Hello, all!

I will bolden all my questions to help everyone find them.

As stated, this will be for my first setup and I'm trying to get it right the first time. I haven't made a projector yet, but I'm getting my head around all the details first so I know what kind of expense it will be, etc. There is a LARGE amount of detailed discussion for the projector itself, but there's little on HTPC discussion, which I need to entirely understand what I'm getting myself into.

I'll be going with a coffee table setup (to minimize issues w/ the wife). What I will have is a cheap area rug underneath it that will run right up to my couch for cord management.

What I am wanting is to primarily play Video from my HD Satellite box and my DVD Player (it has RCA, Composite, HDMI output). Occasionally, I will be playing ripped DVD content (I will download movies in advance to my HTPC box to avoid network latency issues). I will also hook up my XBox every now and then (most likely at first to check it out). For now, I can avoid my HD content, but I will eventually increase to a 17" LCD so I can watch HD.

The box I will be using is a WinXP, P4 1.8GHz, 1GB RAM, CDROM, DVD, NVidia GeForce FX 5200 (unfortunately, it's the PCI version, so I can't use the old video card from my main gaming PC which is better, but AGP).

How should I set this up? I don't have a TV Tuner card, nor do I have one of those Media Bridges (?).
Should I purchase a media bridge and pipe the PC through it?
Should I use the bridge and pipe everything through the PC? I don't understand what the best way would be for this.
Also, I'd like to use this PC as a DVR; Is this possible with this setup?

One last thing...
If I decide to go ahead and do a 17" LCD in my projector so I can get the higher resolution (and thus HD), what do I need inside/outside the box for this?

Thank you very much!

Well, this is where I stand... I had thought the FX 5200 card in my PC was PCI, but after looking at the specs at nVidia, it appears it should be AGP. If this is the case, then the 6600 GT OC card I have that was my original gaming PC's card (now a 7800 GS) will be GREAT for this!!

I was torn between MythTV and GB-PVR for PVR functionality. I'm not running Media Center Edition, but at the same time, I'd like full Windows capability so I can surf the internet while watching TV and even play a little World of Warcraft from my recliner! Does anyone have any experience with GB-PVR or anything similar that runs on Windows?

I will most likely get a Hauppauge card although I liked the looks of the KWorld "Digital/Analog HDTV Tuner PCI and Mpeg2 TV Card Combo" (here). But since it's not supported by GB-PVR, I'll probably just stick with standard recording over HD.

As far as setup goes without a projector...


Once I do get a Projector, I will need help with what to purchase to pipe everything into the Projector instead of my HDTV.

Even though I answered alot of my own questions, I was hoping for a little advice and guidance.

Thanks...

Well, my 6600 GT OC requires a 350W power supply. My old PC only has a 235W PS. :angry:

Well, I will try and make due with it. Tomorrow, I go and pick up a Hauppauge PVR-150 card so I can start PVR'ing (is that a word) tomorrow. I do have an old cheap tv tuner, but the input/outputs won't work for this setup.

I still need to figure out what I need for a splitter. Will any coax y-splitter work? Will anyone actually respond to this thread besides myself? We'll see...

I don't know why you say the Hauppauge card isn't supported by GB-PVR. I was using it great with my PVR-150.

As far as GB-PVR goes, it worked pretty well and if you really want to keep windows, then this is my fav. Can't beat the price. DVD playback was kind-of quirky, but if you are keeping windows and kb/mouse I would use better programs for this.

About 3 months ago I built a dedicated PVR/Media box and went with MythTV. Don't have any complaints except for the pretty involved setup. I ditched the keyboard/mouse and am just using the hauppauge remote. We play music at partys, watch downloaded movies/tv shows, schedule recordings over lan/web interface, plus built in samba server makes it easy to share files between 5 computers (I have 4 roomates, big college house).
I did play with a WinMCE computer at bestbuy the other day and was kinda jealous of the smoothness, but I don't really think its worth the $1-- pricetag just for OS......maybe the university computer place offers student versions like they do with XP pro ($10 )

Kinda long, but those are my thoughts, If you are going with Windows and dont want to fork out for MCE, then use GB-PVR. I forgot to mention the web scheduling interface is pretty slick, even has password protected login so you can set it up to be open to the Web and schedule recordings from anywhere that has internet access.

Oh and yes, any coax splitter will work, but the higher quality ones are better. Also, if you have more than 5 TVs in the house, think about an amplifier.

I've used both Beyond Media and Showshifter as media centers and they both work
pretty well. I like Showshifter a little better because they use DScaler as their deinterlacing
software, which is what I'm using currently with my capture card from my digital cable box.


I've had really good luck with Hauppauge cards. I'm just using a WinTV PCI-GO at the
moment and it's working beautifully for watching TV, however the highest capture res
it will do is 720x480... which at least is DVD quality, but I'll need to get a different card
when I eventually go HD in the future.


FYI, you can get these amplifiers at Radio Shack... saw one there the other day.

Word to the wise, and I should have mentioned this, make sure it is digital cable compatable or says it allows communication both ways. Some amplifers only work one way, so your box and/or modem will not be able to send signals back through the amplifier.

I'm SO happy I have responses!! =-D



I was referring to the KWorld Tuner that was not in the supported list for GB-PVR.



I was also considering MythTV, but I wasn't sure how it would work with file sharing when I'm running Windows everywhere else.


I tried a simple splitter yesterday and it didn't like it AT ALL!


I will look for one of these at Radio Shack today when I pick up a short coax cable.

Thank you all for the responses!!

I actually didn't end up hooking everything up until Wednesday. I had a Windows issue pop up because of a hard drive failure. Half of my installed programs were on the second drive and I couldn't remove half of the programs on this older pc and I couldn't even get into the registry. I wanted a clean install, but I couldn't find my windows restore disk, so I ordered/overnighted a copy of XP on Thursday. Friday, I started the software install, but I got an error during windows installation, so I removed the second hard drive and started over. Windows finished late, so on Saturday, I fininshed software load-out. My mom was in town this weekend, so I didn't get to put the box in the living room until yesterday afternoon.

Uncovered an s-video issue with hooking my FX 5200 to my Toshiba 51" tv. Everything was in black-and-white until I messed with the settings (that was odd).

Because the splitter wasn't working right, I couldn't get the channels to show up.

Going to radio shack today, so hopefully, I'll have good news tomorrow! =-]

One more note on Myth. A couple simple commands will enable samba, making file sharing easier than MCE probably, quicker too.