I'm considering adding HD capability to my system. I'm not sure if I'll try using firewire or buy an HD tuner card. I think I'll prolly go with firewire since it's cheaper to start with. I figure I'll change my vid card to use DVI->HDMI instead of the S-Video I'm usin' now.

Basically, I'm wondering if the rest of the box will handle HD. I saw someone post that a 2.4G P4 won't handle HD recording and playback at the same time. Will my 3800 Athlon be enough?

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150

Yes, you've got enough CPU for HD. The Dragon spec is only a 3200, and that can record two HD streams and play back one.
I don't know about the firewire though, no experience there. Are you going to be recording from a cable/sat box? Firewire itself is not a tuner, so there has to be a tuner somewhere. The DVB cards work well because they provide a digital stream that can just be dumped to the hard disk, no encoding is required, so there's no/little CPU being used to record. Keep that in mind.

You can use DVI or you can get a VGA/Component converter. In my case, my TV wasn't happy with the DVI, but it's working great with the converter.
S-Video, as you probably realize, isn't HD.

Cool. Was a little worried there.



I know. The firewire is used to connect to a STB and pull the video from that.



Yup. Jus' tryin' to figure out the easiest/cheapest/best way for me to get HD.



Yup, but since I'm only doin' SD right now, it's not that big a deal. It'll be next year before I'm ready for HD.

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KM R5E50; K8NGM2; A64-3800+; 1024MB PC3200; LG DVD-RW; Seagate 750GB; 6600 PCI-E; Onboard sound; Hauppauge PVR-150