Media Centre PC

Trigger

Trigger

Trigger

Soldato
Joined
15 Dec 2004
Posts
3,819
Hi,

I am going to build myself a media centre PC with a completly scratch built case (Will be asking for tips and suggestions in Case Central soon :o) using parts from my old machine which consists of:

AMD 64 3200+
Asus A8N-VM CSM
1GB PC3200 RAM
400W Enermax Liberty
80Gb Samsung SATA Drive
Sony DVD-ROM

I will use my current 24" Phillips CRT as a display for now until I can afford a Plasma screen. Now, I'm going to be using MCE 2005 with this and will obviously need a TV card and thought about getting a freeview one but am stuck for choice. I don't know how to get the signal from the PC to the TV either- the motherboard has both VGA and DVI onboard but the TV only has scart or component input :( I've seen a thread further down but the cable being linked to is a Scart to VGA whereas I need VGA > Scart and I'm also not paying £60 for a bit of wire! Are TV cards avaliable that can output a component signal as well as using a standard RF input signal? I don't know much about this sort of thing so could do with some help- any tips and advice would be useful :)

Also, in my custom built case, I plan to mount a 4" LCD with which I plan to send a graphics signal to off the PC and use it as a sound meter type thing if I can find a program that will do it... any suggestions?

Thanks for any help :cool:

Ben
 
Firstly, TV card wise I used two Leadtek DTV1000-T cards which run flawlessly to watch/record freeview (can act as a Sky+ type device with 2 tuners, watch one channel and record the other). The dual tuner cards from Hauppauge also seem to be rated highly.

Video output wise, if you're using onboard video you may be able to find a header for composite/s-video, might be worth checking out the motherboard manual for that if they aren't already included in the back panel. VGA-RGB Scart cables only work on ATi cards as far as I'm aware, plus it involves a fair bit of fiddling around IIRC. Seperate graphics cards usually include component output as part of the tv-out port, again, it might vary if you're using onboard video.

TV cards don't output video seperately (or at least I've never seen one that does this).

Not sure about the 4" LCD at all as I've never looked in to anything like that.
 
Right, thanks mate :)

Regarding video output, I've just been looking at these two cards:

S-Video
Component

They both use the ATI X1050 chip which I'm sure would be fine for output to TV but by the looks of things, one has a component output and the other has s-video out- would I be better using the s-video out and converting it to scart or using the component output natively?

Thanks for the TV card recommendations- I'll look into them a bit more :)

Regarding the 4" LCD, I reckon I could use either the onboard VGA or the VGA off the separate video card (For what it's worth I could always put a spare PCI video card in there if it doesn't work) and run dual displays using something like ultramon and then find an app to display sound levels- must be one out there somewhere.

Anymore suggestions?

Thanks for the help :cool:

Ben
 
Before looking in to S-Video it might be worth checking out if your TV can take S-Video inputs; some slightly older models can't. Things to look out for would be an actual S-Video port on the tv or a "AV-S" type channel.

I'm quite tired at the moment so can't really read over the specs in too much detail, but all modern cards should output S-Video and Composite at a minimum, and most seem to do Component as well at the moment. They usually all use the same port on the card itself with a supplied adapter to get the connection required. I'll try and remember to have a look at the cards tomorrow and give a more definite answer.
 
If you are set on getting a cheap gfx card it might be better to look at some of the cheap Nvidia fanless ones (7300/7600). Fan noise is really annoying on a media PC. As Phil99 said, almost every separate gfx card will output a TV signal, and you'll usually get a bunch of adapters with them, so it is more a case of knowing other requirements (games, noise levels, etc.).

For the little screen - have you looked at solutions like imon? I know OCUK used to sell them but I can't seem to find them now. Also there is a nice Zalman media case that attempts something similar, although I'm sure yours will have a lot more character :)
 
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