scaling, sharpening, and then smoothing out takes too much out of my HTPC so i only upscale. I am only using a 480i TV too so if you go that route make sure you have dual cores. I think nvidia's purevideo does something like this too but i am not sure and in that case you just would need a decent newer video card such a 8500 or 8600.

But overall my digital cable box from Cox returns a clearer and better picture to my screen so i might wonder the DR787T would too. So i only use my HTPC to record shows and the other computer related things not normal watching of TV. But then again my video going from the computer to the TV is though s-video and it could be that the cable box has a better s-video out then my 6150 integrated GPU.

So all the talk and no real help i know 🙂 sorry. Personally i would look for something like the DR787T but that has a hard-drive, if it does indeed have the Tivo like features, and use that.
 
If you have a PC lying around it may be able to do HD playback - you'll need to post some specs.

I would suggest the Hauppauge 1600 card (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Hauppaug...tOid/-13043/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do) which includes both standard and high-def decoders on a single card. The original version supported off-air ATSC only, however newer hardware revisions of the same card will now also decode QAM which is a nice feature. The catch is, Media Center XP/Vista do not support QAM so you would need to stick with the Hauppauge HD playback utility or another PVR package that supports the feature.

To advise you further, we'd need to see specs of the PC you're planning to use in order to determine if you will be able to upsample DVD's and do HD playback. My previous MCE box was an Athlon 64/3500+ with a gig of RAM using an integrated nforce 6150 chipset pushing video out via the component adapter and it was overkill for the task. I had previously run an MCE box on a P4 2.6c with 512 megs of RAM and a Radeon 9700 video card without issue so I'm guessing if the machine is less than 3 years old it's probably up to the task.
 
Thanks for the replies.
I made this post again with a bit of a twist, so forgive the dupe.

The spare PC is an Athlon XP about 1500 variation, if I recall (have to put some memory back in).
In reading some of these replies, I am thinking that I would be woefully underpowered to experience good tv, and I am also seeing that changing ratios to fit the screen - depending on content - is something best done by a standard integrated set.

On track or not?
 
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