I want to build a HTPC, how's my start?

I

I3roknI3ottle

Gawd
Joined
Jan 19, 2005
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Ok so I bought a 20" LCD TV on black friday for $99 bucks after MIR, which I thnk it serves its purpose quite well as I don't have digital cable or anything HD and it does have component so my xbox at 480p looks pretty damn good coming from s-video on my 13" RCA truflat tv.

My last project was my Xbox and turning it into a Media Center, via XBMC and I really like it since I can do a lot with it. Well I want to venture into the world of a HTPC and build my own instead of going with something like TiVo. Here's some hardware I currently have laying around.

AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Soyo KT600 v1.0 Motherboard (Only allows for 4xAGP, since some issue with the voltage of 8xAGP card.)
1x512MB DDR PC3200
DVD / CD-RW Optical drive
WD Caviar SE 80GB @ 7200RPM with 8MB
XFX GeForce FX5200 128MB - 64 Bit (low profile / fan less)
Chaintech AV-710 7.1 soundcard
400W psu

I was thinking about going with MythTV or KnoppMyth and need to know which tv capture card would be best to go with. I have basic cable through Charter Communications, which is like 2-80 channel wise and it's nothing special. I want the functions of being able to record tv and pause possibly. Also my video card has a VGA and S-VIDEO out and what would be the best way of going about hooking my htpc to my tv too watch tv.

Thanks, any help is appreciated.
 
Why not spend a bit extra and turn it into an HD DVD media center? HD DVD quality is amazing and worth checking out.

You can use the 360 HD DVD drive + HDCP video card to do so. Probably need to jack the CPU up to an X2 3800+ as well.
 
To answer the original poster's question, I'd suggest just getting a Hauppage PVR-150. Or better yet, get two. They'll work like a champ in Linux or Windows, giving you more flexibility in software choices.

PCAlchemy or NewEgg both have them.
 
tremor said:
To answer the original poster's question, I'd suggest just getting a Hauppage PVR-150. Or better yet, get two. They'll work like a champ in Linux or Windows, giving you more flexibility in software choices.

PCAlchemy or NewEgg both have them.
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Or instead of two PVR-150's, just get one PVR-500. People say its hard to setup, but it just takes a few more minutes of tweaking. It'll save your valuable PCI Slots for other things.
 
S-Video out of your video card is pretty good, but preferably you should get a video card with Component out for best picture. On a 20" TV though, I bet S-Video will be just fine.
 
Asgorath makes a good point about the PVR-500. Only reason I didn't recommend one is because I haven't personally used one and didn't want to stick my foot in my mouth when/if I said it would work in Linux/Windows. I'm 99.95% sure it will in both, though.
 
what is the differnce between the PVR150 and the PVR150MCE? Also would I be able to record and pause live tv and which would look better, windows MCE or MythTV / KnoppMyth
 
the mce does not come with an IR blaster/remote if I remember correctly.
 
I have a computer with 374mb RAM--I think...AMD 3200+ Barton, ASUS mobo, EVGA 6800, ATI TV-Wonder PCI tv tuner, and needs some harddrives, and a dvd drive...

Potential MythTV machine?

I'm worried about the TV tuner...

I think it's like the 150 model.
 
The 500 is effectively two 150s on a single card -- they use the same engine, IIRC. The only diff between the 150 models is the bits and bobs you get with them -- the drivers will see them all the same.

As for the machine, sounds ideal to me. The only niggle is the video card -- ATi has a poor reputation for drivers under Linux, while nvidia tends to 'just work' more often.
 
If you decide on the PVR-150, double check the model number before buying, Hauppauge's #...the one you want for best compatibility overall(and a neat remote w/ IRblaster) is model 1045, they run around 90 new from various sources, dunno how well the 'mote works in Linux but, I've had it work dandy in both SageTV and MediaPortal now, with very good results in XP.
Some think the vid quality on this model isn't great, and while it does not match some, I find it's the best bang for buck for a single tuner PCI solution with remote. Driver install is a little weird first time out, but you get used to it. Right now, I'm running MediaPortal now, using DScaler for viewing codec, Hauppauge special codec for record, and the remote controls MP natively with a simple checkbox to enable it. Timeshifting, Live, Record, Guide Scheduling, all work dandy, and shuffling thru pix and music, news, radio, all a breeze. The MCE version of this card, while very nice in it's own right...is not capable of some of this cross platform, or not without serious knowledge of the card. I run this on TinyXP r5, with ffdshow, dscaler, and various plugins for things, and all screams on mine, ymmv.
 
Donar said:
the mce does not come with an IR blaster/remote if I remember correctly.
Click to expand...
Like that means anything, the remote that comes with the PVR150 is good enough to be thrown into the garbage.

Other then that the only other difference is that the MCE version has RCA inputs.

Either way I owuldn't touch a Hauppauge card with all of the possible driver issues and the lower image quality they have when compared to other tuners our there right now. Either an NV DualTV tuner or a card based on ATI's 550 Pro chip. The only problem with them is that you can't use linux with them.

Then again you're using a VIA mobo which isn't very good for an HTPC, they tend to have problems.
 
I went with the pvr250 for my first myth setup and it worked flawlessly. The only real problem with my setup was getting my correct time zone and time set in and I had a bit of a problem with my zap2it connection. I now want to throw in a 500gb hd and another tuner or two
 
well I also have a chaintech socket a nforce2 mobo, i found it in my closet. Would this be a better choice for a motherboard? Chaintech 7NJL6
 
Well never mind what he has, and to hell with his budget. Let's just get him to get all new stuff, because Hauppage sucks, Via sucks, etc. Not to mention, he didn't mention anything about wanting it to run MythTV.

Via is fine. It's not like you're going to max out even a slower Via chipset. I've had a Via chipset running my "server" for years now with no issue. You know what I DID have an issue with? The NVidia graphics card. It acquired the infiinite loop of death. The Via based mobo is doing just fine though.

I'm not trying to be difficult about this, but there's nothing wrong with what he has, and the cheapest solution would be to throw in a hauppage card that is KNOWN to work. For standard def recording directly from "basic" type cable, that's more than enough.
 
tremor said:
Well never mind what he has, and to hell with his budget. Let's just get him to get all new stuff, because Hauppage sucks, Via sucks, etc. Not to mention, he didn't mention anything about wanting it to run MythTV.

Via is fine. It's not like you're going to max out even a slower Via chipset. I've had a Via chipset running my "server" for years now with no issue. You know what I DID have an issue with? The NVidia graphics card. It acquired the infiinite loop of death. The Via based mobo is doing just fine though.

I'm not trying to be difficult about this, but there's nothing wrong with what he has, and the cheapest solution would be to throw in a hauppage card that is KNOWN to work. For standard def recording directly from "basic" type cable, that's more than enough.
Click to expand...
Clearly you don't know what you're talking about. For Socket A based HTPCs VIA was avoided like the plague due to some nasty chipset issues. One of which is with PVR500 cards, the chipset corrupts all recordings before they're written to the HDD. It has nothing to do with performance like you assumed.

In Windows Hauppauge has driver issues and the newer release has lower then usual image quality, and this means theres nothing wrong with it? Under Linux there is no choice, its pretty much Hauppauge or nothing at all which isn't too bad since it's not Hauppauge writting the drivers. Will it get the job done? Yes but that doesn't mean it's the best solution.

He's asking for help, telling him that hardware that has some issues is okay is not help. :rolleyes:
 
Works fine on mine.

But hey, at least he's got two boards he can try.

I'm really not sure what driver issues you're talking about with the Hauppage cards. Is it limited to the 500? I've got a 250, 250MCE, and 150 all running in Windows, used both for MCE and BeyondTV with no issues whatsoever.

I assume you're talking about:

"Problem: The PVR-500 fails to work properly in VIA chipset based motherboards. Symptoms include lockups when using the PVR-500, failing to boot into Windows fully, and more.
Sadly there is no solution the PCI to PCI bridged design of the PVR-500 seems to really conflict with VIA chipsets. Two PVR-150's in lieu of a PVR-500 does usually work."

You'd be right. I didn't know what I was talking about for that card....which is why I said:

"Asgorath makes a good point about the PVR-500. Only reason I didn't recommend one is because I haven't personally used one and didn't want to stick my foot in my mouth when/if I said it would work in Linux/Windows. I'm 99.95% sure it will in both, though."

So the .05% got me for the PVR-500 on the Via chipset. At least something came out of this.
 
One happens with dual core systems (causes 100% CPU usage some times), one deals with audio skipping and cutting out randomly. There are a couple more, I just can't remember them right now. And these issues would be with the 250/150/500 cards but it really does depend on your system config.

....

Yeah, thats the PVR500/VIA specific issue I was talking about.
 
Well anyway, as you can see by CrimandEvil and I going back and forth, you'd best do some research about what you decide to buy. I've never run into the issues he's mentioned, but that doesn't mean they're not out there.

From everything I've heard, the ATI-550 (and I think 650 now?) have some of the best image quality out there, but I don't think there's any drivers for Linux.

Speaking of drivers for Linux, better double check that Chaintech sound card. I've heard really good things about it in Windows (friend has one in his HTPC, and it sounds great).

That's the thing about this little hobby....there's a million opinions and a million variables.
 
tremor said:
Well anyway, as you can see by CrimandEvil and I going back and forth, you'd best do some research about what you decide to buy. I've never run into the issues he's mentioned, but that doesn't mean they're not out there.
Click to expand...
Their issues tend to affect only certain hardware configurations. Some have/had the issue and others don't but on the whole I find the fact that these are known issues from a while back that Hauppauge hasn't seen fit to address speak volumes as to Hauppauge's commitment to it's users.
From everything I've heard, the ATI-550 (and I think 650 now?) have some of the best image quality out there, but I don't think there's any drivers for Linux.
Click to expand...
If it's ATI it's not going to work in linux. lol
Speaking of drivers for Linux, better double check that Chaintech sound card. I've heard really good things about it in Windows (friend has one in his HTPC, and it sounds great).
Click to expand...
It has fantastic support in linux.
 
Another site to look at with myth tv stuff.... it is by far the best forum out there for myth.... http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/

Any hardware question you have they will have the answer, and if you do a search on your current hardware odds are someone else has tried it. It's the site I spent a good amount of time at before I built my first mythbox. The wiki is also a great tool.
 
Ok how about this as an option 2? I have the laptop in my sig the dell latitude 610 and I have MCE on it.

How would using that and this;

Hauppauge 99016(WinTV-PVR-USB2 MCE) USB 2.0 Interface Personal Video Recorder
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116630

Would using that and MCE be better then using my Athlon XP system and possibly a Hauppage 150 or 250 and MCE or MythTV?


This laptop I use as my main computer since otherwise it would just be laying around, I mostly use my iBook for all my school work and I take it too school with me every tuesday and thursday. So it wouldn't matter that much to me if it was tied up and dedicated to something such as HTPC (Laptop)


Also what would be the best way to connect the computer I end up choosing to my tv?
Sylvania 6620LG
http://www.sylvaniaconsumerelectronics.com/products/lcd/specPage\6620LG.html

I have my xbox connected to it currently at 480p, the tv display unviewable when I set it too 720p, and it displayed 1080i but XBMC was a little laggy due to what; I believe was the Xbox GPU not being powerful enough for that kind of resolution.

What would be the best way to connect either of the choices to my tv? I was looking at the possibility of a VGA -> Component Cable for output too the tv... Would this be viable or better then S-Video -> S-Video.
 
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