Project started now and more questions

[marcw]

I appreciate all of the help from the forum, here is an update and a few questions.

The tv model I listed is correct. As of today I now have a HD receiver hooked up to the TV, wow the picture is great. I moved my standard tivo downstairs just to check out the interop. It is Svideo out of the cable box and into the tivo and composite to the tv input for now. I need to find another Svideo cable.

I am building my HTPC with an Antec overture case, Abit A17 motherboard and P$ 2.8c. I have simpletech PC3200 ram (512MB) still not sure what HD but I just put a 200MB in my old home PC and may wipe it and move it over or go with a 120-160. The mobo support serial ATA. I have a DVD +- 8x NEC OEM. I still am stuck on two things, which PVR card 250 or 350 and which video card.

Everyone here leans towards the PVR250. I will be installing one first to get the whole thing running and then add a second. I like the idea that the PVR350 has hardware encoding/decoding.

1) Can I just take the svideo output of the 350 and put it into the svideo in of a graphics card then out to the TV with either svideo or composite?
2) Does hardware decoding make a big difference, for ex: if someone is watching a recorded show and we are playing MP3 files at the same time.
3) A requirement is also to be able to get to windows and surf the net over my tv

My tv has one additional set of inputs for HD cables and I have additional composite and svideo inputs.

Your thoughts on the video card and PVR cards will be appreciated. Since I will be building this next week.

Thx,
Marc

[malore]

1) I don't think you would want to do this even if it is possible; the picture quality is bound to suffer.
2) Play a DVD, the results should be similar to watching a show. Mpeg-2 software play uses about 20% CPU for me.
3) SageTV doesn't interfere with the normal use of your computer. You might want to just use the normal TV out from you graphics card, so you don’t have to switch inputs.

[marcw]

Which would you choose

[AJ Bertelson]

250

[stanger89]

I'll post it here too:

If you're going to be adding another tuner later, you'll be better off with a 250, it's getting harder and harder to find a -15 250 to match a 350. As for passing the 350s out throught a video card, that would defeat the purpose of the 350 which is to use it's superior svideo out (compared to the VCs).

As for HW decoding, for standard def, it really doesn't matter any more, especially with a 2.8GHz P4, on my 2.4GHz P4 even with full software decoding I only see about 25% CPU usage, and less than that if I enable HW acceleration with my video card. Your PC should have no trouble watching TV and playing mp3s at the same time.

On your HDTV, you really want to use the VGA input. I don't know what video card you are using (of if you have one yet). The GeforceFX 5700 would be my first choice right now (I'm seriously considering getting one) but I don't have any experience with it, my current card is a Radon 9500. If you'll want to use the windows desktop you'll have to use VGA if you want to be able to read anything (Windows wise). A quick search of the AVSForum revealed a number of people have had success driving their Pioneer's with HTPC:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...D5#post1950252

And you might want to stick this link in your bookmarks for reference:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=206854

Hope that helps a little

Chad

[marcw]

Looks like I will do 2 -250's. I still need to decide on what video card. A lot of poeple like the Geoforce so I will look into that.

Is on board sound aceptable? What other reccomendations do the forum have?

Marc

[stanger89]

Originally posted by marcw
Is on board sound aceptable? What other reccomendations do the forum have?

That depends on your requirements.