making a media PC

[diablofish]

I have a small form factor Shuttle box that supports Socket 754. I'm building a media PC with this box - on the cheap.

First, is a Sempron 2800+ going to be enough juice for basic media uses - watching movies, recording TV, and playing tunes?

Second, since I only have one PCI and one AGP slot available, I need the AGP card to be a combo tuner/graphics card. I think I'm going to get this one, but was concerned when I read reviews about the GPU burning up. I've got no room in the case for adding a slot cooling fan over the GPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122163

Is there a better low cost option out there?

Going to use XP Pro as the OS since I have an extra copy just laying around.

 

[Traire]

Originally posted by: diablofish
First, is a Sempron 2800+ going to be enough juice for basic media uses - watching movies, recording TV, and playing tunes?

Easily

Originally posted by: diablofish
Second, since I only have one PCI and one AGP slot available, I need the AGP card to be a combo tuner/graphics card. I think I'm going to get this one, but was concerned when I read reviews about the GPU burning up. I've got no room in the case for adding a slot cooling fan over the GPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122163

What do you need the PCI slot for?

I dont have any first hand knowledge of that eVGA card, so I cant say either way.

You might loose some image quality (dropped frames and such) but you might get by with a USB TV tuner if you absolutely cant spare the PCI slot for a dedicated tuner. They are not any less expensive (usually more expensive) than a PCI version. You probably wont find a graphics card and TV tuner any cheaper than that eVGA.

Also -

How are you going to control this machine? Remote? Wired/wireless mouse and keyboard? What kind of media software are you going to use since your using the regular version of XP?

 

[diablofish]

The PCI slot will be home to the X-Fi Extreme music sound card, eventually.

As for control, that particular eVGA comes with a remote and I also have a spare Logitech Lx700 laying around which I intend to use for this build.

As far as software - I'm still researching that. What are your thoughts?

Since I have TIVO already, the primary purpose of this box is to be a media hub to play music and do some TV recording and DVD burning on the side. It will also be connected to the TIVO to store extra TV shows for viewing later when the TIVO box is full.

 

[Traire]

Originally posted by: diablofish
As far as software - I'm still researching that. What are your thoughts?

The eVGA probably comes with an (old) version of Intervideo WinDVR for tv viewing and recording. This may be adequate for your needs. If you want more features and flexibility, I would reccomend buying Snapstream BeyondTV. GB-PVR (a free program) may not work with that eVGA card, since it doesnt have a hardware encoder.