System Check Please

[VikingCrown]

First off let me say I am a convert from GBPVR, and so far Sage has exceeded my expectations. Currently My setup involves sage on my upstairs PC and a wired MVP downstairs. While this works really well, It seems to be lacking a true DVD functionality (menus and such) I currently have most of my DVD's backed up in ISO format, and it looks like there are ways I can play the ISO's through Sage using daemon tools ( unless i'm reading thigs wrong) but not through the Extender, at least not how i'd like to (streaming vob's).

So I happen to have a spare old PC laying around and I am trying to see if it would work as my primary sage setup downstairs with an s-video connection out of the video card to a SD tv. The old PC looks like this:
ECS K7S5A mobo.
AMD XP1700
2GB DDR PC2100
40 GB HD
WIN XP

I am looking to get a 4x/8x AGP video card and move the Hauppauge 500 MCE into the old box as well as my 400 GB HD with all my recordings and ISO DVD's. If I were to get a new video card, would this older system be sufficient to run Sage, and what kind of picture quality could I expect with s-video out of the pc into the SD tv? Are there any video cards that people would reccomend?
If I could merge my ISO DVD collection with my Sage expierence and make it work, that would really be everything I'm currently looking for in a Home Media Center Setup. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Brian

[blade]

Are you talking about putting the PVR500 in the ECS K7S5A? If so that may or may not be a good idea. Via, SIS, and Ali chipsets all have a tendency to flake out with capture cards.

Probably wouldn't hurt to give it a try, but I'd test it out good before committing to it.

[hemicuda]

"knock on wood," "ignorance is bliss," choose your cliche. I guess I've been lucky for the last few years as I've gone through 3 VIA boards and 3 hauppauge cards and haven't had a bit of trouble 'cept for 1 card is too old for Sage and the 500MCE killed the IR feature of the 350 that was working before I added the 500.

anyhow, there's still a lot of bad "mojo" hovering over the VIA chipsets if you read the board long enough so my setup could be atypical. I'll probably toss it out in the yard for the mower if it ever screws up.

[blade]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

anyhow, there's still a lot of bad "mojo" hovering over the VIA chipsets if you read the board long enough so my setup could be atypical. I'll probably toss it out in the yard for the mower if it ever screws up.

Sounds like you've been lucky. Hauppauge and Via have both acknowledge that there are compatibility issues between their products. I've never heard exactly which chipsets though.

[VikingCrown]

Interesting, i didn't know there were potential incompatibility issues. If i were to get a new video card, and there were no issues with setup, would the system be able to handle what i want to do?

[paulbeers]

If all you are doing is SDTV, then yes. I ran my first sage box with a 766 mhz celeron/384 mb of pc133 ram/80gb HD/FX5200, ran SDTV. Yours would be much faster, and should have plenty of headroom to run a mediamvp should you still want to use it.