Topic: Making a music server

[it-goes-to-eleven]

NOTE -- It's my understanding that a computer-based setup will only work for over-the-air hdtv and is not yet compatible with cable-based (or satellite-based) hdtv content.  I believe that the next version of windoze will allow for cable hdtv compatibility.

Probably incorrect.. You can take the HD firewire output from a cable box and send it into the firewire port of your PC and mythTV will record it. This can even avoid the encoding overhead since that signal is already compressed.

http://mythtv.org

[dnsacks]

I remember reading 'bout that, but thought that this was only supported by some of the cableboxes out there. 

Regardless, the implementation scheduled to be released with the next version of windows will allow the pc to act as a cable box through the use of a "cable card" to confirm access rights, decode, etc. 

[OFOTD]

  NOTE -- It's my understanding that a computer-based setup will only work for over-the-air hdtv and is not yet compatible with cable-based (or satellite-based) hdtv content.  I believe that the next version of windoze will allow for cable hdtv compatibility.

Thats a MCE 2005 limitation.  It also depends on your hardware tuner as well.  Most tuner cards use software decoding whereas the more trusted and reliable cards (Hauppauge) use hardware decoding on the fly without the need to use the main computer's resources. 

[lds490]

You guys are way beyond me.  I've been looking into the HDTV tuner cards.  I've located three on the market at the moment.  All are over-the-air, which is what I want cause I don't have digital cable and we have several HD broadcast stations in the ATL metro area.  One of these cards also will allow input of unencoded HD signals from local cable (cable companies are required to provide HD signal from area broadcast providers).  However, none of the current generation of tuner cards/softward/hardware are compatible with encoded HD signal from cable or sat.  I've not heard of mythTV.

Looking into these cards, most folks report that they need more CPU/Memory than the manufacturers claim.  The manufacturers say something like P4 @ 1.8 MHz, 256 Mb Ram, and a sound card with at least 64 Mb RAM.  I can pick up a used bare bones system (minus the sound card) with these specs for a couple hundred.  For maybe $100 more I can get a faster P4 (2.8 or better) and a gig of RAM, but is that enough.  Should I be looking at the newer and more expensive dual core processors?  Also, what about expansion slots?  The tuner card is PCI, but it seems like most graphic cards these days are PCIx or AGP.  It seems like the cheap used machines are PCI only due to their age.  Will I be able to get away with the cheap used P4 with 1 Gb and PCI slots only, or do I need to spend more for somewhat more modern and powerful gear?

[OFOTD]

You guys are way beyond me.  I've been looking into the HDTV tuner cards.  I've located three on the market at the moment.  All are over-the-air, which is what I want cause I don't have digital cable and we have several HD broadcast stations in the ATL metro area.  One of these cards also will allow input of unencoded HD signals from local cable (cable companies are required to provide HD signal from area broadcast providers).  However, none of the current generation of tuner cards/softward/hardware are compatible with encoded HD signal from cable or sat.  I've not heard of mythTV.

Looking into these cards, most folks report that they need more CPU/Memory than the manufacturers claim.  The manufacturers say something like P4 @ 1.8 MHz, 256 Mb Ram, and a sound card with at least 64 Mb RAM.  I can pick up a used bare bones system (minus the sound card) with these specs for a couple hundred.  For maybe $100 more I can get a faster P4 (2.8 or better) and a gig of RAM, but is that enough.  Should I be looking at the newer and more expensive dual core processors?  Also, what about expansion slots?  The tuner card is PCI, but it seems like most graphic cards these days are PCIx or AGP.  It seems like the cheap used machines are PCI only due to their age.  Will I be able to get away with the cheap used P4 with 1 Gb and PCI slots only, or do I need to spend more for somewhat more modern and powerful gear?

Hey let's take things one at a time here real quick with a few questions:

1. What are you hoping to do?  Watch HDTV?  Watch and record HDTV? 

2. What tuner cards are you currently looking at?

3. Do you have a computer currently that you want to convert to a  media server or will it all be new?

l

[dnsacks]

4. What device to you plan to watch hdtv broadcasts on and what input interfaces does it support (dvi, hdmi, etc.)?

[lds490]

First, I plan to test out the ATI card with my current system.  I expect it will work ok, but I am thinking of a new machine to use exclusively for A/V, including NTSC and HDTV recording/playback.  I want to do it as inexpensively as possible, but I don't want to compromise on something critical (like the CPU).  I'll need 24 bit audio with either optical or coaxial outputs and a video card with DVI to feed the signal into an HDTV-ready LCD TV.  I just bought a PCI video card w/256 MB.  I'm going to put it in my current system along with the ATI HDTV tuner card and see if I can make it work.  I'll move the tuner card (and maybe the video card) into the new machine when I get it.  I also need to consider options for expanding storage.  So, with all this in mind, what is an appropriate computer and where is the best place to find one cheap?

Did I hijack this thread?