Installing SageTV strategy - am I all there?

[johngoes]

Hey folks!

I've got a Dell 8400 on the way - 3.0Ghz 512MB Ram, 80GB SATA HDD, 128MB ATI Radeon™ X300 SE video card and DVD-RW drive.
Here's my plan - purchase the PVR-500 package from SageTV. Get the computer working first (XP Home). Then
- Install 200 GB HDD and format/fdisk with 64k blocksize.
- Install PVR and PVR software
- Hook up cable and test PVR with it's software. (svideo out to Toshiba SDTV)
- Install SageTV
- Configure SageTV and see if it works.

Once the HTPC is working I'll buy one of those sleek cases (my wife approves of those) and probably some of the low-noise cooling doo-dads and transfer the Dell innards to the HTPC case. Awesome!

I use VNC to work remotely from my work Sun & Linux machines so I plan to put VNC on the new computer to keep from having a monitor.

Question 1: I noticed that there is a "related item" of a USB-UIRT on the page with the Sage/PVR-500 package. Is this necessary to get the remote control working?
Question 2: Did I miss something important for the installation?

Thanks,

John G
Austin TX

[Opus4]

Moving the "innards" to another case may depend on whether Dell is using a proprietary mb design.

Which pvr-500 bundle did you buy? It doesn't come with a Hauppage remote, so if it is the one with the StreamZap remote, you don't need the USB-UIRT unless you need an IR blaster for a converter box. If you did not buy a remote, then you'll want some sort of IR receiver & the USB-UIRT would be a good choice, since it is a blaster too.

- Andy

[johngoes]

I'm getting the bundle with the StreamZap remote.

The mb style is something I wanted to do some research on but until I get the actual model number of the computer googling produces too much fluff to figure out the form of the mb. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

John G

[GTwannabe]

Dell uses very proprietary mobo designs; they won't fit into a regular ATX case without some fabrication.

[salsbst]

Yikes!

[Wakecrash]

Yea, I would say you would be better just buying the components and build your own (if not too late), buy the case you want, quite power supply, quite fans (I found out your much better off installing a few quite fans than rely on one or two std noisy fans), HD, burners etc. Since your moving everything buying a prebuild doesnt really make anything easier, and perhaps more difficult.

Some online venders have good deals on mobo/CPU and sometimes memory bundles.

[heffe2001]

I'm sitting here looking at a 8400, and it is definitely a proprietary mobo... BUT, 99% of the parts in the system aren't, so you could at least grab a aftermarket mobo for your case and put the other parts in the system .

[johngoes]

Heffe has it right. A new mb would work if necessary. However, on one of the cases I read a review of the mb is mounted on a removable tray. If the dell mb has resonable dimensions I can use the removable tray and drill & tap new holes to fit the mb. I'm not shy about making things fit where necessary.

In the meantime I get to play around with this and see if the concept meets the WAF. (lol - I only saw the definition of WAF the other day.) If she doesn't like it I still have a nice enough Dell computer to play around with. I have't done any hardware hacking in the last few years so part of this is for the fun of tinkering around with the hardware and software and hopefully getting a nice TV interface to boot.

John G.