Building a MCE 2005 system

Vanilla_Ice · 5 Mar 2006 at 23:27

Hi,

I am playing with the idea of building a media PC. Curretnly I have a spare AMD 1700+ (that can be oc'd to 3200), Abit NF7S v2 motherboard and Gefore 4200 128mb graphics card. To this im thinking of adding 1gb RAM, hard disk, case, keyboard and mouse etc.

I like the idea of being able to record TV and the way MCE can present digital media etc. How will the AMD 1700+ cope with this? I currently have a freeview box for my telly. I would like to be able to view freeview through the media PC, can my current set top box be used to do this? Or would I need a tuner card? If so which one? Does the Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1300 Media Centre Edition Freeview TV Tuner perform well?

Also, does anyone know how MCE performs streaming videos from a wifi networked file server? Does wifi have enough bandwidth?

Cheers,

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 6 Mar 2006 at 21:14

Excellent, I thought that my XP1700+ was off to the bay. I take it the sound storm on the NF7S v2 will be adequate - hoping to utilise a 5.1 AV amp (via optical) and speakers my brother gave me when he moved house

HEADRAT said:
Depends what you want to stream, dvr-ms and DVD will be < 8/9 Mbps, I'm using a Pre-N network which I can get 30/35 Mbps (real world) performance out of but it was problamatic streaming DVD's etc over the network, moving to wired really soon.

HEADRAT

I will be streaming mostly DIVX's and MP3's, so I guess that the Mbps doesn't need to be hooj.

Now all I'm looking for is a suitable off the shelf quiet case - would the Antec Overture II Piano Black Quiet Media case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-038-AN) do the job?

Getting excited

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 6 Mar 2006 at 21:36

Energize said:
Will be fine, what are you streaming the media to?

Erm... not sure what you mean? As is what will I be watching it on? To start with my 20" CRT telly (for testing), then hopefully onto a widescreen TFT, but ultimately a projector.

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 6 Mar 2006 at 23:44

Does the Nvidia PureVideo MPEG decoder make much of a difference? I've just seen that you have to pay for it! :eek:

Will ffdshow not work with MCE 2005? :confused:

EDIT: At The Gates - marc mercer said my GF4 wouldn't cut the mustard as it not DX9 hardware compatible, do you have any issues? Also, does the Hauppage Nova T Freeview DTV card use the tuner controls built in to MCE or do you need the bundled software? It looks a bit naff, going by the website.

Cheers,

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 7 Mar 2006 at 00:21

Ok, thanks for that.

You may have missed my second edit so I'll repeat it.

"Also, does the Hauppage Nova T Freeview DTV card use the tuner controls built in to MCE or do you need the bundled software? It looks a bit naff, going by the website."

Cheers,

ICE

EDIT: Just seen your edit - thanks! Sorry for any confusion.

Vanilla_Ice · 7 Mar 2006 at 00:37

So to clarify, a Ti4200 will work ok, although it will need an MPEG decoder?

Can anyone answer why the Hauppage Nova T Freeview DTV can only receive upto 30 freeview channels? Are there any ways around this? Or do they just mean 30 favourite channels?

Cheers,

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 10 Mar 2006 at 00:17

Have been playing with my system and all seems ok so far

No problems with video playback in terms of system spec and network bandwidth :cool:

I have just been looking through this weeks special deals and saw Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1300 Media Centre Edition Freeview TV Tuner is on offer - I presume its the daddy (2 tuners and bundled remote). Does anyone have one? What does the remote look like? There aren't any pictures of it on the Hauppauge site.

marc mercer - may I ask where your saw the Nvidia Decoder for £5?

As a side note - the fan on my Ti4200 is driving me crazy, may have to down grade to a fanless MX400 :eek:

Cheers,

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 10 Mar 2006 at 17:14

Cheers,

I think I will probably stetch to the gold edition when I do though. I think my setup will make use of the 5.1 :confused:

Thanks again,

ICE

Vanilla_Ice · 12 Mar 2006 at 22:11

Vanilla_Ice said:
I have just been looking through this weeks special deals and saw Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1300 Media Centre Edition Freeview TV Tuner is on offer - I presume its the daddy (2 tuners and bundled remote). Does anyone have one? What does the remote look like? There aren't any pictures of it on the Hauppauge site.

And just to confirm, am I correct in thinking these cards DO NOT require a set top box to view freeview?

Cheers,

ICE