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Video Card Rec for Movie Jukebox

Tags:
  • Graphics Cards
  • Movies
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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May 19, 2008 12:07:03 PM

So i am interested in turning my POS Dell Dimension 8400 (Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD) that I only use for printing papers into a Movie Jukebox. This brings two questions:

1) what video card would you recommend for only this purpose? I dont need anything fancy (or too expensive for that matter) but just need it to hook up to my 26" samsung HDTV that outputs at 1080i.

2) What program should i use to manage all my movies in this "jukebox" endeavor?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

More about : video card rec movie jukebox

a c 168 U Graphics card
May 19, 2008 4:10:35 PM

I went with an ATI HD 2600 Pro and Windows Media Center Edition for my "jukebox". You might also want to look at MythTV as an option.

-Wolf sends
May 19, 2008 4:37:38 PM

A couple comments/questions for you:
what sort of connectors does your tv have?
S-video
RCA(red yellow white)
component (blue green red)
HDMI (HD)
something else?

Jukebox... Are you thinking something along the lines of a HTPC?
home theater computer

what sort of outputs does your dell have?
do you have a graphics card or onboard graphics

I recently put together a home theater computer/tivo alternative and it works great with an old geforce fx 5200 Ultra I had laying around (ah memories, its been running strong since 2003 that was the first computer upgrade I ever did)
It doesnt really take much brute force to output movies to a tv so don't waste alot of money on a fancy highend card, the key is look for what outputs it has on the back, my 5200 has an svideo output and my tv has an s-video input, easy huh.
most newer cards have a connector that looks like an s-video, and come with a little cord that plugs into it and splits into HD component cords, i'd just find the cheapest cards that come with that connector, I think you can get a 8400, or 8500 for like $30, I'd go with 8 series or higher just for the sake of directX 10 compatibility if you ever choose to reuse the card later for something else.

other than the video card i'd say your good with that CPU, maybe upgrade the RAM to at least a gig, and you'll need a bigger hard drive if your going to be storing dvds on it

CAUTION! double check mobo connections on your dell before you buy stuff, some things are proprietary and will be a pain to match, dell almost always makes their PSU have different plugs, sometimes RAM pins are shifted to force you to buy very specific dell ram, and i've heard of a couple models having non standard AGP/PCI-E slots also with that CPU i'm guessing that computer came out around the same time as PCI express, so make sure you get the right graphics port type you might have AGP or PCI-E, but just check before you buy.

I use beyond TV on my HTPC, and i think they have a movie player too, "Beyond Media" of something, but honestly i'd just use whatever dvd player you have on your computer, what is there to 'manage' with video files anyway?
May 19, 2008 4:40:53 PM

I thought myth TV only worked on MAC and Linux?
!