Minimum HTPC specs?

[WannaFly]

So I recently bought a new m1330 laptop, a tv tuner and I absolutely love Vista media center - it's got to be the best MS application ever made. BUT, it's made me want a HTPC! I dont have cable, and want to be able to record OTA HD TV with the tuner I have, which I CAN do with my laptop.

I don't have the money, but I have my old desktop sitting aorund I havent used. Specs:
AMD 2400+
512MB RAM
160GB HD
Cheap, Cheap video card.

Does anyone have any input, If I upgarade the RAM and video card, could i throw linux on it and use MythTV to record HD TV? I'd eventually go to vista, but want to keep cost down so I dont want to spend $150 on a license right now.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

that chip will not cut the mustard

 

[Nitemare]

that cpu will still make it choppy as heck. I had an HD video card on a 2200+ with 1 gig of memory and a TI-4400 and it was pretty bad just watching it muchless recording it.

I'd go with a 939 setup and a 64 bit cpu, a gig of ram, a modern video card and whatever sized hard drive you want. Keep in mind that when you record HD, it fills up mighty fast.

Here is what I use:
Biostar TForce 550-SE
AMD64 4200 X2
2 GB memory
Sapphire X800GT
onboard HD sound
SATA2 hard drives.

Are you going to record at 1080 or 720?

 

[Snakexor]

For 150, perhaps an amd x2 cpu and a 780g board will work. You will also need new ram, but even 2 gigs is only like $30, cheaper if you can find used.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

1st that system will work for SD, but not HD (even 720p). I currently am running an XP 2800+, 1 gb mem, and an x800 graphics card, and it won't play 720p without hiccups.

2nd for $150 you can get a 780g mobo (the gigabyte one is highly rated and I just ordered it, so will be here this weekend along with the rest of my system) for $85, 2 gb ram for $35-$15 MiR, and a cpu for $40 or so. $160 or so shipped-$15 MiR. You can drop that price by buying used off the FS/FT forum though.

3rd you will be able to get by watching SD on that box for now, but don't expect any HD programming to work. Start saving $$ now to upgrade.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

op, try your luck here:

http://www.htpcforums.com/

 

[zzuupp]

You might be able to do it. I'm able to OTA HDTV on an old intel pentium 2.0 w/ 768MB memory with XP
It did require a new graphics card. Originally, I had an ATI 9800. It torched itself when the fan died. I now have an x1650.
However, it did require a bit of tweaking to make sure no other process came to life for whatever reason. It didn't take much to make it skip before.

You'll probably want to figure a new hard drive in your budget, eventually. At 8-ish MB/ hour, it didn't take long to fill a partition up.

 

[WannaFly]

Thanks everyone for the input, I'm not really as familiar with hardware as I used to be, so it's helpful.

I might just wait a few months and try to buy a complete new system from FS/T - I'd really like a SFF also.

 

[MrPickins]

My first HD HTPC was an overclocked mobile Athlon (barton). Your setup should be fine.

The thing with recording OTA HD is that there is no transcoding involved. You merely save the mpeg transport stream to the hard drive in essentially the same format as it was broadcast. This takes tons of HD space (~8gB/hr), but stresses the cpu very little.

Keep in mind that if you want to convert to .264 or something, it's gonna be painfully slow.