Any suggestions?

*Cooler Master Silver/Blue Cavalier 2 ATX Desktop Case With Analog Dial & 300W Power Supply, Model "CAV-T02-UWA" -RETAIL
*Albatron "PX875P PRO" i875P Chipset Motherboard For Intel Socket 478 CPU
*2 Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250s (Model 980)
*APOLLO GeForce4 MX440-8X Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "Bloody Monster Geforce4 MX440 128MB-AGP8X"
*Intel 2.8GHz P4 Prescott Socket 478
*512MB RAM
*DVD-Burner
*40GB HDD

Will this do for recording one show, while watching another? I will not be doing any HDTV stuff. What DVD Burner do you recommend? Also, I know that this is probably a stupid question but I don't know the answer, do I need to put a splitter on my cable and hook i to both capture cards? Also, if I hook this to the TV, I would use the TV out on the video card, right?

Thanks for helping a stupid Noob.

Rusty

I'd definitely get a bigger hard drive. Even at a low data rate (4Mbps) an MPEG2 file takes up about 2GB/hr.

Yep, you need a splitter to run two outputs to the two 250s, and yep, you will use the TV out on the video card to connect to your TV (once everything's set up... you might be better off getting everything set up to work with a monitor, then work on getting TV-out up and running afterwards).

Thanks for the response. I will probably buy a bigger HD, I just have this one on hand right now. Thanks again.

This is just my preference, but I'd place a premium on quiet, assuming it's going to be in your living room, on 24/7. AMD procs output less heat and therefore are easier to cool quietly. It's good that the graphics card is passively cooled. Silencing is a major topic, which you could spend days looking at. Consider that the box doesn't necessarily have to sit beside the TV - the remote with a PVR[23]50 works off a sensor on a lead, so you might be able to use a less pretty but better ventilated (=quieter) case, and hide it (in my case, behind a CD rack).

A PVR 350 card could allow you to lose the video card and just use a mobo with onboard graphics for setup. Your CPU needs would be absolutely minimal then, reportedly video quality is better, but you lose graphics abilities for games and music visualizations, and working with [23]50s means you need to stay in mpeg2 world, meaning larger files.

On the other hand, if you do go with a video card, why not just get cheap, dumb, tuner cards and encode on the CPU to mpeg4 or something for smaller files? I think something like a 3000+ Athlon64 could handle the load involved with two tuners, but I'm not sure. If not a hybrid option would be a dumb tuner plus one or more 250s, transcoding the 250's recordings to mpeg4 after recording.

As ceenvee703 says, you might as well get a large drive for the sake of the extra few dollars. Samsung spinpoints are cheap and quiet (US$85 / 160Mb).

I think the NEC 3500/3520 DVD burners are some of the best, and also cheap. They're quiet when they're not running full tilt.

Currently I like Seagate hard disk drives. Can't beat that 5-year warranty and they certainly are quiet. I have three 300G Seagates in my HDTV box.

As for processor, I love AMDs but the Intel P4 seems to be better at video encoding and decoding. It is apparently more clock-speed sensitive than most applications and the P4 runs at a higher native clock. Plus, if you ever change your mind and decide to go after HDTV you'll need the P4. (I found out the hard way.)

_________________
Do you code to live, or live to code?
Search LinHES forum through Google

The reason that I am going with this configuration is because I already have the processor, HDD, memory, and case. I am salvaging the first three from a Dell Optiplex GX270 with a bad MOBO. I figure that I will buy the other stuff to get it working, and then worry about adding storage. Thanks for all of your help. I'm sure that I will be back asking questions once I start this weekend.

Bigger HD, maybe two.

The Intel chipset will give you minor grief with volume control, the PCM volume is only on or off. You have to tweak something in the playback setup to work around it.

I might go with a FX 5200 with a DVI connector rather than the MX 440, but that's based on anecdotal evidence.