Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > Standard PCI h.264 Video Card
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vogt_51   06-18-2009 at 02:01:55 PM

Hello,
I am building a HTPC and am looking for a standard PCI card with hardware h.264 encoding. It won't be used for any gaming or video editing. Just watching TV and movies on a 53" DLP.

It is a few year old system with only 1 PCI-e slot and not AGP slots. Upgrading the motherboard or switching to a better computer is not really an option right now.

Computer Specs:
HP a1247c
Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4 GHz
640 GB Sata HD
Hauppauge 2250 dual hybrid tuner
2GB PC3200 Ram
WinXP MCE

Thanks in advance.

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xbeater   06-18-2009 at 03:02:28 PM
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you have one PCI-E slot. Try looking for a video card with an HDMI port.

I believe you will mean "decoding" instead of "encoding" because your only going to watch TV and movies.

I suggest something like
Asus EN8500GT MAGIC/HTP/512M.

Its a cheap card (40 Euro) which can play some older games, but will be very suitable for video playback. Furthermore it has a DVI port, so that might be useful

------------------------------ AMD Athlon X2 2.8Ghz, Kingston 6GB DDR2-800 Ram, Asus M2N-E Mobo, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio, Sparkle GTS 250 512MB, WD 1TB HDD, CM 520 Watt PSU, Samsung P2250 21.5 FullHD LCD, Logitech G11 Keyboard, Logitech Revolution Mouse.
 Reply to xbeater
vogt_51   06-18-2009 at 09:08:38 PM
- 0 +

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I definitely meant decoding. However, the Hauppauge 2250 is a huge part of the system and it is taking up the PCI-e slot. Is the aforementioned card, the EN8500GT PCI or PCI-e?

Reply to vogt_51
xbeater   06-18-2009 at 09:37:49 PM
- 0 +

i dont think that it is any longer possible to get decent video cards, (especially not for your situation),

I saw that the Hauppauge 2250 uses a pci-e x?2.0? port. the video card goes in a x16 port and you should still have that availabe.

What motherboard do you have? ill find a pic of it and find the ideal video card.
I think what your problem is that the new video card is a dual-slot, but you can;t fit a dual slot because the second half of the video card collides with you TV tuner.

Am i right?

------------------------------ AMD Athlon X2 2.8Ghz, Kingston 6GB DDR2-800 Ram, Asus M2N-E Mobo, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio, Sparkle GTS 250 512MB, WD 1TB HDD, CM 520 Watt PSU, Samsung P2250 21.5 FullHD LCD, Logitech G11 Keyboard, Logitech Revolution Mouse.
 Reply to xbeater
vogt_51   06-18-2009 at 11:09:50 PM
- 0 +

While the Hauppauge card is a dual slot card, it isn't really problem moving the "component in" part. However, the main card is still a PCI-e card......I believe its a PCI-e x2. Either way, its my ONLY PCI-e slot.

Here is a diagram of the motherboard so you can see the slots.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA/Doc/images/c00378481.gif

Here is a link to the specs page.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc [...] ct=1822605

Reply to vogt_51
AKM880   06-18-2009 at 11:41:12 PM
- 0 +

I believe the GeForece 8400GS/9400GT/9500GT all have H.264 decoding. They can be foud in PCI flavours

Reply to AKM880
xbeater   06-18-2009 at 11:45:57 PM
- 0 +

i see.

you threw your houpouge in your full x16 slot, so you cant use it for gfx...

try looking for pci flavours as AKM880 said

otherwise, there are some pretty nifty mobo's which have onboard gfx, with hdmi. I hear GigaByte has some good ones,

------------------------------ AMD Athlon X2 2.8Ghz, Kingston 6GB DDR2-800 Ram, Asus M2N-E Mobo, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio, Sparkle GTS 250 512MB, WD 1TB HDD, CM 520 Watt PSU, Samsung P2250 21.5 FullHD LCD, Logitech G11 Keyboard, Logitech Revolution Mouse.
 Reply to xbeater
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