Setting up a completely new system -Components Questions

[Antryg76]

I am looking to create a computer system from scratch. I was wondering if anyone had some ideas on the types of equipment and software I should get.

I would like to be able to capture TV from cable. Generally use my PC much like a TiVo. However, unlike a TiVo I want to be able to burn the shows onto CD/DVD, whatever the best format is, for use on my standalone DVD player. I also want to be able to rip copies of my DVDs so I can bring the copy with me when I travel. Then of course there is the normal computer stuff: Video games, word processing etc.

I figured since I am going to buy a new computer anyhow, I might as well go all out and incorporate all the A/V features I could. I am looking at getting a custom computer system, since Dell etc. don't seem to cut it. However there is so much info out on the web and at this site, about software, OS, capture/tuner cards etc. that I am looking for some comprehensive advice.

I have been thinking about getting an standard XP based system. I don't like some of what I hear about the XP media edition. I am also looking at getting a AIW ATI Radeon 8500 128 MB card. But I have heard some negative things regarding using ATI cards for video capture. Other then that I didn't really have any partcicular ideas other then getting the most RAM, biggest harddrive, and fastest processor that I could afford.

Any advice on hardware/spftware configurations would be apprieciated.

[SaSi]

There are so many options that one cannot start choosing

My humble suggestions.

Get the fastest processor you can afford now. A P4/2.6~2.8 is good. If you get any faster, you need to be very careful in getting equally fast motherboard and RAM so that they won't choke the CPU.

Get at least 500MB or fast DDR 333 RAM (even better DDR400). That is, if you cannot affod an i850 motherboard with RDRAM, which is even faster.

Get a Motherboard that is really fast and goes to 533 FSB. One with an extra set of RAID controller would be even better, otherwise you can get the Adaptec 1200 or 2400 PCI ones. Distribute disks along several channels. Improves performance significantly.

Don't get one fast large HD. Get 3. 8) Well, let's be practical. One disk is totally useless. Get a decent fast one for System disk (20~30 GB) is good and leaves enough space for your OS, Apps and games. Break it in two partitions and use the second one for backing up (with Ghost) a well known good configuration. You'll need it.
Get at least two big disks (120~130Gb seem to offer the best price for money these days, however I have 2 x 186 and shopping for a third). Whenever you do ripping and converting jobs, reading from one disk and writing to another speeds up things enourmously. And reduces fragmentation to a certain extent. Break up one of the two disks into manageable partitions (30~40Gb each) and leave at least one at 10Gb for jobs creating fragmentation (e.g. SmartRipper and DVDDecrypter). Allows you to do the task and copy stuff onto another disk elimitating fragmentation. Format the disks with NTFS, but DON'T USE A CLUSTER SIZE LARGER THAN 4KB. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO DEFRAG THEM. Finally, leave one large disk as a single partition. You never know when you have to capture or make an interim AVI with huffyuv and need 40~60Gb space free.

Get a DVD-ROM that is certifiable fast for ripping. My Pioneer 116 rips happily at 10x or more at times, while some others cannot exceed 1.5x Makes the difference between 15 minutes and 1 hour boredom.

I would not reccomend an MPEG capture card. Most capture to semi-proprietary formats and they are optimized for speed rather than quality or size, so won't do for reasonable DVD authoring. I get excellent results with a Dual head ASUS 9180 with S-Video and Composite In/Out. Is an nVidia GeForce4Mx440 (or something). Excellent for games (not state of the art) but also perfect for capturing with VirtualDUB. And I have been spoilt with the extra desktop real estate the two VGA screens offer with incredible speed and reliability.

Finally, get a box that looks good and has 2-3 fans (apart from the one in the PSU). The PC is going to be on for many hours and days and you don't want it to lock-up. For the same reason, get an extra powerful PSU, rated for at least 350W.

Finally, don't use the Motherboard audio. In several m/b I've tried, it's rubbish. On the other hand, a Soundblaster PCI 128 I have since I can't remember when is more than enough. These days you can get a 5.1 Live for netx to nothing.

Finally, before buying, check out
www.tomshardware.com to select a Motherboard or HD. It will save you dispair and discomfort and quite some cash possibly.

Final word of warning. As soon as you configure the system and load stuff on it, format the disks and run a burn-in program over the disks for at least 48 hours. These days, disks crash like hell. You don't want them to do so with valuable data on them. (Happened to me 3 months ago).

Surely not the complete guide to configuring your system, but some thoughts and experience I got from recent ventures in the same field.

Good luck

[SaSi]

And I almost forgot.

Don't use Windows XP. I'm not pre-occupied against them. I even tried them and tolerated them until there were another 11 days for the activation deadline. After that I re-formated the System disk with great pleasure and put back my good old trusty Windows 2000/SP3 with DirectX 8.1 (DON'T GO TO DX9. NOTHING WILL WORK AFTER THAT).

[mustang581]

I would recommend an Asus Motherboard to start, they are on the expensive side but are very stable and perform well.
I use windows XP-Pro SP1 and have not had any problems (just luck I guess).
either way stick with win 2000 or XP.
good luck.
Al

[Paul_W]

I'm running computers with XP and others with Win2K. I can't say that there is much advantage to either one. They both work well.

I've been building my own computers for a few years but broke down and bought a pre-built Compaq a couple of months ago becuase I didn't have time to fool around building my own. I'll admit that I've been very pleased with it so far. Just don't expect the $600 Dells, Compaqs, etc, to be much of a computer. You'll get what you pay for.

[JamesB69]

I would definitely build my own if i were you much more bang for the buck.

I just built a comp for a kid that lives in my dorm relatively cheap.

Motherboard - $90
AthlonXP 1800+ - $90
40 gig HDD - $90
20 gig HDD - $50
ATI AIW 7500(?) - $125
A05 - $200
Case - $65

Total 710

I left out something cuz the total came to like 850 i think.

You will definitely get more performance out of a faster P4, but the athlons are close in performance and a lot cheaper if money is an issue. I would say that 512mb of memory should do good. I think two good sized harddrives should be good enough.

Most of it is really whether you prefer to sacrifice speed/performance for cost. How much were you looking to spend

With the exception of capturing, a Pentium 1 would do the job, granted it would be much slower.

I use a a Celeron 600 and a ATI AIW 128 with good results, just a lot slower than the one i built for my friend.

[TBoneit]

I recently Spec'ed out a system for video capture & burning recently at work... It would be my dream machine....

P4 2.4 to 2.8 w/1Gig DDR (3.06 too expensive)
Motherboard (upgradable to 3.06 P4)
2 x 100 Gig Hard disk drives
ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Analog Capture from tuner
ADVC - 100 for Analog Capture from Video
Firewire for ADVC100 & USB2.0 for future expansion
Raid Controller
SB Live 5.1
Windows XP
Lite-on DVD Rom
DVD Burner (Maybe Sony or Pioneer or depends on Needs)
52X CD Burner (Lite-on) They seem to work smoothly and reliably for us.
Aluminum Case with Temp monitoring

Under $2000 to over $2000 if P4 3.06 GHz Cpu

I use something like this myself with excpetion of ATI AIW 7500 (Cost) and Raid Controller & older 32x Liteon CD Burner & 2.66 w?1 Gig DDR

It works like a champ. No Troubles, No Crashes etc.

Go for all the speed you can get even if it means cutting back on the Hard DIsk Drives, they can always be added later much easier & Cheaper than a CPU Upgrade. The Speed will make a difference in video conversion & DVD Burning... The Speed help the burning as the Authoring software and do its thing quicker.

Good Luck
RT

[scottrempel]

Get a Nforce2 motherboard with a XP 2400+ AMD processor (or bigger if you can afford). The top-end nforce boards come with great onboard sound (5.1 Dolby) along with every other feature you could want (firewire, usb 2.0, SATA, and even onboard GF4 MX if you want it).
I have been using Win XP for a long time now and it has been nothing but stable. Like the one guy said, two larger hard drives is plenty.
With AMD and Nforce you not only get more performance for the price than Intel, but you also get the best gaming setup around right now.
For capturing, I would recommend going with a dedicated capture card as most people say they are much better then any video cards out there now. If you only want a video card definetly go with ATI. If you are a big gamer I would look at the Radeon 9500Pro (I have a GF4 Ti-4200 so I'm not biased). And 512 PC2700 or PC3200 ram is plenty right now unless you're running a bunch of memory intensive programs at the same time.

This is only my opinion of course.

[neonflx]

what is your budget?

I disagree with getting the fastest proccessor, more ram would be a wiser choice
i.e the Asus A7N8X Nforce2 chipset, great boar great onboard sound and i mean great, 2nic, firewire, 4 usb, throw a 2100XP do a search for the right batch you can convert that into a 2700 just by upping the fsb to 166 instead of 133 no extra hard cooling needed (unles you want to go higher that is) 2 stick of 512 DDR 400 or 433 a few SATA drives (mobo also has SATA silicon chipset onboard with RAID) RAID 0 and walla you have a very powerfull machine, still need to get the case, 3.5 and cd/dvd but that's a good start, for video encoding is faster that my dually PIII 1ghz with RAID 0 and SCSI drives just a suggestion.

[Antryg76]

Sorry I forget to mention my budget. I am looking at around $1500 - $2000.

Having read over the above posts I have come up with a few specific questions based on responses:

I know the difference between a video card/TV card (ie ATI AIW 8500) versus a pure capture card (such as a Hauppauge card) but I am not exactly sure what SaSi is referring to regarding an MPEG card. I am concerned with quality capturing and transfer and I want to avoid propriety formats if possible.

I have read that the ATI AIW cards use a proprietary .vcr format. However there also seems to be a school of thought that the ATI AIW cards are great for video capture/DVD authoring. This leads me to believe that they are great for some things but not others. The question is; What are the real drawbacks and advantages of using a ATI AIW card, such as the 8500/9700, versus using an Asus TV tuner in one slot and a NVidia GForce in another.

I also need some clarification regarding DVD-ROM speeds for ripping. I looked into both the Pioneer DVD-116 and the Pioneer DVD-120 (The one I was thinking of getting). However I am not sure which spec specifically refers to the speed of a DVD-ROM drive for ripping. I get the feeling that its not related to any published specs but I don't know that for certain.

It certainly seems like the consensus so far is to go with:
- Multiple fast hard drives.
- 512 MB of fast RAM such as DDR400 PC3200.
- A fast Asus mother board with 533FSB support and Raid Support*
- A matching P4 2.5+Mhz processor*
- Run Win2k as an OS
- Stay with DX 8.1

*Actually there seems to be some serious division regarding the merits of an Asus motherboard with a P4 processor versus an Asus Motherboard with an AMD processor. Having read up some on the Asus/AMD side there certainly seems to be some advantage to building an AV system going that route.

Is there any advice on what software programs to use for PVR functionality and DVD ripping? I hear great things about VirtualDUB and Virtual VCR.

Finally I want to thank everyone who already replied to my post. You opinions and advice have been invaluable to getting me to where I am now.

[hgtvg]

Hey Guys !

ASUS Motherboard still be a good choice ?
What about ABIT Motherboards ?

I am thinkink to buy ABIT BE 7-RAID

any other options ??? ASUS ???

Thanks

hgtvg

[scottrempel]

I am not really familiar with tv cards as I don't have one and the only thing I do with my GF4 Ti-4200 is output to my TV once and a while.
I do however do a lot of DVD ripping. I would say that any new DVD drive will do what you want it to. I got a cheap Hitachi with my computer almost two years ago and it does its job just fine. I am not sure on the exact time it takes to rip but it is only like 10-15 minutes. I can get a accurate time if you want.
As far as ripping software it depends on what you want to do. I personally only make XVCD's and all I want is the main movie. Many people say Smartripper is the best if you want full control. I personally use CladDVD XP as it has the option to frameserve to DVD2AVI which means it rips and creates both the video and audio for use in your favorite encoder all in one simple step.
The obvious advantage of an AIW card is it encorporates the video in/out functionality with a great graphics card. Not sure how the AIW's video in compares to a full out tv card but I am sure this is on the net somewhere.
Hope this helps.

hgtvg, are you building a AMD or Intel system?

[freak_in_cage_10k]

Antryg76 m8- you deductions have been correct so far, but certainly give AMD serious thought! they are just as fast as Pentium and better value for money. An AMD XP 2400+ is able to equal/often beat a P4 2.4 Gig. If you have the money, try to get an AMD XP processor with a Barton core, not a Thoroughbread core, as although the latter is good, Bartons are even better as they benefit from a greater cache and a fasters fsb.

I know how nice it is to buy a really really REALLY fast PC and encode like mad, but bear in mind that if you buy a DVD burner then the amount of encoding you will have to do will decrease seriously!! I thought about upgrading but decided to stick with my 2200+ (with CCE i still encode at 1.40, thats 40% faster than realtime with vbr SVCD). The way i see it, within a year i will get a dvd burner and so i may as well wait, save a lot of money, and get a burner! Also, the benefit from buying anything more than 512 megs of ram is very small!!!

hgtvg- your right, ABit are AMAZING boards, far better than ASUS!

SaSi- sorry m8 but a Ge-Force 2 mx440 is BAD for games!!!! It is very poor for current gam,es, i doubt it would even run games such as Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2003, C & C Generals. i would reccomend an ATI radeon 9000 pro as they are very good and cheap (although obviosuly Radeon 9700 Pro is better but is twice the price) or a Ge-Force 4 Ti 4600 as it is coming down in price now that the GeForce FX is out! I like the idea of having several HDs in raid, i am gonna get a Raid Card and use its 2 extra channels for my CD-RW and DVD drive. i will then have a 20 gig as my Pri Master, with will include my OS, DVD encoding software, and also my Output files. My Pri slave will be a 40 gig HD, which will hold all the IFOs which i am encoding. this is prob the best setup right?? Also m8, the benefits from DDR400 over DDR333 RAM is very small (unless overclcoking)

Anyway, hope this helps m8,

[mcubed91]

Here's another thought for you...
Buy a server. I bought one on Ebay, 2.0 Xeon, [upgradable to dual 2.8 Xeons], 128gb of ecc pc2100 ram, [up to 4gigs], 2 SCSI U320 73gig HD [upgradable to hotswap] got it to my door for 800.
I networked my server to my old computer[games], transfer rates: 4.3gigs in 8 minutes.
I loaded XP Pro on it, installed dvd burner and reader.
Now, the ripping time is based on the dvd rom, I think the 120 you are thinking about getting is locked at 2x, so get the 116.
And the burning time is based on the media.
So the only variable is the crunching time, dual Xeons?
On the server, run your DVD2One, InstantCopy, DVDXCOPY... Oh, need a KVM switch to toggle between computers, unless you have 2 monitors.
So you will have one machine to rip onto the shared server and the server to crunch and burn, I have them both running, sometimes.

[mcubed91]

Forgot to add, the server was brand new, sealed, 1 year warranty, do a search on poweredge 1600sc.
You can upgrade to: hotswap SCSI drives; RAID controller for more speed.
Doesn't come with enough video ram, only PCI, it's a server...
Need to download drivers to get XP to run...
You can rip on 1 machine, burn on another if it's 2 layers, I'm using dvd decrytor and IC, DVD2One, on server. With 1 layer, I use dvddecrytor.
I am looking into the video to digital, so I don't know about that. But the Canopus is high on the list.

[TBoneit]

a. Here where I wok we had problems with ABit Mothertboards going bad while still within their 1 year warranty... Customer MBs seem to do likewise.

I prefer the Intel Chipsets for compatability with more add in cards than other brands..

VIA, ALI work fine for basic machines for Internet office suites, But I have seen various PCI Cards that didn't work well if at all in non Intel chipset motherboards.

FWIW I repair, upgrade and create Custom computers for a living. (ver 6 years at the same place.)

For many people any motherboard even ones with built-in Video, sound, NIC, Modem etc. is fine (Basic useage). However for advanced work go Mainstream... spend a bit more and get good Solid operation

However YMMV

Cheers
RT

[neonflx]

Abit uses cheap capacitors , i know i have to replace most of them on my dualli VP6 now it works like a charm

I still go with the Asus A7N8X its getting great reviews everywhere
I got myself one with a 2100XP up the FSB to 166 got me a 2700XP for 85.00 also the sound is great, Radeon 9000Pro 2 SATA 120 Raid0, Xcapture, WinTV Go, and Dscaler, Sony DVD burner, Toshiba SCSI DVD quiet little sucker, 1 gig of Corsair Cas 2 3500 DDR, Waiting for new antec Case to be release
This will be my HTPC

[SaSi]

When I mentioned "MPEG Card" I was actually refering to "MPEG Capture Cards", like the Pinnacle and the Canopus.

They are good quality stuff, no objection there, however they limit you to what you do with them. You capture in MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is a "target stream", one to create after all editing and filtering is done. Since any fast computer can actually do proper overlay capture (like some VGA boards offer) to AVI (using a lossless codec like huffyuv), I believe that for serious amateur work, an MPEG capture card is a waste.

On the other hand, studio work involving transfer of betacam to DVD, is best done with standalone DVD recorders with no PC involvement. Just because there is no need and personell feels easier with a deck recorder than with a keyboard.

[hgtvg]

Hey Guys !

here the machine that i wanna buy :

MB ABIT BE 7-RAID
Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz FSB 533
512 Mb Ram DDR 333
Sound Blaster MP3+ (already have this)
Don't know which video card yet
Maxtor 80 Gb HD ATA 133
DVD Burner Sony DRU-500 AX

The problem is that here in Brazil this will cost me a lot of $$$

so .... i have a second choice (that i really don't want) but i have almost all the money :

MB ABIT KX 7-RAID
Athlon XP 2400
512 Mb Ram DDR 333
Sound Blaster MP3+ (already have this)
Don't know which video card yet
Maxtor 80 Gb HD ATA 133
DVD Burner Sony DRU-500 AX

I saw a post saying about differents AMD Athlon Processors... Can somebody explain me more about it ?

Also i don't have a good experience with my old K6 II 400 MHz. This machine was terrible.

My main uses will be :

DVD Ripping (DVD to SVCD)
SVCD Convertion to DVD-R or DVD+R
Internet (Brownsing & trade files)

So... This machine will be Online 24/7

Please help me to choose the best solution for my problem !?

At this moment i have a MB ASUS CUSL2 running P III 733 Mhz with 512 Mb Ram PC 133 with Maxtor 20 Gb HD ATA 100 and i don't think that this machine will handle all the job.

One last info : I am running Win XP (no SP-1 installed)

Thanks for any help !

hgtvg

[scottrempel]

Nothing wrong with the AMD, as a matter of fact the 2400+ will equal or better the pentium 2.4 in most applications. XP 2400+ is also very overclockable if you're into that. I am building an AMD system for myself and haven't even considered Intel. AMD definetitly has more bang for the buck!
If you're going to be playing lots of games I would consider getting the Abit nforce2 board (NF7) as the nforce2 boards are the best mobo's on the market right now for AMD.
Really think about AMD, you won't be disapointed!

[Antryg76]

I still am not sure what a good method (software/hardware) for emulating a PVR on my computer is. What allows for the best scanning of show times and programming of recordings. ie What emulates a Tivo the best?

Most of what I read seems to be about capturing VCR tapes or capturing to VCD.

I am more interested in using my PC as a TiVo and then also having the ability to burn the programs I have captured onto DVD with little loss.

Is this possible? What would I need to do it?