I'm building a PC from scratch for this and I'm not sure if what I have is compatable or not. I also want to know if with this setup I should go for software or hardware based encoding and the TV tuner you reccomend.

Here is the list:
ASRock K7VT4A PRO Socket A (Socket 462) VIA KT400A ATX AMD Motherboard - OEM - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 813157072R

AMD Sempron 2400+ Thoroughbred 333MHz FSB Socket A Processor Model SDA2400DUT3D - OEM - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819104203

MASSCOOL 5T321B1H3G 70 x 70 x 15mm Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6835150049

G.SKILL 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6820231029

LITE-ON Beige ATAPI / E-IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model SOHD-167T BG - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6827131416

Well, it should be ok, though there is the possible VIA bug on your mobo chipset. It's documented around and abouts in this forum. It seems to be a fairly consistant concensus that NForce chipset mobo's are better.

You'll need a graphics card with s-video/tv-out and a sound card, unless your mobo doesn't have onboard sound and tv/s-video out.

As a tuner, you said hardware or software. Depends in part on what kind of signal you are intending to get. If it's DVB, (in whatever flavour you get it) the signal is already encoded, so hardware encoding is unneccesary. If it's regular TV, a card with hardware encoding will take the load off your chip. Your processor should be easily up to the task of decoding the TV signial I would think it isn't really much of an issue with a Sempron.

Hope this helps.
Is I'm relatively new to KnoppMyth myself, so correct me if I'm wildly innacurate!

From everything I've read (including this sticky on hardware to avoid) I'd stay away from the VIA chip sets unless you are some kind of uber linux guru and have lots of time on your hands. If you're planning on doing HD content that AMD might be a wee bit under powered. But for SD it'll probably be fine.

You might want to check out the sticky on the Knoppmyth Reference Platform for comparison. The Knoppmyth Wiki entry on picking components for more options as well.

I don't know why people can't find this for themselves. (http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=PickingComponents) for themselves. I must post the link a couple times a week in response to questions like this, so even the most cursory search of the forums should turn it up.

Don't worry. I've got your back.

tjc, I've actually got the wiki bookmarked but navigation on that thing is a big pain in the ass. I looked through some pages but I found nothing. Thanks for the help.

EDIT: Added a link to the front page of the wiki. Hope this gives you some time off.

Heck, your post is better than mine.

I think people under estimate the power of the wiki search. If the information is on the wiki at all you should be able to find it with 2-3 quck searches. If you can't, adding "site:http://www.knoppmythwiki.org" to a Google search for your keywords should do the trick.

That may be the case but a link is a lot easier. Its like a page like google.com/asdfkd thats not linked to anywhere. How are you supposed to know it exists.

Also with the KRP doesn't actually say any components,

how is navigation on the wiki a pain? I have left nav plus starter links and some nav on the top. I believe all the howto stuff is linked from the howto page, and it has a very good search feature. what more could be done?

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

A search for say "compatable parts" weilds nothing. The search is ok but not great. I'm not sure that there was a link to that part page anywhere until I added it to the homepage.

It's all fresh in my memory. I'm actually still in the research phase, so I've spent much of the last week and a half figuring out everything I want to do and what I need to get. Now I just have to either get a new job (I have an interview on Monday) or wait three or four months to pool all the money together to build the thing.

It was linked from the hardware page http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=HardwareConfigs among others, as well as being mentioned repeatedly here.