About to buy SageTV- question on upgrades for CPU

[bmcraig]

I was planning to do a SageTV setup later in the Fall (we have a house under construction), but my TIVO died today (harddrive went bad). So, I thought I would go ahead and take the plunge now with SageTV.

The computer I was wanting to use is a Dell with an Intel Pentium 4 CPU at 2.8 GHZ, it only has an 80 Gig harddrive with around 60 available. It has 512 of RAM It does not have a DVD drive. I know I would need to add another harddrive for serious added space, but what about the rest of it? Is that good enough or what do I need to add? Or should I just buy another computer?

Besides the SageTV software, what else do I need hardware wise? I would like two turners for regular TV. (I will probably go ahead and get a media extender, too).

In the Fall, I will want to add hardware to record HDTV. Is my current computer's processor fast enough for that, or do I need to look for something else?

Thanks!

Brent

[stanger89]

Power wise, you're fine, a 2.8/512 is plenty to run SageTV (I've got my server in a Athlon XP 1800/512, and ran a P4 2.4/512 Client for a long time).

As for if you should upgrade, that's mostly an aestetic/noise issue.

You don't mention video card, but from a Dell, I'd say you'll want a better one eventually (especially for HD).

My advice, would be get SageTV, and a tuner, and get used to it for a while. You'll get a better idea of what you need, and when fall is closer, you can do a more informed upgrade, or you can go all out and build your dream PVR

[bmcraig]

If I bought the SageTV dual tuner bundle and a media extender (to run it on my TV), would I be ready to go, you think?

Brent

[PGPfan]

You should be good to go, but I'd consider going with the Nvidia DualTV card instead of the PVR-500 that comes with the bundle. It seems to have a better picture, and handles fast motion scenes better than the Hauppauge card. Just my .02

-PGPfan

[dbfresh23]

Well for that matter you could hold off a couple more weeks and pick up one of the new ATI 650 cards that are coming out...

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

Well for that matter you could hold off a couple more weeks and pick up one of the new ATI 650 cards that are coming out...

Except that he mentioned needing a dual tuner solution. He 'could' use 2 of the 650's, but if I'm not mistaken it hasn't been determined if you can use 2 in one machine yet. For right now (and he is replacing a currently dead Tivo so my guess would be that he likely can't wait very long) the Nvidia DualTV is the way to go.

-PGPfan

[paulbeers]

I'm with PGPFan, the 650 might be a great card, but my two Single tuner cards annoy the heck out of me, because they use up two slots compared to my PVR500 (although they look better because they do not slit the signal like my pVR500...I think I need to get the Nvidia card).