Video card and tuner to watch HDTV on my pc?

[Dman877]

Is a 7300GT fast enough to run 720p/1080i stutter free? Should I go with a 7600GS instead? Do the 7300's support all the purevideo stuff? I want to use this comp as an htpc so dvd playback is important.

Also, what's a good HD tuner? I was looking at ATI's 650 Pro but it's been recalled and I have no idea when it will be re-released.

I'll probably load up Beyond TV on the system in my sig along with the new video card and tuner.

 

[xtknight]

The 7300GT (and any G7x) should be able to decode up to 1080p (MPEG2, WMV-HD, or H.264) flawlessly with its dedicated video processor chip. Any DXVA-compliant DVD decoder should be able to take advantage of its MPEG2 decode acceleration, and the PureVideo decoder will enable the extra IQ features (other decoders probably can too). The "Da Vinci Code 1080i Teaser" plays fine with H.264 accel on my 7800GT with the only bottleneck being I/O (reads from hard disk).

Feature chart here: http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

The 7300GT isn't listed but I can't see why it would support any less than the 7300GS.

Do note if you ever decide to use MythTV (Linux HTPC software) you may not be able to use these features (only the MPEG2 HW accel would work).

 

[Dman877]

Thanks xtk. I'm actually not too concerned with h264 or WMV-HD. I'm gonna get an antenna and try to get some over-the-air HD channels at my new place. I've read at various sites that you need a good video card and cpu for this. Hopefully a 7300GT will be enough.

Any tuner advice?

 

[xtknight]

For HD capture cards, the MyHD MDP-130 and FusionHDTV 5. As for which one's better, I really have no idea but I know both of those are frequently mentioned. Hopefully someone with more HD card experience can chime in. I've only used an external HD tuner with OTA (but I'm impressed with HDTV OTA in general).

The video card won't have to do any processing if the HD tuner has a hardware decoder onboard.

Wow, CompUSA has stocked the MDP-130. Finally a partially reputable place that cares about HD. http://www.compusa.com/products/product...en=froogle&cm_cat=&cm_pla=&cm_ite=feed

The Fusion looks like a great value too. http://store.snapstream.com/fusionhdtv-gold.html

 

[xbassman]

The video card won't have to do any processing if the HD tuner has a hardware decoder onboard

This really isn't true.

According to microsoft spec, your video card needs to have 10gbps memory bandwidth.
That said, my HDTV playback wasn't very good until I upgraded my VC to a 6600GT AGP.
I am only using a 2500+ XP/ nforce2 system.

I am using an AverMedia A180 HD capture card (came bundled w/ SageTV) and I have excellent playback in 1080i and 720p. I also have a VBOX Cat's Eye USB tuner as well. (It isn't hooked up yet)

For the most comprehensive info on HTPC usage check out :AVS Forums HPTC section