Media PC for the telly

[beanbag]

My friend has offerred to give me a complete Athlon XP 2200+ system complete with an 80GB hard disk so my plan is to turn it into a media PC for our telly.

I was thinking of Windows Media Centre but I'm now thinking of a Linux option with a Media Centre clone like Media Portal.

Ideas?

Ta!

[malman]

You might want to check this out too

Myth TV

[thepassenger]

FYI: Media Portal is a Open Sourceish Windows version of the MCE program.
MythTV is the Linux system... I've tried it a few times and while impressive; it's not the easiest thing in the world to configure and has more than one 'gotcha' type bug in the version I tried (0.17).

[panclan]

www.gbpvr.com/ is another Windows based option

Edited by panclan on Saturday 9th September 08:44

[thepassenger]

panclan said:

www.gbpvr.com/ is another Windows based option

Edited by panclan on Saturday 9th September 08:44

Aye and is pretty good by all accounts, however it does require a semi-specific set of hardware "Sigma Designs XCard, Hauppauge PVR350 and Hauppauge MediaMVP. GB-PVR" worth noting incase you want to deploy.

[polus]

Which cards do you all have. Ideally I would be after a dual digital turner card that compatible with some decent software.

[beanbag]

polus said:

Which cards do you all have. Ideally I would be after a dual digital turner card that compatible with some decent software.

I'm not bothering with the telly option or recording feature just yet. I just want the media PC to stream my DivX's, music and misc bits and pieces. Maybe even a DVD player too.

I've also found out I might even struggle a bit as the CPU I have is only a AMD Duron 1.3Ghz plus it's only got 256MB ram so i'll have to upgrade that to 512MB to get some performance. With regards to the GPU, i've plugged in my old GeForce Ti4200. It doesn't do 3D as it's knackered but it works in 2D mode perfectly so ideal for a media PC.

[polus]

beanbag said:

polus said:

Which cards do you all have. Ideally I would be after a dual digital turner card that compatible with some decent software.

I'm not bothering with the telly option or recording feature just yet. I just want the media PC to stream my DivX's, music and misc bits and pieces. Maybe even a DVD player too.

I've also found out I might even struggle a bit as the CPU I have is only a AMD Duron 1.3Ghz plus it's only got 256MB ram so i'll have to upgrade that to 512MB to get some performance. With regards to the GPU, i've plugged in my old GeForce Ti4200. It doesn't do 3D as it's knackered but it works in 2D mode perfectly so ideal for a media PC.

I used to play DivX and DVD's on a Duron 1Ghz with no problem. Having a more powerful processor directly goes against the ethos of a media PC becuase of higher core voltages that require more cooling.

As for the RAM it depends what OS you're running but I would give it a try first.

Edited by polus on Sunday 10th September 13:48