I just ordered a HD-3000 HDTV PCI CARD and im going to install it on a machine i made a while back thats just sitting around. im just wondering if the recording will make a difference depending on the video card i have or not. i wont be using the same machine to watch the videos.

AMD XP 1700
512MB DDR 2100
geforce 3 64MB
Sound Blaster Live
built in network adapter
HD-3000 HDTV PCI CARD (coming soon)

I use an XP1700 with DVB in Australia and a GeForce-2 64M graphics card. I dont think you will have any problems recording with that machine (the only thing that probably wont work is playback of high def which you should already know needs 3GHz class CPU - unless you can get xvmc to work for you - but your graphics card probably does not support that anyway).

If they broadcast standard def channels too where you are, should be able to play them back. My machine uses 60-70% CPU playing standard def PAL ((720or704)x576x25Hz).

Oh, and I only have 256M of RAM.

just so i understand, i can record the hi-def onto that computer i just cant play it back, the computer i will be using to play it back on is a...

AMD 64 3200+
Geforce 6800 GT OC 256MB DDR3
Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Sound Card
1GB DDR 3200 RAM

I just dont like leaving this machine on all the time but i do leave the other one on.

You understand correctly. Recording does not impose much load, particularly with a DVB card or hardware encoding card (like the PVR-x50s). It simply has to manage data being shuffled around.