HTPC video - ATI AIW all I need?

[gadgethead]

Regretfully, I have weighed up the pros and cons and have decided that I dont need HDTV for my HTPC at the moment as in Australia, as the main advantage is 5.1 sound which I can do without.

I mainly want to use my HTPC as a 'vcr'.

In the future, I will get a HDTV card.

I am considering building a box and using the ATI 9600 AIW card. This will be the only video card that I will use. Do I really need a second card or will this suffice.

[Faustus]

Depends on the speed of the computer and the software you are going to use for PVR funtions on the box. AIWs can be tricky because they require ALOT more horsepower from the CPU in order to encode things as it does not have a hardware mpeg decoder on board.

The best way I've found is to get either a Hauppauge 250PVR or 250pvrMCE and use it for the vidoe in and then just use your video cards TV out.