PC Multimedia Box for TV recording, HDTV viewing, etc

[gadgethead]

Hi,

I want to make a PC that I can hook up to my 68 Panasonic TV for...

1. Viewing HDTV
2. Recording TV programs
3. Burn TV programs to DVD that I want to archive.

I NEED HELP WITH HARDWARE!!! I NEED HELP WITH HARDWARE!!!

So far, I am looking at the following...

a. Asus Micro-ATX A7V8X-MX motherboard
b. Leadtek 2000XP TV tuner (for HDTV)
What is a good value TV-out card? I wont be using it for games...
What are your thoughts on other components?

[pixel]

If you look through the computer section I think there are 2 other threads about home theatres i think you may find useful.

I think almost any graphics cards nowadays have a TV out. I'm not sure how the quality is, but maybe just a cheap graphics card. Then you always have the option to connect it to your monitor if you want to.

Choosing your processor should probably be the hardest part. Think of what you need to do with the pc. If it is simply recording from your hi-def card and cutting or whatever, a cheap amd or a celeron may do. If you plan on encoding videos, maybe an amd athlon. I don't use amds so can't help you on choosing one, but there are lots of amd users here who could help. A pentium 4 would be the best in my opinion, but I'm sure you want to keep costs to a minimum amds are more than capable of doing hi-res video editing.

You should maybe think about something like an ati 64mb capture card for recording your old videos etc, if you need to.

For video editing, 7,200rpm hard drives are the best. But almost all hard drives are that speed by standard nowadays.

For all the other components almost anything should do if its just a home theatre pc.

[pharlap]

heres a good combo tested and working cheap also
Albatron fx5200ep video card and pixelview play tvhd and gigabyte ga7vt600 1394 very low noise levels for interference with this
hope this helps

[Ste]

From what I understand, it seems like you want to tune HDTV channels on your PC and output the signal to your Panasonic HDTV.
I looked up that Leadtek 2000XP card that you mentioned, and from what I found, you can't tune HDTV channels with that card:

http://www.slcentral.com/leadtek-winfast-tv-2000-xp-deluxe/page2.php

The only cards I know of that you can tune HDTV channels with are these:
WinTV-D, WinTV-HD, MyHD MDP-100, MyHD MDP-120, HiPix DTV-200, and Fusion HDTV. Check out this article for more information:

http://www.vidphiles.com

I know that the WinTV-HD has a wideband component video out built-in, so you can output the HDTV signal going into the card and out to your Panasonic HDTV. If you choose a card that doesn't have an output like this and your HDTV only has component video for its HDTV interface, then you should buy an ATI Radeon 8500 or above because any of these video cards (even All-In-Wonder versions) accept one of these adaptors:

For VGA:
http://buy.ati.com/shopati/product.asp?category=AA&part%5Fno=HDTV+VGA+US&find%5Fcatego...c=&country=USA

For DVI:
http://buy.ati.com/shopati/product.asp?category=AA&part%5Fno=HDTV+DVI%2DI+US&find%5Fca...c=&country=USA

This adaptor will allow you to use your Panasonic TV as a computer monitor in HDTV resolutions through the component video inputs. If your Panasonic HDTV has a VGA or DVI input, then don't bother with these adaptors because you can just run a single cable (VGA or DVI) from your PC's video card and right into the TV.

I hope I understood your question correctly.