Chengora

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Oct 9, 2006
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Hi all,

Thanks to those of you who have weighed in on my DIY DVR questions. I think I'm finally ready to purchase and build the thing, and wanted to get your insight on the final list of components. This will be for a 42" HDTV 1080p, and I'm using an old Dell for the DVR (so parts and power might low). Let me know if anything doesn't seem right:

■ 512 MB RAM
■ Pentium 4 processor
■ 500GB IDE HDD
■ Bundle of SageTV and Tuner card - http://store.sagetv.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SOS&Product_Code=STVHBR&Category_Code=SB

I'm going to use the integrated graphics card (I've got a converter from the standard plug to HDMI), although if you think the system could benefit from more GPU power, let me know. Sadly, with a PC this old, I'm stuck with regular PCI slots.

Any thoughts? And thanks!
 

tj_the_first

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Apr 27, 2006
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Agree with shadow - powering a nice TV with a PoS is self defeating. I don't think you'll be able to get away with it because the encoding won't happen quick enough. I could be wrong though, I've never built a PVR. The only guy I know who has runs E6600 and streams to a PS3.

I've got a SD tuner/hard drive recorder ($70 w/o hdd) and a PS3 (a bit more than $100 :). PC DVRs seem like they're more trouble than they're worth - for the cost of windows you can buy a cheap consumer device.
 

Chengora

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Oct 9, 2006
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Thank, guys. I was wondering if it might be better to go with a commercial option, since monthly fees are dropping rapidly. Guess that's what I'll do.

Thanks again!