Building First HTPC Specs/Number of tuners?

[shanewise]

Greetings all.....giving myself a Christmas present this year and am going to build my first HTPC....for all the gurus out there I wanted to post my specs and see if you thought this is ok or overkill or not enough....

Also....with SageTV, I am trying to understand the record and watch TV at the same time....see if I am right....

If I have just one 1600 card then I can only record one analog channel and watch something already recorded.

If I want to record a show and watch something live then I must have two 1600's....is this correct? If so to accomplish this would it be advisable to get 2 1600's or a 1600 and something else (maybe less expensive)?

I plan on purchasing the bundle here for 149 and add the placeshifter option...

Below are my specs...Thanks for any assistance...

Pentium D 925 (3.0Ghz)
2 Gigs Ram
80 Gig Sata 3.0Gb/s - Boot Drive/OS
500 Gig Sata 3.0Gb/s - Video Drive
GIGABYTE GV-NX72G512P2 GeForce 7200GS 256MB 64-bit GDDR2
NEC Optiarc 20x DVD+-R Burner

Thanks again for any suggestions...

[sainswor99]

Instead of the Pentium D, go with a Core Duo instead. The Pentium D is a bit dated.

Others may have more advice for you.

[surge]

The HVR-1600 has an analog tuner and a digital tuner.
I haven't tried it yet, but I believe I read you can record 1 analog and 1 digital channel at the same time. Can someone confirm this?

[petereader]

Unfortunately, I cannot speak in regards to the tuner, as I have no experience with it. One thing to keep in mind though is that watching live tv and recording, as far as tuners are concerned, is pretty much the same thing. If the above post is correct in stating that this card has a digital and analog tuner, then you will be limited in the number of channels you can get with the digital tuner.

As far as the specs for your machine, I'll second going with a core duo (or better yet, core2duo)over a pentium D. Even if you end up having to buy one with a lower clock speed, it is considerably more efficient (and better tuned for media center activity) than the older pentium D.

Also, I was having quite a time getting stutter free HD with my 7300GT, upgraded to this 8500GT:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125062
and it has been rock solid. It's even been able to handle all of the blu-ray/HD-DVDs I've thrown at it without breaking a sweat. It's even HDCP compliant.

Just my .02

[rethdog]

Pentium D 925 (3.0Ghz)
2 Gigs Ram
80 Gig Sata 3.0Gb/s - Boot Drive/OS
500 Gig Sata 3.0Gb/s - Video Drive
GIGABYTE GV-NX72G512P2 GeForce 7200GS 256MB 64-bit GDDR2
NEC Optiarc 20x DVD+-R Burner

since your building a new rig and not recycling old parts....

buy a core 2 duo in lieu of a pentium D, or without wanting to get into intel v amd war, and since you are buying a lower end cpu here, an amd is more economical, more so when you take the motherboard into account. i would recommend a x2 4200 to 4800 ish. although Core 2's overclock much, much better (more transcoding power) but you need a good motherboard to do this.
1gb will work fine if using xp as the OS
buy a 750 gb; partition it as a 20 gb standard cluster for os, then 730-ish 64k clusters for recording's, they can be had for $150
get a lower end 8xxx card rather than 7xxx, lower end 8 series has HD (264) acceleration)
get motherboard with gigabit lan on it & firewire if possible.

[rethdog]

Originally Posted by surge

The HVR-1600 has an analog tuner and a digital tuner.
I haven't tried it yet, but I believe I read you can record 1 analog and 1 digital channel at the same time. Can someone confirm this?

yes it can

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by surge

The HVR-1600 has an analog tuner and a digital tuner.
I haven't tried it yet, but I believe I read you can record 1 analog and 1 digital channel at the same time. Can someone confirm this?

Originally Posted by rethdog

yes it can

In addition to rethdog's confirmation, you can watch previously recorded content at the same time you're recording from the analog and digital sources.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by Mark57

In addition to rethdog's confirmation, you can watch previously recorded content at the same time you're recording from the analog and digital sources.

Yes, you can. 1 Analog, 1 digital and watch previously recorded.