Which Video card for HTPC???

[DarkTXKnight]

Ok, so Ive been chatting with the wife about ripping our DVDs to disc and playing them on the TV. Ive also kinda got her convinced that we can replace the 3 Time warner DVRs around the house with HTPC systems and play it back on the various TVs. All of this in theory sounds great, but I have to find a way to prove it without spending a lot of money. The bright idea was to build a version 1 box in my office and after she gets hooked go after her for new parts for the others. here are the apare parts I have (This used to be my backup gaming rig):

Athlon XP2800
512 MB Corsair PC3200 RAM
200 GB Seagate external HDD
40 GB Maxtor HDD
NEC DVD burner
Albatron KX600 MB
Standard mini tower case w\300 w PS

What I seem to be confused with is the video tuner to buy. I currently have a spare ATI 9200 SE and an NVIDIA Fx5700 ultra and I see all of these tuners from hauppage and leadtek with various features. I want to completely replace the DVRs and hook this macihne up to the TV and I think that after showing her the mythtv screenshots I can get her hooked on the idea, but what should I be looking for in a tuner card???

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

[otispunkmeyer]

you could get an ALL IN WONDER ATI card, if you want TV and Video on one board

im not sure but i think u can get a 9600 AIW and that would be a good one card solution, but other than that your gonna have to go the route of Add in tv card like the haupage line and a seperate video card

a good suggestion for a seperate video card could the 6200 since i think its got a fairly decent amount of its video processor working for Mpeg 2 stuff with the NV DVD decoder at least

 

[DarkTXKnight]

I didn't relaly care for the AIW series of cards in the past and I don't mind having a two card solution. are you saying that I need to buy a 6200 AND another PVR type card???

 

[rise]

http://www.avsforum.com/

http://htpcnews.com/

theres some more i can't find right now, but these should give you a start.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: DarkTXKnight
I didn't relaly care for the AIW series of cards in the past and I don't mind having a two card solution. are you saying that I need to buy a 6200 AND another PVR type card???

i assume so........... i have a digital tv tuner card in my PC, and it records when i want it too and it records in mpeg 2. but theres no way id get the signal to the screen or monitor without a GFX card.

ive used the S-Video out on my 6800GT and it works fairly well on a TV so thats what i use.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Ive got Svideo on my 5700 ULTRA and my 9200 SE, only thing is the TV that I want to use as a test only has RCA inputs, not Svideo, I wonder if there are any converter cables for that like the one I have on my Xbox up there. The main tv has svideo in so I should be fine there.

 

[JokerRulez]

In my HTPC I'm currently using:

Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB which was my main machine's old card, and
Hauppauge 350

I am quite happy with this type of combination. I can play Madden 2005, MVP Baseball 2005, etc with my Radeon and have excellent TV support with my Hauppauge.

I would recommend getting a dual TV Tuner card, however, like the Hauppauge 150. You simply find that you will use it if you had it.

Yes, I think getting the 6200 would be more than adequate if you don't want to do much if any gaming on your HTPC.

Good luck. You'll love your HTPC when you finish it!

Joker

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Joker.... I didn't know that the 150 has dual tuners... so youre saying that if I get the 150 I can record one channel and play back on my TV at the same time???

 

[rise]

i think he meant the 550

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Good god another model???? lol is there anyone besides hauppage that makes these things??

 

[mgpaulus]

I'm in the process of building a MythTV setup. My choice was a PVR-150 for the tuner/capture card. The main reason is that the PVR-150 supports onboard MPEG encoding, so it off-loads some work from the CPU.

If I remember correctly, the 150 is a newer 250, with smaller/cheaper components. And I believe the 550 is a newer 350.

The beauty of MythTV is that you can put several tuners into the same box. Once you max out a box, and have a need for more tuners, you can always add another backend system.
Then, you can have as many front-end systems as you need (1 per TV), and the front end boxes will talk to the backend boxes. When a free tuner is required, the front end box
will go looking for a free tuner from the back end servers, and give you an available one.

I got a PVR-150 for around $65 shipped, so adding another one wouldn't break the bank. In this instance, you become limited by the number of slots you have.
If you create a backend box, then believe you do not need TV-OUT on that box. Just the front end box, which could be an nvidia w/TV-OUT. My box will try to use a Matrox G400-Dual Head.

Unfortunately I am not finding enough time to fiddle with this (I had motherboard problems) to get it set up, so I can only tell you what I have found when perusing websites, looking for information on my cards.

A google search on "PVR-150 mythTV" or "PVR-150 ivtv" can give LOADS of good information.

 

[JDCentral]

Note: if you're using Linux (and if you're not... you probably should.. hehe) I can't recommend an ATI product.

The drivers just aren't there!