Media PC spec check

[bobrocks]

Hello,

I'm considering replacing my broken video machine (old school!) and broken XBox (my old media system) with a Media PC. I have an HD LCD, amp and speakers that it will be connected to. It will be used to play movies and video files, some HD stuff at some time am sure. I hope to use it as freeview reciever and have it record tv. Not sure what media software I'll use but probably mythtv, can myth tv do all this?

How does this sound, is it overkill? Will it all fit together? I want it to be quiet but at the end of the day I was thinking 400-450 and my first attempt is 472.

Any advice or comments about this would be appretiated.

NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61)
Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD ATI Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £61.99
(£72.84)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £49.99
(£58.74)
Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T-500 Dual Freeview TV Tuner £47.99
(£56.39)
Asus GeForce 8500 GT 256MB DDR2 DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £53.99
(£63.44)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39)
Antec NSK 2480 Desktop Case - 380W Earth Watts PSU £57.99
(£68.14)
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £55.99
(£65.79)
Sub Total : £390.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £70.33
Total : £472.20

 

[bobrocks]

Anyone put something like this together before that can give some advice?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

I'm building a MythTV machine at the moment. The rig you have there should be more than up to the task. The only think about which I'm not sure is the TV tuner. It's not that it's a bad card it's just that I don't know much about it so I can't be of much help. You might want to poke around and see what the best Freeview card is for Myth. Other than that it should be great.

EDIT: You could save some money and cut it down to 1 GiB RAM. Myth is very stingy on resource consumption. My Myth setup, encoding and playing standard-def mind you, uses around 160 MiB RAM at most.

 

[bobrocks]

It has a write up on MythTV

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV_Nova-T_500_PCI

Obviously not the best write up, but it seems with latest drivers and not one of the dodgy models you are "ok". And if you get a dodgy model they are happy to replace it.

Just thought, I need to add a quieter cpu fan aswell. Any suggestions for what would fit in the case and be quiet?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Alright, the card should be fine.

I haven't used that case but in general a good choice might be the Thermalright HR-01 PLUS since it's fanless and includes a duct to attach it to the rear exhaust fan of the case.

 

[bobrocks]

Cheers for the help, just ordered it all for Saturday delivery, I'll soon see how it is