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Building a home theater PC on the cheap. Need advice.

69.20.211.54

Hey all.

I'm wanting to build a HTPC (home theater PC) on the dirt cheap to get me by for awhile 'til I can upgrade. Here's what I have laying around that I'm planning on using for the project:

1) 2.1 GHz Compaq Presario CPU
2) 1GB RAM
3) a couple of 1TB drives
4) Windows XP
5) DVD-RW drive

Here's what I want it to do:

1) Record one stream of 720p TV from the outdoor antennna using a PCI DVR card (which I haven't bought yet)
2) Stream NetFlix (requires Windows for Silverlight plugin. Otherwise, I'd be using Linux.)
3) Playback saved DivX movies ripped from my DVD collection.
4) Playback DVDs.

Will this system be fast enough to do this stuff on a fairly reliable basis? I'm kinda cash-strapped at the moment, so I can't afford to spend a lot of dough on this project.

Any recommendations on a good HDTV PCI DVR card with remote that would be a good fit and work under Windows XP and Windows 7? (I want to be able to use the card in a later system under Windows 7 with Media Center.)

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Cheers,
Bobbo :-)

Follow Ups:

RE: Building a home theater PC on the cheap. Need advice. - Ross 18:22:08 12/19/10 (0)
IMHO no. Last year I tried to do what you contemplate. I used a Dell 2.4ghz / 2gb / WinXP machine. I installed a Haupauge TV card and a 512mb graphics card. I have a fast DSL connection. Never could get recording to work without crashing the machine. Never could get 720p streaming to work without stuttering or buffer issues. 480 from Hulu worked most of the time but remaining issues were still frustrating.

I recently "upgraded" to a Dual Core 1.6ghz/ 2gb Ram / XP machine and a dedicated graphics card. After turn on and tweaking (~45min ?) I was able to stream Hulu TV shows for several hours without 1 drop out, stutter or buffering episode. Then my wife and I watched a movie streamed from Netflix in 720p...again not stuttering, buffering or other issues.

My conclusion, based upon experience, is you need more processing power than a single core chip can deliver. Put in at least 2gb of ram and get a dedicated graphics card.

Best,

Ross
RE: Building a home theater PC on the cheap. Need advice. - blue_z 13:26:51 11/20/10 (2)
> Will this system be fast enough to do this stuff on a fairly reliable basis?
> I'm kinda cash-strapped at the moment, so I can't afford to spend a lot of dough on this project.

It's good enough for playing DVDs, but you're going to need a decent graphics card for HD. You need to provide more specs for the PC; is there a PCI Express x16 slot or is this PC that old that it has AGP?
If the disk drive(s) is/are IDE rather than SATA, then recording and watching (i.e. the "Tivo pause live TV experience) OTA won't be possible.

Do you have a fast enough connection to your ISP?

> Any recommendations on a good HDTV PCI DVR

Digital TV tuners just deliver a MPEG-2 Transport Stream of video, audio and control information to the PC. The "DVR" capability has to be performed by software.

Since you're starting out with WinXP, you need to look for an ATSC Tuner that includes BDA drivers. Most older tuners do have BDA drivers. The newer tuners have no PVR/DVR application software or BDA drivers, and you are expected to use Windows Media Center.

Regards
- RE: Building a home theater PC on the cheap. Need advice. - soundnut 04:36:24 11/22/10 (1)
  Hi.
  
  Thanks for the info. The PC has 3 regular PCI slots & an AGP slot. I do have a good PCI dual monitor video card that I'm currently using on another PC through my TV with good results, so I can pop it in the HTPC.
  
  Onboard drive headers are IDE. I suppose I could pop in a SATA PCI card.
  
  At this point, I'm thinking maybe I should just go buy a new dual core mobo & CPU & upgrade the thing.
  
  Cheers,
  Bobbo :-)
  - Use a WDTV Live to handle the playback? - bassbinotoko 02:11:55 12/04/10 (0)
    Use the PC for capturing and serving, but watch using a WDTV Live? This won't give you the PVR convenience, but if you mostly want it for time-shifting, it should work. This allows keeping the noisy computer in another room, and then you just need the tiny (and fanless) WDTV near the display. (Or instead of the WDTV Live, one of the various other 1080p media players: go to the Amazon listing for the WDTV Live and you'll find links to a slew of competitors.)
    
    Edits: 12/04/10

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