Building a HT PC for a Basic TV

tgdrums1990 · Post by **tgdrums1990** » Sat May 19, 2007 2:49 pm

I have a Celeron 2.0 Ghz computer with 256mb of ram. I want to turn this pc into a HT PC for my room.

Since my TV is not HD I will only need to have is it 480 X 640? or somthing like that.

I need to know how to build a pc so that it will display and look good on my tv.

Anyone want to help me out?

alfhenrik · Post by **alfhenrik** » Sun May 20, 2007 1:55 am

Hi,

I believe that "normal" non-widescreen tv's run 640x480 (I stand corrected) as the best resolution.

I have a P4 1.8Ghz w/ 1Gb RAM, my machine is currently running MCE2005 with any major issues, using a Dvico Fusion HDTV Plus TV card for standard definition digital TV.

You may need to get some more RAM, I ran mine with 512Mb RAM and it was running fairly smoothly. I have an old Radeon X800Pro that is hooked up via S-Video to the TV, not the best on dark shades, but hey my TV is pretty ordinary anyways.

As long as you videocard has TV out or if your TV has a PC input you should be able to connect it to and display on your TV without any problems at all.

jaldridge6 · Post by **jaldridge6** » Sun May 20, 2007 2:16 am

640x480 =P

alfhenrik · Post by **alfhenrik** » Sun May 20, 2007 1:33 pm

jaldridge6 wrote:640x480 =P

I stand corrected

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Sun May 20, 2007 2:26 pm

First thing to recommend is a good video card for playback. Because you're only watching standard-definition television (SD) you shouldn't have any problems with any X1000-series ATI card. They even make a few PCI cards if you don't have AGP. Even with SD playback, you'll notice glitches with NVIDIA cards up through and including 7-series cards (6-series cards are still worse).

You probably want at least 512MB of RAM, if not 1GB.

Windows Media Center 2005 is hassle-free, but MythTV is free-free.

And get a dual tuner video capture card, you'll really enjoy being able to record two shows playing at the same time. You'd have to ask MythTV people what works with it, I know it has good Hauppauge support, but I never spent enough time with it to know much more than that.

There are four ways to get a remote control:

1. Buying one separately. Make sure it has a receiver.
2. Buying MCE 2005 with a remote kit. This is guaranteed to be the most compatible way.
3. Buying a tuner with a remote. Hit or miss. This could give you great features, it could give you weirdness or just a cheap remote.
4. Buying a case with a remote. Especially with Silverstone, this gives you the prettiest, and possibly best-made cases and remotes out there. But compatibility is a little shakier.

One and four have the disadvantages of being extra expensive, but a good HTPC case is worth every penny. My Zalman HD 160 is lovely, although I do wish it had better software and documentation.

It's, in fact, the one that SPCR reviewed. I got tired of trying to request one for my own review. Thanks again, Mike.

pputer · Post by **pputer** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:51 am

Max Slowik wrote:First thing to recommend is a good video card for playback. Because you're only watching standard-definition television (SD) you shouldn't have any problems with any X1000-series ATI card. They even make a few PCI cards if you don't have AGP. Even with SD playback, you'll notice glitches with NVIDIA cards up through and including 7-series cards (6-series cards are still worse).

You probably want at least 512MB of RAM, if not 1GB.

Windows Media Center 2005 is hassle-free, but MythTV is free-free.

And get a dual tuner video capture card, you'll really enjoy being able to record two shows playing at the same time. You'd have to ask MythTV people what works with it, I know it has good Hauppauge support, but I never spent enough time with it to know much more than that.

What about Nvidia's 8800 series of cards? Do they have the glitch, too?

Mythtv is an option but it is difficult to set up. I needed lots of help there. I think it's good if you can use a distro and add Mythtv to it rather than the built-in Mythv distros. However, unless things have changed, it was a lot of work and you must know Linux inside and out to add Mythtv to your distro.

There are inexpensive Windows options which are better than MCE (imho) including Gbpvr, BeyondTV and SageTV. I recommend any of them but GBPVR is the only one that is 100% free and has very good support for something that is free. I suggest giving them a try first.

Hauppauge cards are the best for SD and there is a card that is universally good for all the Windows pvr software programs but unless something has changed, it doesn't work (or isn't supported?) in Linux. That card is the PVR1600 and allows HD if you go that route later.

pelago · Post by **pelago** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:40 am

Woah, in MythTV-land the Nvidia 5200 is fine for SD, so you don't need to go too high-end.

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:14 am

I've done side-by-side comparisons with 8600-series hardware and last gen's X1000, and the X1Ks still have better SD playback.

8800-series cards actually have worse playback than the lesser 8000-series cards, but are, yeah, overkill for SD. You definitely don't need a video card with more RAM than your computer :)

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:56 am

I'm assuming he is using S-Video. A x300 would work fine for s-video. It is going to need at least 512mb of ram. I personally like SageTV for the front end.

pputer · Post by **pputer** » Mon May 21, 2007 8:41 am

Some more questions:
1) Which ATI graphics card is best for Linux? I have read several times that ATI (graphics cards) is better for HTPCs so I'm back to looking at those. But, I might want to try a dual boot Linux/Windows system and I wanted to discover whether mythtv can be used for Ubuntu or Debian yet.

2) If I want the option of HD, which card is good? I would like a tv tuner card that can do HD but analog as well or get a dual card system for HD and analog. I would like the card to be supported or usable in Linux but it's not essential. I'm not sure if I'll use Mythv or one of the Windows pvr software programs. I found it difficult to find a full-features tv tuner card that works or is supported in Linux/mythv but there were many choices for Windows.

fri2219 · Post by **fri2219** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:25 am

pputer wrote:Some more questions:
1) ...But, I might want to try a dual boot Linux/Windows system and I wanted to discover whether mythtv can be used for Ubuntu or Debian yet.

2) If I want the option of HD...

The best advice you can get on card compatibility is from the developer's site, or from your distro's website.

I just recently looked into building a MythBox myself*, and the consensus for HD tuners was: the best ATI tuner card for Linux is probably "none". There is a company that makes Linux only HD tuners that is usually recommended over Happauge, ATI, et. al.. (The name escapes me at this moment)

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and/or Debian Sarge are just swell for MythTV- try this link to one of the better HOWTO's out there. (You'll need to insert TitanTV wherever he mentions a UK schedule provider, however)

*After analyzing what hardware I already had and how the PVR/HTPC was to be used, I wound up going with Vista Ultimate, which surprised the heck out of me- my knee-jerk response for any computer is to tell people to use a Mac or build a box for Linux, but the hardware support for things I wanted to use, like the Logitech diNovo Edge Keyboard or LCD Smartie just aren't available for either.

Also, a MythTV box, even running a LiveCD/Knoppix setup is pretty fiddly- if you're into learning Unix or are already an Intermediate/Advanced user, you'll be fine, but you won't get much enjoyment from your setup if you don't fall into either category. AppleTV might be great in the future, but I want to watch and record programs today, thank you.

pputer · Post by **pputer** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:47 am

fri2219 wrote: The best advice you can get on card compatibility is from the MythTV site, or from your distro's website.

That said, in general, the best ATI tuner card for Linux is probably "none". There is a company that makes Linux only HD tuners that is usually recommended over Happauge, ATI, et. al.. (The name escapes me at this moment)

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and/or Debian Sarge are just swell for MythTV- try this link to one of the better HOWTO's out there. (You'll need to insert TitanTV wherever he mentions a UK schedule provider, however)

Okay, thanks for the info. I'll be checking the Debian and Ubuntu forums for tv tuner cards. I know there are linux-only cards but I wanted one that is not so specific and will work on either Windows or Linux but includes:
if analog TV card, must have a hardware MPEG2 encoder chip.
if Digital TV card, must have BDA drivers.
Such specs of a card would allow me to use the card in either Linux or a Windows pvr sofware program.

I think the Linux-only card you're thinking of is from the pcHDTV series.