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Hardware for new HTPC box
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3048		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  arnljot [ Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Hardware for new HTPC box
  • Cabinet: Cavalier 4 CAV-T04
  • HDD: Samsung SpinPoint P80 120GB S-ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM
  • MoBo: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard A nForce2 Ultra400/MCP-T,GbLAN,Firewire
  • CPU: AMD Sempron 2500+ 1.750 GHz Socket A 333MHz, 256KB cache
  • RAM: DDR-DIMM PC3200 512MB DDR CL2.5 Memory 184-P (for DDR-PC400MHz)
  • GPU: Sapphire Radeon 9250, 128MB DDR, 64bit AGP, ATI 9250,TV-Out/DVI-I, Lite-Retail
  • Tuner: Pinnacle PCTV PCI TV carc, Retail
  • DVD: NEC DVD recorder ND-3500A IDE Silver Bulk,DVD+R/+RW/DVD-R/-RW (Dual layer)
  • Keyboard:Creative Desktop Wireless 6000, Keyb/mouse, USB
  • CPU cooling: GlacialTech Igloo2470TC CPU-Cooler Socket A/370, Up to XP3200+ (18-33db)
  • Floppy: Sony Floppy Drive, 3,5" 1,44MB Silver Floppy Drive Internal


I've read a lot on this forum, and I think I should be safe, but just to make sure, pls comment if you find some bogeys in this setup.

I hope it'll be quiet(and cool) as I intend to leave it running 24/7.

The box cost me $116 with shipping from Xoide.com, and a 1079,- NOK ($173) to get to Norway by JetCarrier (magnum.no).

Then I paid NOK 5255,- to pcutstyr.no for the parts, that's $846

Only place I really feel I burned money was on the chassis, couldn't find the chassis in stock in Norway.

Now my hopes and aspirations is to get this system to be dual boot, with snes, mame, uae and maybe even ps1 and ps2 emulation.

I'm no where near getting all the knowledge I feel I need to get this running, so I'm hoping for the kindness of strangers ;)
Author:  gr8nash [ Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
if your using knoppmyth lose the ATI card and get a Gforce4 also i dint see what type of capture card your gonna use?
Author:  gr8nash [ Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
ohh and lose the floppy.. hehe i hate floppies.. also maybe its just me but i would tone down the budget alot and stick the essentials and lose some bells and whistles.. its after all a mythbox not a gaming machine.. your emulation wont need all that HP and neither will myth depending on several factors.. will you be doing HD? what type of capture card are you going to use.. ect. more info please
Author:  arnljot [ Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Capture card
The Pinnacle card is the tuner card, and should be able to framegrab. I think the only thing making it different from it's big brother the Pinnacle Pro card, is software (WinDoze).

But I'm not sure.

I hate floppies as well, but I've included it for BIOS and Firmware upgrades that insists on being run from floppy.

And I thought I'd bought a puny processor, I don't see much HP (Horse Power?) in this box :)

The tuner cards specs
  • Product Description:Pinnacle PCTV TV / video input adapter - PCI
  • Features:TV tuner
  • OS Required:Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows XP
  • Device Type:TV / video input adapter - plug-in card
  • Interface Type:PCI
  • Cables Included:1 x audio cable
  • Video Input:Video capture adapter - S-video input, composite video input - plug-in card
  • Audio Input Support:Standard
  • Digital Video Capture Resolution:352 x 288, 720 x 576, 480 x 576
  • Analogue video Signal:S-Video, composite video, HF TV Signal
  • Digital Video Format:MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DV


Product jippo by vendor:
Bragging Vendor wrote:
Pinnacle PCTV is a fully featured TV Tuner PCI card to watch TV on a PC with ultimate quality. Powerful digital features include recording of TV programs or audio/video streams in MPEG-1/2 formats, allowing you to burn direct to a CD or DVD without having to convert, and time-shifting to let you pause or replay while recording a live show. Pinnacle's Webtext technology allows to instantly view Teletext pages and connect to the associated Internet pages. Pinnacle PCTV includes an Infrared Remote control and comes with Pinnacle T-Rex multimedia file converter.


I won't be doing HD, there is now only one HD channel available in Norway, but I'll replace the tuner card and my tv when that day come :)


PS: I also have an ATI Remote Wonder I plan on using with this system.
Author:  arnljot [ Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
gr8nash wrote:
if your using knoppmyth lose the ATI card and get a Gforce4 also i dint see what type of capture card your gonna use?


Okay, I'll see if I can peddle the ATI card and replace it with a
Pcsupply.no wrote:
XFX GeForce FX5200 128MB DDR AGP, Tv-Out, "low profile" Retail


Then I'll be all righteous? :P
Author:  Liv2Cod [ Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:26 am ]
Post subject: 
I don't know about that Pinnacle TV card. Do you know if Myth supports it? The "gold standard" on this side of the pond is the Hauppage 250 because it captures the stream and converts it to MPEG2 in hardware. Very easy on the processor.
Author:  arnljot [ Sun Dec 12, 2004 5:34 am ]
Post subject: 
Liv2Cod wrote:
I don't know about that Pinnacle TV card. Do you know if Myth supports it? The "gold standard" on this side of the pond is the Hauppage 250 because it captures the stream and converts it to MPEG2 in hardware. Very easy on the processor.


The Pinnacle card is supported, I've checked. The card cost NOK 792 ($127), and it seems to be equal to the PVR150 card.

And I really wanted to go for the Hauppage cards, but they are rare here, and much more expensive. Here are the Hauppage cards available:
  • Hauppauge! WinTV Express, Tv-card PCI, Mono, Retail kr 383,00 $61,70
  • Hauppauge! WinTV GO2, Tv-card PCI, Nicam Stereo, Retail kr 500,00 $80,55
  • Hauppauge! WinTV PCI FM, Tv-card w/radio PCI, Nicam Stereo, Retail kr 630,00 $101,49
  • Hauppauge! WinTV PVR150, Tv-card / MPEG2 PCI, Nicam Stereo, Retail kr 903,00 $145,47
  • Hauppauge! WinTV PVR USB2, Tv-card/MPEG2 USB2.0 , Nicam Stereo, Retail kr 1 306,00 $210,39
  • Hauppauge! WinTV PVR500 MCE, 1pak OEM Bulk kr 1 431,00 $230,53
  • Hauppauge! WinTV PVR350, Tv-card / MPEG2 PCI, Nicam Stereo, S-Video out kr 1 644,00 $264,84
  • Hauppauge! WinTV Nexus-ca analogue and digital (cable) tv-card kr 1 882,00 $303,18
  • Hauppauge! WinTV Nexus-s Digital Satellitt card w/radio kr 1 942,00 $312,85
  • Hauppauge! WinTV PVR150 MCE, 3pk OEM Bulk kr 2 067,00 $332,98


All prices are from my prefered vendor, they are overall cheapest in Norway. A lot of these cards are not yet available, and are not estimated to be in stock before the 3rd of Jan.
Author:  tjc [ Sun Dec 12, 2004 10:13 am ]
Post subject: 
gr8nash wrote:
ohh and lose the floppy.. hehe i hate floppies..

Keep the floppy. I've got no particular love for them, but they can be really, really useful if you need to flash the BIOS or the like. My KnoppMyth box doesn't have one and updating the BIOS was a giant pain in the chair interface. YMMV of course. ;-)

Oh, and everything else looks good too now that you've ditched the ATI card.
Author:  Xsecrets [ Sun Dec 12, 2004 11:01 am ]
Post subject: 
I would double check on that pinacle card, it scares me that you are comparing it to the hauppage150, which is not supported well in linux at this point. If it's a hardware encoding chip then I only know of like 3 that are fully supported, and none of those are pinacle. If it's software it'll be fine if it is bt878, but seems like most of the software cards are going with conexant now.
Author:  arnljot [ Sun Dec 12, 2004 12:40 pm ]
Post subject: 
The tuner card has no mpeg encoder I think, seems like it's only software:
PDF Data sheet

And the table on the bottom of this page states CPU requirements for MPEG capture:
HTML Data specs

It mentions that encoding can be activated online...

When I say it's equal to the PVR150, it's only features I think of. My problem is that only the PVR350 is possible to get in Norway, and that's more than twice the price.

The pinnacle card is listed on the bottom of the "Top Tuner cards" on the http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/ page which lists hardware used in PVR setups. The pinnacle cards use the BTTV driver. More specifically, according to the pvr hardware page, the PCTV Stero card has a bt878 chip.

BTTV Gallery, see 11.01.2004.

The only thing that aggrevates me with my setup was that I really knew that the ATI card was a bad choice, I only forgot it when I placed the order, but I'm dumping it now for an FX5200 card :)
Author:  brendan [ Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
arnljot wrote:
The only thing that aggrevates me with my setup was that I really knew that the ATI card was a bad choice, I only forgot it when I placed the order, but I'm dumping it now for an FX5200 card :)


I got lucky on that front, my local Microcenter had those on sale when I built my shuttle system, so I bought that based on featureset and price.

And for good measure, I mail ordered a couple of the ChainTech fanless 5200s just in case I need them later for other front ends. :)

-brendan
Author:  arnljot [ Tue Dec 14, 2004 6:16 am ]
Post subject: 
brendan wrote:
And for good measure, I mail ordered a couple of the ChainTech fanless 5200s just in case I need them later for other front ends. :)

-brendan


The one I bought is fanless.

So my growing concern atm is that the box will be noisy.

I've been reading up on the site Silent PC Review.

And the Spin Point HD is quiet, the graphic card is as quiet as they come. But my CPU is rated as a hard to cool CPU.

But then my fan is a 19db fan, I have no concept of how much noice 19db is.

And then there is the PSU and three chassis fans in the Cavalier 04, which I've still to fire up...

Any advice based in the realities I'm facing, people with Cooler Master Cavalier 04 experience would be greatly appreciated.
Author:  ceenvee703 [ Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:10 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
But then my fan is a 19db fan, I have no concept of how much noise 19db is.


If it's really 19db, it's right around "soft whisper" level:

http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/content/ ... h1pg3.html
Author:  mgrassi99 [ Wed Dec 15, 2004 2:53 pm ]
Post subject: 
An alternative to using floppies for BIOS upgrades:

http://www.nenie.org/misc/flashbootcd.html

I've used this method a few times since, and it works like a charm. You can download DOS boot floppy images from various places on the web.

-Mike[/url]
Author:  Grooby [ Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:05 am ]
Post subject: 
if you plan to do HDTV in the future, you might wanna look into FX5200. You can get a fanless one with DVI/8xAGP for around $60-ish.
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