My next PVR... comments?

[Hercules]

Albatron nForce2 KM18G PRO 2.0, with TV out (onboard AC97, Geforce4 MX) - $86
SPDIF Bracket - $10
Athlon 2000+ - $57
Crucial 512MB - $73
Antec Overture Case - $103
Artec CDRW/DVD - $50
Seagate Barracuda 80GB - $77
Zalman 80mm x2 - $22

I figure going with this motherboard I'll get onboard TV out, onboard audio, and onboard lan instead of buying everything separately.

The Athlon 2000+ is the retail heatsink/fan, so I'm not sure if I should replace that with something more quiet. I chose this case because it's pretty quiet on its own.

Otherwise, it's a cheap setup that gets the job more than done for my purposes.

Any comments on this?

[falchulk]

Barracuda drives are loud and you will likely need more then 80gigs.

[fidget]

Originally posted by falchulk
Barracuda drives are loud and you will likely need more then 80gigs.

I would recommend 120 GB as a minimum. Split it into two partitions, the first for the OS and apps (10 GB should be enough) and the second (110 GB, formatted at 64 KB blocks) for the recording space. This should give you about 35-40 hours of recorded content at a high quality setting.

[AJ Bertelson]

Originally posted by falchulk
Barracuda drives are loud and you will likely need more then 80gigs.

umm Barracuda's are the the quietest drives(least the IV's are) I do agree you will need more then 80gig.

[Hercules]

Really? I have a ReplayTV now, and I record everything in the lowest quality and it seems okay to me... high-action sequences aren't the best but it's plenty good for me. Is SageTV's quality much worse than ReplayTV's?

Aside from that, how is the hardware setup on my box? Sufficient or not? I'm hooking it up to a 27" Panasonic Flatscreen and a Yamaha reciever.

I figure for a setup that's entirely <$500 shipped... it's not bad, but let me know from your experience how I will fare.

[AJ Bertelson]

It depends on your quality setting though. I have mine set at 3.25gb/hour so you would get around 20 hours of recording time at that setting. I am not sure how low the quality can go though, maybe 1gig/hour.

[Hercules]

Well I suppose I could upgrade the hard drive to 120GB... wouldn't be a huge expense I think.

[falchulk]

I apologize. I am use to the Barracudas from years ago. They made more noise then the PC fan. Apparently Seagate has made some big strides.

Hercules, no matter whatyou put in initially, you will add more soon anyway. Its a sickness. Kind of like making your car go faster.

[Hercules]

Originally posted by falchulk
I apologize. I am use to the Barracudas from years ago. They made more noise then the PC fan. Apparently Seagate has made some big strides.

Hercules, no matter whatyou put in initially, you will add more soon anyway. Its a sickness. Kind of like making your car go faster.

If I can listen to MP3s, write a few documents, have my PVR functionality, and surf the web... I won't be upgrading. I know there's a lot of things you can do but I have a dedicated PC that I'll use for that purpose.

[falchulk]

heh heh, we will see....

[Opus4]

Originally posted by Hercules
If I can listen to MP3s, write a few documents, have my PVR functionality, and surf the web... I won't be upgrading.

Forget that 120GB stuff... go get a 250GB drive & you won't need to open the box & upgrade it for a bit longer. Once you get a few mp3s, you'll want more. Once you've recorded a few shows, you'll want to keep some while adding more. Then you'll notice you want better picture quality, so you'll turn up the recording rate... it all adds up pretty quickly!

I think they're only around $150 now, after rebates.

Oops, I made a mistake. It isn't $150... I looked it up & Circuit City has a WD 250GB drive on sale this week: $140 after rebates.

- Andy

[Hercules]

I have a Windows server in my house for MP3s and stuff. It's got a 200GB drive on it with an 8MB buffer, and that is my file server. The only files that will be held on my HTPC are the recorded programs and nothing more. I'll install Office on that PC, Windows, WinAMP, and a few other misc applications... and that will be it. All the MP3s stream from my server and are not located on my hard drive. This is so that of my 6 PCs in the house, there's a central area for all my MP3s and other files.

And given that SageTV has client ability.... I can install those clients on other PCs (like my brothers) and have it stream the video to him too

[Opus4]

OH! In that case, you can even store the recordings on network drives... never mind.

- Andy

[Hercules]

Originally posted by Opus4
OH! In that case, you can even store the recordings on network drives... never mind.

- Andy

No, because with my ReplayTV I have a LOT of things I record... and I'd rather limit it to one machine instead of having the network traffic constantly being maxed out by sending all the data to the server on a continual basis as I'm recording.

I figure it's easier to save it all locally onto that PC and when I need to, to stream it to other PCs.

[AJ Bertelson]

Or he could just set up a sageTV server.

What are the specs on your file server?

[Hercules]

Originally posted by AJ Bertelson
Or he could just set up a sageTV server.

What are the specs on your file server?

It's an Athlon 1800XP with 512MB ram, running Windows 2003.