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Chengora   04-07-2008 at 10:58:07 PM

Hi all,

Thanks to those of you who have weighed in on my DIY DVR questions. I think I'm finally ready to purchase and build the thing, and wanted to get your insight on the final list of components. This will be for a 42" HDTV 1080p, and I'm using an old Dell for the DVR (so parts and power might low). Let me know if anything doesn't seem right:


I'm going to use the integrated graphics card (I've got a converter from the standard plug to HDMI), although if you think the system could benefit from more GPU power, let me know. Sadly, with a PC this old, I'm stuck with regular PCI slots.

Any thoughts? And thanks!

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Shadow703793   04-07-2008 at 11:31:53 PM
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P4 and 512MB RAM+ integrated might not cut it at that 42" resolution.


Message edited by Shadow703793 on 04-07-2008 at 11:32:17 PM
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TJ_the_first   04-08-2008 at 03:22:49 AM
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Agree with shadow - powering a nice TV with a PoS is self defeating. I don't think you'll be able to get away with it because the encoding won't happen quick enough. I could be wrong though, I've never built a PVR. The only guy I know who has runs E6600 and streams to a PS3.

I've got a SD tuner/hard drive recorder ($70 w/o hdd) and a PS3 (a bit more than $100 :). PC DVRs seem like they're more trouble than they're worth - for the cost of windows you can buy a cheap consumer device.

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Chengora   04-08-2008 at 03:13:19 PM
- 0 +

Thank, guys. I was wondering if it might be better to go with a commercial option, since monthly fees are dropping rapidly. Guess that's what I'll do.

Thanks again!

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IH8U   04-08-2008 at 04:02:02 PM
- 0 +

Should be able to get away with a 780G motherboard, a socket AM2 x2 proc, and 2 Gb RAM fairly cheap.

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