A question about a PC component

[LucasBuck]

I've been looking into building a PC to use as a home theater component. I've found a couple places that make nice cases for it. I figured I could use it to be both a TIVO type of thing, and have it play movies burnt to cds in wmv and avi format. My question is, does anyone know of any sites that discuss this, or have any suggestions on what video card would be good for a direct to tv signal for playback. Thanks for any help.

[Canoe164]

I know that there are discussions on what you want to do here. I have also read some articles on doing it, but they were short on details. I think building a home dvr is still new and full of trial and error. I know that I want to do it as soon as I have some cash to start buying the hardware (got the ok from the Wife). I hope you jump in and let us know what you find.

Have fun with it!

[LucasBuck]

Thanks for the reply. As soon as I get some kind of lead, I'll starting working on it and will keep you updated. It would still be nice to get some place to start. But I figure a PC in a component case, with a fat HD would give me a TIVO (I've found the programs that will do the same thing), and an easier way to play movies than converting to VCD. (Bless VCD, but it's always been a horrible process for me)

[holistic]

Give one of Shuttles XPC 's a look-see.
http://us.shuttle.com/

There are other manufacturers of this 'flex atx form factor' but Shuttle seems to have one of the best.
a DEALERS Rankings !?! : http://www.thejemreport.com/hardware/minipcs.htm


Add a TV card OR satellite card and away you go.

TV cards that are popular are the ATI AIW Radeon series and the WinTV by Hauppauge.

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr350_datasheet.htm
http://www.pcextreme.net/9700pro-1.php (AIW Radeon 9700 Pro Review)

[Faustus]

The shuttle PCs are great. But the people I've talked to about them say do NOT expect them to be quiet. But yes they are small and work well for what you want.

I'm building one myself, but I dont care about the size of the thing so I'm using a full case and just sitting it beside my TV, its cheaper that way as I can use existing extra parts.

[pixel]

Yes, the shuttle PC's are good and can be noisy, but if you don't mind just leaving one fan in for the cpu, or changing all the fans with lower noise output ones you can make it run almost silent. (Even with one fan the temp on a P4 with 800MHz FSB reaches about 50C under normal tasks like video capturing, but will run even cooler when just playing back files.)

For cases if you were building a system from scratch I would think a simple horizontal atx case would be quite good and if you have shelves in your TV stand and it fits, it could easily be slid in in place of your vcr and/or dvd player.