Video card for an HTPC

[DoubleHelix747]

Hi all, I am doing a little DIY project - converting an old Dell Dimension 8250 into a home theater pc with DVR functionality. I need some advice on the video card. This is my first meaningful PC-related DIY, so be gentle if I ask something stupid.

Current PC specs:
P4 2.4GHz
RDRAM: 1GB
Video: 64MB nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 Graphics Card with TV-Out and AGP 8X (I have no idea how many bits is this card but I doubt anything impressive)
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 (to be bought)
There is no PCI-express slot in the PC.

Intended use:
HD-Home theater PC
HD-DVR
HD Video streaming
Gaming - perhaps, but I doubt anything really strenuous.

Budget:
Hehe... whaddya think... somewhere between $40-$100.

I gather from googling that GeForce4 MX 420 is as basic as it gets.

Question: Would it be correct to assume that going to a 256MB 128-bit AGP 8x would give me (1) a huge improvement on the current set up and (2) be sufficient for the intended use (see above) (3) Would it make any sense to go to 512MB card?

Question: I can get an nVidia GeForce 6600GT, ATI Radeon 9550 XL, Asus nVidia GeForce 7600GS, ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, etc. on ebay for around $40. Would these suffice? Any one particularly better than the other?

Other suggestions?

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[Concillian]

The issue is that the CPU won't handle HD decompression realtime without h.264 acceleration and there aren't many AGP cards that offer that.

Honestly the best bet is to junk the mobo / card / RAM and replace it with a 780G / 4850e / DDR2. Sounds expensive, but is about $150. If you needed to later add more video horsepower for gaming beyond the integrated graphics, you could for around $75 if you aren't going to be doing things that are too strenuous.

cards that offer h.264 acceleration are nVidia 8xxx series and higher / ATi x2xxx series and HD3xxx series and higher.

The other major issue with older graphics cards is Digital Rights Management. Older cards will not have HDCP. You won't be able to play back any encrypted channels or Blu-ray over a non-HDCP video link (HDMI). You would be limited to Over The Air channels.

The Digital Rights Management throws anything "old" completely out the window. Unfortunately, I just don't think it's going to be easy to do what you need to do for HD. SD is easy, HD, not so much.

 

[DoubleHelix747]

Concillian,

Thanks for your advice. I never thought of the HDCP compliance. Is HDCP becoming or is on its way to becoming the de facto standard for HD transmission across devices? Although your point is well taken, I cannot fathom this happening because it would require a wholesale switch from almost every digital consumer electronic device that was produced in 2007 or before. And this includes a good number of the HDTVs and flat panel monitors that have been already sold to probably half the population! Also, can you think of what this will do the cable and satellite providers - they will have to go and change every set top box along with all interconnecting cables. That would be a holy mess of nth order. I know MPAA and the likes would like nothing but HDCP to become the way of life, but how probable is that in the near term (~ 5 years)? If all this is true, I am really behind the technology curve...

As to h.264 acceleration - I see that I can get nVidia GeForce 7600GS for about $33.
According to this nVidia document

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/...roduct_Comparison.pdf)

7600GS has h.264 acceleration. Even the AGP version (scroll to far right). If true, I will have to check the power supply to see if it can support the card.

In any case, you raised good points - food for thought. The reason I stayed away from replacing the mobo/vc/ram was that somewhere on AT I read that Dell Dimensions 8250s were notoriously difficult to upgrade. I will look into that more. However, if HDCP is a problem, then I have bigger problem then this darn PC - every consumer electronics in the house has to go eventually. What a scam!

Thanks again.

 

[Concillian]

HDCP is not the defacto transmission of data, it's the defacto DRM handling algorithm. It's not becoming that, it is that.

Video cards have already completed the transition, every modern card is definitely HDCP compliant, be it through HDMI or DVI, they carry the proper DRM information. They were really one of the last pieces of hardware to do that. The rest of the electronics world had already pretty much completed the movement to HDMI as "the HD connector" even if it is immensely more difficult to build connectors for than DVI.

HDCP is not an issue for older electronics, because the DRM is only being used on HD content. Eventually it will all get upgraded to HDCP compliant hardware, but that will happen just due to obsolescence. When a DVD player breaks, people will buy Blu-ray, which are all HDCP compliant. When they upgrade their reciever to handle all the HDMI connector switching, that will be HDCP compliant... etc...

Early HD adopters end up totally screwed. Blame the politicians and the lawyers, who hold corporate rights holier than privacy and consumer rights.

 

[DoubleHelix747]

Thank you for educating me on this... very interesting. I realize I have aged too fast too soon.

So am I correct to gather from your reply that if a device has an HDMI and/or DVI I/O, it is HDCP compliant? Or this statement true only for newer electronics and older units could still have HDMI/DVI but not be HDCP complaint?

I promise this is the last question ;-) Thanks again!

 

[rustyjeep]

Are you going to do any HD TV? I've got about the box (an old IBM S50) with a PCI video card that works great for recording and playing back standard analog TV. It even handles DVDs fine, but I'd never try to give it and HD.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: DoubleHelix747
Thank you for educating me on this... very interesting. I realize I have aged too fast too soon.

So am I correct to gather from your reply that if a device has an HDMI and/or DVI I/O, it is HDCP compliant? Or this statement true only for newer electronics and older units could still have HDMI/DVI but not be HDCP complaint?

I promise this is the last question ;-) Thanks again!

There are both older video cards and older displays out there with digital ports that are not HDCP compliant, so you are indeed correct.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: DoubleHelix747
Hi all, I am doing a little DIY project - converting an old Dell Dimension 8250 into a home theater pc with DVR functionality. I need some advice on the video card. This is my first meaningful PC-related DIY, so be gentle if I ask something stupid.

Current PC specs:
P4 2.4GHz
RDRAM: 1GB
Video: 64MB nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 Graphics Card with TV-Out and AGP 8X (I have no idea how many bits is this card but I doubt anything impressive)
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 (to be bought)
There is no PCI-express slot in the PC.

Intended use:
HD-Home theater PC
HD-DVR
HD Video streaming
Gaming - perhaps, but I doubt anything really strenuous.

Budget:
Hehe... whaddya think... somewhere between $40-$100.

For an AGP card that will do decent gaming, HDCP, HDMI, High definition (HD) playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats and video acceleration (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding), you could look at getting a Powercolor 3850 AGP. It's slightly over your stated price range of $40-$100, but not by much ($110 AR).

Just for reference, my HTPC currently has a 2.8GHz P4, 2GB RAM and a 3870. Running the CS:S video stress test at 1080P level (1920x1080, all settings high, no AA) yielded an average framerate of 83 FPS.

Obviously my card is slightly faster than a 3850 due to its higher GPU/memory clock speeds, but their feature set is identical.

Anandtech Review - ATI Radeon HD 3870 & 3850: A Return to Competition

 

[Concillian]

If it has HDMI it definitely supports HDCP

If it has DVI, it usually does NOT support HDCP. Video cards, however often support HDCP through DVI by the use of a special DVI to HDMI converter that's usually included with the card. Not every DVI --> HDMI converter will work for this purpose.

 

[SaidiaDude]

Great thread DoubleHelix747. I too have an old Dell 8250 as well that I'd like to use in a Linux based DVR/Home Theater setup. Based on the posts above, would it be possible to use it in a "back end" for a HT server (put in dual PCI ATSC tuners). I was thinking of buying a Media Extender that works with Linux and use it to pull the data off the 8250. Would the 8250 be able to handle 2 ATSC tuners, recording and streaming? The lightweight front end would handle the decoding in this case. Another small issue: the 8250 takes RDRAM only and it has 256 or 512MB (I forget which at the moment). It's not worth upgrading the RAM, so I'd like to leave it "as is" except for adding the PCI tuner cards. BTW, the system also has a nice SB Audigy ZS system that works well.

 

[Concillian]

The issues with Linux are H.264 decoding (only the brand new nVidia drivers have any form of hardware acceleration for this) and HDCP issues (it doesn't work, so you are restricted to completely free access HD only).

If the front end is doing decoding, you don't have the h.264 issue.
If the capture cards are handling capture and encoding, then it pretty much doesn't matter what's in your box, as the CPU is not getting taxed. Your box would really only affect any trans-coding you'd be doing, and that's usually not terribly time-critical.