Total newbie seeks help

[wahooker]

Looking at getting into SageTV, and I was considering the following:

Dell Inspiron 530s
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* Intel Celeron 450
* 2gb Ram (I can upgrade later)
* 320gb HD (I can upgrade later)

That's $329, before tax/shipping

There's an option of an ATI Theater 650 Pro for $100, and I wasn't sure if it was worth it.

I need to have 2 tuners + The ability to do Non-HD now, and change to HD recording down the road. Would there be a better Tuner card for me to look at in this situation?

Also, of course the $80 copy of Sage.

So total, I'd be looking at about $409 + the price of any tuner cards. Would this be able to run what I want, and be upgradeable down the road? Is this overkill for Sage?

I don't have an issue with looking at something that's a little bit older/refurb if I can save a significant amount of money. I know lots of people talk about doing a DVR out of an older system, but My next oldest system dates back to win95, and by the time I upgraded all that, it would be cheaper to buy a new one from Dell.

[Djc208]

It's fine for a server, and will probably be OK for SD playback with it's integrated graphics but that's going to be about it. HD will playback (non h.264) might work but I don't know that you'll be happy with it.

If you can step up to a ATI HD3xxx or 4xxx card or an nVidia 8xxx or 9xxx card, even a low end card it will give you better playback and a better chance of handling HD content later. Or do the Dell for now and look at just getting an HD extender when you're ready to go HD.

$100 for the 650 seems kind of high. It's supposed to have really good picture quality but for the same price there are lots of other cards out there that offer more. You can get dual tuners in one card for roughly the same money.

[malbec]

Personally...

Figure out if used as a server or a playback device to determine need for graphics card. As mentioned, may be cheaper to install own later.

Would juice the CPU as much as could afford for transcoding speed

Would strongly recommend XP over Vista

HD space is the only other limitation other than a tuner card which might get you into counting PCI slot availability

[wahooker]

I'd be using it immediately to playback on my main tv, and also as a server down the road. (Plan to get extenders eventually)

As far as video cards go, There is a PCIe x16 slot available... So when i want to go up to HD quality video, I'd probably need to throw a video card of some sort in?

For expandability, there are also 2 PCI slots, and 1 PCIe x1 slots. I'm figuring between the video card, and potentially 2 (dual) tuner cards down the road, that's really going to be all I need, right?

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Now this is a really stupid question... But I've never hooked a PC up to a TV before. What do I need to do to get the video from the PC to a TV? Obviously, the normal PC-monitor cables won't work. Do I just need some sort of adapter, or is there something else I need?

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As far as the CPU goes, how important is the transcoding speed? (That's just recording it from the broadcast, reformatting and writing it to the HD, right?) Will what I suggested work for a basic 2 tuner system, or does it really need to be higher? (Since I'm going to get hardware based tuner cards, does the transcoding have an impact on the CPU, or am I misunderstanding this?)

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Thanks for the advice, from both of you!

[dgeezer]

If you have a regular SD TV it will require a composite or S-video output from your PC. Most standard PC's don't have this. My old client PC had to have an add-on video card just to attach to my regular SDTV. The HD200 solves this problem since it has outputs for SD as well as HD TV's. If I were starting from scratch I would set up my system with a headless server similar to what you have listed and an extender at the TV.

Transcoding speed is a non-issue if you keep your recordings in their native mpeg format. My server is an old (3 -4 years) athlon 64 single core. It has no problems recording from 2 hd tuners and 2 analogue tuners and playing back to 2 extenders.

You might want to consider the HVR-2250. It is still a little buggy with the drivers but it would provide analogue now and digital when you are ready. I don't actually use this so no personal experience. I use an HDHomerun and 2 PVR-150's.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by wahooker

I'd be using it immediately to playback on my main tv, and also as a server down the road. (Plan to get extenders eventually)

As far as video cards go, There is a PCIe x16 slot available... So when i want to go up to HD quality video, I'd probably need to throw a video card of some sort in?

For expandability, there are also 2 PCI slots, and 1 PCIe x1 slots. I'm figuring between the video card, and potentially 2 (dual) tuner cards down the road, that's really going to be all I need, right?

If you use extenders when you go HD you won't need the video card upgrade, otherwise it will be fine for an upgrade.

As for the slots, you have to be careful. Many times a graphics card can block one of the other slots when it's used, especially if you get something powerful or passively cooled which tend to be larger and take up more space in the case.

Now this is a really stupid question... But I've never hooked a PC up to a TV before. What do I need to do to get the video from the PC to a TV? Obviously, the normal PC-monitor cables won't work. Do I just need some sort of adapter, or is there something else I need?

This could be tricky with integrated graphics. Many aftermarket cards will have ports for Svideo output which is how you'd connect it to a SD TV. From looking at newegg, most of the VGA to TV converters will cost as much as upgrading the graphics card to something that will have the right output on it and be HD capable for future use. HD hookup is easier and will take either a VGA or HDMI connection.

As far as the CPU goes, how important is the transcoding speed? (That's just recording it from the broadcast, reformatting and writing it to the HD, right?) Will what I suggested work for a basic 2 tuner system, or does it really need to be higher? (Since I'm going to get hardware based tuner cards, does the transcoding have an impact on the CPU, or am I misunderstanding this?)

The tuner card does all the conversion to digital. Transcoding is only needed if you wish to convert the recorded video (mpeg2 format) into something else. Usually either something with a lower resolution for use on an iPod or similar portable video player, or to a different format for smaller size at similar quality. It also comes into play if you would want to use placeshifter (especially with HD content) in the future.

You can get by without a faster CPU in many cases, it really depends on what you want the computer to be doing. With only SD content you'd be fine, add HD and something faster will help if not be necessary.