Better HDTV tuner and CPU speed for HDTV

[bdavis_colorado]

Estimated Hardware/Requirements???
OS - Win2K with SP4
Video = ATI X800-XL AGP video Card
CPU = Barton Mobile XP-M CPU (2600+) at 2GHz
Motherboard = Asus A7N8X-E Motherboard
Video = JVC HDTV CRT (probably 540P, but not yet tested)
1 Gig of Corsair PC3200 C2 DDR
Tuners - one 500 MC for SDTV and one (Avermedia A180 or VBox DTA-151) for HDTV. (Note that I may later upgrade to the ATI 650 Pro if reasonably priced).

I have a couple questions for hardware:
1.) What HDTV tuner is better - Avermedia A180 or VBox DTA-151?
2.) I saw references to 3 GHz CPU needed for HDTV viewing, but thought that my current system may still be OK for HDTV recording and viewing using DXVA (I assume the ATI card can do DXVA with SAGE?). Also - I don't plan on using placeshifter with HDTV, as I did hear that you really need 3GHz performance for that. So does anyone know for sure if my above CPU/Video combination would be ok for viewing recorded HDTV from either of the above HDTV tuners?

I spent a great deal of the day reading posts and learned quite a bit, but am still stuck with the above questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[paulbeers]

Your system should be powerful enough. Worst case scenario is that you end up using overlay rather than FSE, but your vid card should be poweful enough. As for HD cards, I do not have either (I use a fusionlite), but the Vbox seems to be the card of choice for a lot of people here.

[bdavis_colorado]

Thanks - I think I'll order the VBox DTA-150 today. I did find out that Win 2K is not an option due to drivers for current cards. It seems as though Avermedia A180, VBox DTA-150, and NVidia DualTV all require XP or Windows MCE.

[paulbeers]

I apologize, I should have noticed. I didn't even pay attention to your operating system. Glad you noticed that!