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Thread ID: 62066 2005-09-25 23:24:00 How Much would a graphics card upgrade affect a Media Centre PC noone (22) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
390868 2005-09-27 04:44:00 1.A plasma or LCD TV
2.A couple of big fast harddrives
3.DVD Writer
Metla (12)
390869 2005-09-27 06:26:00 1.A plasma or LCD TV

Yeah right


2.A couple of big fast harddrives

In consideration


3.DVD Writer

Note: DL DVD RW Lg 4167 BW - dvd superdrive - dvdram/r/rw/dl/cdrw etc

After now using the unit for a week there is one thing that i can see that needs to be changed , when recording or timeshifting there is a definate lag in the video ( as it is recording and playing back at the same time ) , What would fix this problem , i am thinking a faster HDD , or a faster CPU
noone (22)
390870 2005-09-27 06:28:00 how bout this

$100 - upgrade cooling so i can overclock CPU - XP's are hard 2 come by these days
and
Western Digital Raptor 36GB 10000rpm SATA
noone (22)
390871 2005-09-27 09:09:00 What will overclocking achieve?If you look at the cpu usage during capture its probally sitting on 40%

Anyhow, A couple sata drives..........raided.


Job done.
Metla (12)
390872 2005-09-27 22:47:00 but during recording it goes right up ( anything from 70%) noone (22)
390873 2005-09-27 23:18:00 Capture/recording, its the same process.

Nothing wrong with 70% or more, Anyhow, try lowering your encoding levels, pick a codec and settings that don't hit the system too hard. Only experimenting will find the sweet spot for your system.

You may want to invest in a sound card if your using onboard audio.
Metla (12)
390874 2005-09-28 00:50:00 As the DV 2000 is Windows Media Center compatible I'll assume you are running Microsoft Windows Media Center. Are you running 2002, 2004, or 2005? If you are running 2002 applying SP2 will get you a free upgrade to 2004.

You will find that the DV 2000 is the mpeg2 ENCODER, you will also have some sort of software mpeg2 DECODER. This may be in the form of DVD playback software. Media Center hooks into the codec provided by that software.

Fire up the DVD player software and look for an option to use DXVA or VMR9 accelleration. To use DXVA you need to apply 2 microsoft patches, one a DRM package, and the other a hotfix for Media Player 10.

Assuming that the DV2000 works as per microsoft's recommendation it should be encoding the signal in mpeg2 format in hardware (the only software encoding capture card for WMC I'm aware of is the dodgy ATI all-in-wonder). Therefore if you are recording but not watching telly, the CPU should only be at about 20%, most of the grunt should be going into the playback part of the process.

A new graphics card will take up some of the load of decoding this mpeg2 video in hardware if it supports DXVA and VMR9.

If you are using media center you don't have a choice of what codec to use for encoding, this is a good thing...
BIFF (1)
390875 2005-09-28 02:29:00 In your guys opinion for the max of $250 what do you think will be the best upgrade possible for the PC - considering it is now a media centre pc and never used to be

Stats

Amd XP 2800 +
1 gig ram
80 Gig 2meg buffer IDE HDD
DL , DVD RW
Leadtek DV 2000 TV Card
Ati Radeon 9200 SE


Thanks



The thing is, as a Media Center it is already above specs, So 4 gig of ram A 7800Gt video card and a AMD dual core CPU isn't going to improve your picture much if at ALL! only HDTV wich has been mentioned or more HDD to hold more movies will help.

Example,
My Xbox is modded into a media center and is only (off the top of my head) a Celeron 733, 256MB ram and 120 gig HDD gefore2 class ish,....... and it plays moveis as GOODl as my AMD 64 overclocked to 4000+ rating with 2 gig ram, 256MB Radeon 9800Xt.

Only difference is, if you are ripping movies from DVD, a very fast processor will help a lot in the time it takes, not the end quaility.
Battleneter (60)
390876 2005-09-28 02:31:00 Ok I guess the question (after thinking about it) is why do you think it needs an upgrade?

And what sort of movies do you mainly play, DVD or ripped DVD etc?
Battleneter (60)
390877 2005-09-28 04:32:00 why i think i need a upgrade - When i am recording and watching it lags noone (22)
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