speccing a htpc

meem

meem

meem

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Joined
7 Jun 2005
Posts
108
Some questions, please:

Motherboard, which one:
ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi Socket 775
Or Zotac ion atom ?

I read different things about whether the ion is a 9300 or 9400, so processor speed aside, is there any difference?

I want to have my sky hd >--> htpc >--> tv
Likely intention is to stream the current tv channel to another pc in the house
I might add a satelite card at some point (foreign channels), I'd like the option even though i probably won't do it

I have 2gb of ddr2 already that I will use, and some spare disks (5400 and 7200)

Case looks like being Antec ISK 310-150. There are prettier ones, but this is the only one I see getting good reviews here that is fairly cheap.

Also: if i buy a tv card with remote control, I don't need any other remote control for turning the machine off and on, right.

Any suggestions for the tv tuner?

Thanks for the info, I am looking to buy all this stuff today for a weekend build!
 
What OS are you intending on running ?
I think that you will struggle routing Sky through a HTPC
If you want to route Sky to other PCs you'd be better off with a slingbox.

I have just been down this route, finally built my Zotac Ion-F-E based machine last night and decided to leave Sky out of the equation. I will put a

http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT3159.sf/en_AU/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT3159/Products/BGT3595

when they become available, so that I can use it to record freesat.

Mushii
 
OK so I started testing my Ion build last night. Downloaded the Shark007 Codec pack and threw everything that I could find at it (I havent got a BD installed yet).

DVDs fine, 1080p WMVs fine, 1080p .mkvs fine. No stuttering and no dropped frames. I tried streaming DVD rips (my own DVDs) off my G4 server, no issues at all. I installed SKY Player, - flawless, TunerFree - all channels stream perfectly.

I am very happy with the Ion Chipset running W7 Media Centre.

Mushii
 
I have a Sky HD box with svideo, so can't I just go svideo from the sky box to a capture card and hey presto? Lack of HD doesn't really matter when streaming to upstairs
 
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