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| Thread ID: 113075 | 2010-10-04 08:16:00 | Freeview HD PCI tuners | The Error Guy (14052) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1141594 | 2010-10-04 08:16:00 | Recently acquired a 32'' LCD TV. first TV for a long time. not much useful on them things anyway. Long story short, building a HTPC so Ill be needing (and wanting) a TV tuner. nothing fancy, just a freeview HD compatible tuner that can read their Electronic guide ect. probably won't be throwing a satellite up, rather using a UHF antennae. Anyone recommend a card that will do the trick? Seen plenty around on Trademe and other places. Also, i'm not sure how much processing power decoding the H.264 will take, the TV's only 32'' so ill be using 720p at the most, not full HD Would the current specs (of a spare comp that i have lying around) cut it? CPU: AthlonXP 2000+ (1.67GHz) RAM: 512mb HDD: 120Gb seagate IDE 640gb WD SATA Networking: Wireless 802.11g (wired not very much of an option but it does have a 100mb NIC inbuilt) Tuner: TBC Not important to performance: 2x CD/DVD writers (IDE) 1x Floppy drive to get off the floor USB is 1.1 so USB peripherals are not really an option Cheers for the options! |
The Error Guy (14052) | ||
| 1141595 | 2010-10-04 09:47:00 | So the TV doesnt have freeview? You maybe stretching it a bit with that system. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 1141596 | 2010-10-04 13:42:00 | To process Freeview on low cpu speed machines you need to offload the decoding to a video card with onboard h264 processing. That pc you have sounds of the AGP videocard vintage.. |
apsattv (7406) | ||
| 1141597 | 2010-10-04 17:29:00 | To buy a FV decoder costs $200, a moderately cheap PCI card would be around $80 to $200, for what you can do with them a PCI would be much more worth its cost than just a decoder . How would the TV not having freeview stretch it? The mobo has a free AGP slot so I could put another card in (Nvidia Vanta LT) The computers specs aren't essential at this stage, i'm still building the actual HTPC, this was just going to be a stand in (well, maybe not) |
The Error Guy (14052) | ||
| 1141598 | 2010-10-04 19:00:00 | I don't think there are any APG based video cards that will hardware decode - and your CPU is too small to keep up with Freeview|HD. The tuner cards and the recording is the easy bit - there's very little cpu usage in recording, and the digital stream is being dumped to disk. Playback however is a different story - I don't think there are any upgrades you can make to your video card to get the decoding ability you need for Freeview|HD. While you don't want to use the satellite, that may be your option at this stage as it's graphic requirements are a lot lower. Don't have an old sky dish on the house do you? that's all you need. |
psycik (12851) | ||
| 1141599 | 2010-10-04 19:17:00 | No point having a dish / satellite. Since its not HD | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 1141600 | 2010-10-04 19:21:00 | How would the TV not having freeview stretch it? The TV has nothing to do with it. The system just isnt fast enough to handle HD. What I said in the 2nd post, I meant the computer, not the TV |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 1141601 | 2010-10-04 19:46:00 | Ok, so I won't bother with the old PC. just straight to the build. I won't be slapping up a dish anyway, I was planning on using the UHF aerial anyway since a sat dish is about $200 Build will be using an AMD turion x2 (2.0GHz) 3gb RAM and a WD or seagate barracuda HDD, about 1TB, wireless 802.11N with gigabit wired if I can be bothered getting under the house to wire it (built in 1860 so space underneath it is tight) Also plan on getting a better TV, the 32" was free so ill settle with that for now. The tuner, is still undecided |
The Error Guy (14052) | ||
| 1141602 | 2010-10-04 19:49:00 | Speaking of TV's, hopefully google will release this as an independent OS for media centers www.google.com probably not though |
The Error Guy (14052) | ||
| 1141603 | 2010-10-04 19:56:00 | I do a similar thing here (but the TV is an old 32' not an LCD). I'm using a USB tuner, and use the Xbox (well when Win7 was installed, since Vista's MCE doesnt support MP4 / or this tuner). And that's connected to the TV (so the flatmate can watch parliament). I can still watch it tho (just have to watch it on this monitor and connect audio out from this monitor to the stereo) Just have to replace the videocard I think (I need one that supports hw acceleration, and CUDA). So, the CPU doesnt have to do all the work |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
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