way_fast_whitie Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 Was after a htpc cases, wondering if a member might have one thats not needed and willing to sell. Some suggestions on recommended hardware would be welcome also and a few tips and tricks you guys may have learned on the way
Rybags Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 Get a dual Digital Tuner card. Some also do analog TV and S-Video, composite input. Handy for transferring old video tapes over to DVD. Don't believe the crap that anyone might try to feed you that you'll need a Media Centre version of a Windows OS. Plain XP should be fine. I had a play around with 2 programs - Girder and HIP (Human Interface Parser). They're good for programming extra functions into the remote. For smooth High-Def recording, you'd probably want a P4 2.8 or better. The video card isn't as important as lots of people make out, but the newer ones have H.264 acceleration which helps with playback of the MKV 720p files that are becoming common as torrent downloads. If you're doing a HTPC, may as well go the extra step and put MAME and whatever other favourite emulators you want on it. Going for 2 smaller HDDs has advantages over one big one. Put the OS on one, use the remaining space for archiving shows to play back. Devote the other drive entirely to recording.
diesel Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 There's also plenty of discussion in the "Digital Tuner Cards and Network Media Players" Sub-forum.
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