Hello: I just bought an HP Pavilion Elite e9120y. My idea is to use it to create and store a video collection as well as an HTPC. I have bought odds and ends thus far, to wit: an HDMI cable, 22" Gateway monitor model 2201, Logitech Z-2300 speakers, HP external hard drive- 1TB. Now I need a TV Tuner Card. Could I get some suggestions that are compatible? Also, I would like suggestions as to additions. Video Card upgrade? Monitor (just got the Gateway for now)? Others? Here are my goals: 1) I will use this to compile and store my video library. I want it to be very inclusive, as in beginning with the Lumiere brothers 2) I want it to be useful for VIEWING television and BDs, in as good a quality as I can manage with my meager budget in mind 3) I eschew gaming but do want some minimal yet quality music options. Thanks /Jay
only get a tuner card that has built-in hardware mpeg2 encoders (most hauppagauge tuner cards have them). These tuner cards do all the video encoding directly (no cpu involved), you can install more than one of these cards in your pc (depending on available pci-e slots) and record more than one show at a time. Just remeber to get the correct type, some tuner cards use the PCI and the newer ones are pci-e, Your computer has 3 available pcie slots. The sapphire radeon 4350 pci-e (cost 40.00) can play hd, mine has all 3 output connectors built-in (vga/dvi/hdmi) no adapters required. It's a low end video card but it can play my need for speed games. Your computer has the 4350 according to the specs, I would use that unless you need more power for gaming. I also have the radeon 4670, it can also play HD, but requires an adapter (only has dvi outputs). This is more for gaming but it also runs hotter and has a fan. I would get 2 more drives (if they fit) boot drive and 2x video drives. If you will be recording alot of tv, get a good mediapc software either sagetv (what I have) or beyondtv. MediaPC's are a work in progress, my original mediapc started off with one tuner card and 1 hard drive, 3 years later it's got 5 hard drives and 4 tuner cards installed.
What kind of TV signal are you tuning? This makes a huge difference in choosing a TV card, as 99% of the units out there are not capable of receving HD programming from Satelite or Cable, only from antenna (sometimes a handfull of cable chanels are available with some cable companies, but these are usualy free-over-the-air channels anyway). Also, if I understand your post correctly, you will need a lot more storage. 1TB is tiny for a DVD library, and it is a joke for a BD library. The kind of library you are describing would be hundreds of Terabytes, and incredibly expensive/noisy/heat generating/power consuming. If you trim all your DVDs down to just the movies themselves, you are still lucky to get 700 DVDs onto 3TB. Not only that, but once you are putting that much effort into the project, you will probably want some kind of redundancy (RAID), so you don't loose anything if a hard drive dies. If you just want to tune digital-over-the-air TV, the Haupaugge 1600 is a decent yet affordable card. It has a hardware MPEG encoder, and it also has the ability to bypass the encoder for truly live programming (the default 3-second delay is not always ideal...like if you are talking on the phone to a friend who is watching the same game). If you want to tune cable/satelite, things get much tricker. You will either need a whole new computer with a cablecard tuner, or you will need to use older analog-SD inputs (huge quality drop), or you will need to use a cablebox with firewire output to feed the signal.
Clearly I have misstated the video collection notion. By 'inclusive' I meant an overall representation from the beginning of motion video, thus my mention of those French bros. I did not mean to imply that I wanted it to be inclusive as i9n sheer magnitude. Sorry. As for the video quality, I suspect each one will be ~6MBs. This level is precisely because of the considerations you have mentioned. The entirety of the collection should not exceed 100 films. Your last paragraph is interesting and helps expose my ignorance. I thought it was merely a matter of getting the Tuner and somehow integrating with cable/satellite company and you are ready to rock. Here is a reply I got on another forum, I believe it incorporates your remarks: First of all, for a tuner card, I know you're probably anxious to get this thing up and going, but wait, please, you'll be much better off if you do. The only options right now are for capturing over the air(standard broadcast) channels, HD or otherwise, and the very few still un-encrypted cable channels. CableCard has recently lifted it's requirement that the cards be used in newly manufactured computers by licensed companies, so in about a months and a half, when Windows 7 launches, so long as hardware manufacturers can catch up to ATi, we could see the best cable HTPC integration, ever." Thanks for taking the time, Jay
This is interesting...perhapse this means that I will be able to get a true cablecard tuner soon. If so, I will have the cable line reconnected to my house (disconnected it in disgust when they told me the only way to record tv was to buy an OEM system).
