Please review my proposed Shuttle Media Center PC spec

I have now definitely decided to build my own Media Center PC as I can't
find anything available off the shelf in the UK that meets my needs and
budget. I would appreciate any comments on my proposed spec in case I have
made a boo-boo

- Shuttle XPC SN95G5
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 939
- 250GB SATA HDD (haven't chosen model - any suggestions?)
- 2*256MB PC3200 DDR400 ram (any reason not to simply get budget
Crucial/generic memory?)
- NEC 3500A 16X D/L DVD+-RW
- Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE TV card (to record from Sky satellite set top box -
no UHF TV required)
- nVidia FX5200 128MB DVI video card (no brand chosen but anything cheapish
so long as it keeps MCE 2005 happy)
- MCE 2005 remote control
- Win XP MCE 2005 OEM

I'm aware that the proposed video card is pretty low spec but I don't not
want to play games and I do want to keep price and temperature/noise low. I
am only interested in using it as a media center PC and will not even
perform regular PC tasks like internet or Office work on it as I already
have a wireless laptop for that purpose and an Xbox for games.

The box will be feeding a PAL widescreen TV through s-video (or possibly a
VGA-RGB converter lead). Given that, would I gain any advantage by getting a
higher spec card or by choosing a budget ATI rather than nVidia? If my needs
change I can always upgrade memory and video in the future but right now I
need to keep the price down. I figure the rest of the components should last
me a good while to come.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Tim.

--
Please quote "easytiger" for your PlusNet referral :-)

"Tiny Tim" wrote in message
...
[snip]

The box will be feeding a PAL widescreen TV through s-video (or possibly a
VGA-RGB converter lead). Given that, would I gain any advantage by getting
a higher spec card or by choosing a budget ATI rather than nVidia? If my
needs change I can always upgrade memory and video in the future but right
now I need to keep the price down. I figure the rest of the components
should last me a good while to come.

As per the other thread we are both contributing to - AIUI nVidia cards
don't support a simple VGA-SCART video cable in the same way that ATIs do.
Think the ATIs are the only ones that happily generate composite syncs (as
required for SCART) and an interlaced video output (as required for normal
TVs) on their VGA outputs.

Both nVidia and ATI cards will happily generate a TV-out - but this is not
RGB and is a processed version (rather than a clean version) of the Windows
desktop. (It is scaled and flicker fixed)

As I have yet to see an ATI actually running RGB into a TV and displaying
video I have no idea if the quality is better or worse - though others say
it is better. Until I see how it copes with interlace I can't really
comment further.

I'd suggest going with an ATI though - as at least it keeps your options
open. I went for a slightly larger solution - an Antec Aria case that can
take a uATX mobo - 3 PCI slots and an AGP - (as well as a couple of HDs) I
was therefore able to go initially for a motherboard with on-board nVidia
gfx and a TV out - but annoyingly no SPDIF. I've just upgraded to a Radeon.
It is bigger than a Shuttle - but I have a couple of slots free still even
with the video card and a Nova-T PCI.

Steve

Stephen Neal wrote:
"Tiny Tim" wrote in message
...
[snip]

The box will be feeding a PAL widescreen TV through s-video (or
possibly a VGA-RGB converter lead). Given that, would I gain any
advantage by getting a higher spec card or by choosing a budget ATI
rather than nVidia? If my needs change I can always upgrade memory
and video in the future but right now I need to keep the price down.
I figure the rest of the components should last me a good while to
come.

As per the other thread we are both contributing to - AIUI nVidia
cards don't support a simple VGA-SCART video cable in the same way
that ATIs do. Think the ATIs are the only ones that happily generate
composite syncs (as required for SCART) and an interlaced video
output (as required for normal TVs) on their VGA outputs.

Both nVidia and ATI cards will happily generate a TV-out - but this
is not RGB and is a processed version (rather than a clean version)
of the Windows desktop. (It is scaled and flicker fixed)

As I have yet to see an ATI actually running RGB into a TV and
displaying video I have no idea if the quality is better or worse -
though others say it is better. Until I see how it copes with
interlace I can't really comment further.

I'd suggest going with an ATI though - as at least it keeps your
options open. I went for a slightly larger solution - an Antec Aria
case that can take a uATX mobo - 3 PCI slots and an AGP - (as well as
a couple of HDs) I was therefore able to go initially for a
motherboard with on-board nVidia gfx and a TV out - but annoyingly no
SPDIF. I've just upgraded to a Radeon. It is bigger than a Shuttle - but
I have a couple of slots free still even with the video card
and a Nova-T PCI.
Steve

Thanks for the reply. I'll take on board what you say about ATI generating
composite syncs, although I wonder whether TVTool ( I use that on my Dell
Inspiron 8000 nVidia laptop at the moment) basically offers a similar
feature. I know that my DIVX video is improved tenfold when processed
through TVTool and that includes both filling the screen properly and
providing strong contrast and rich colours. Without TVTool the s-video
output is pretty rubbish. TVTool offers a transformation.

As I have no recent experience of ATI graphics or Powerstrip I just plumped
for nVidia as I have more recent experience of getting that to work. I do
have a 6 year old Dell Inspiron 7000 with ATI graphics so perhaps I'll see
if Powerstrip will work with that and have a bit of a tinker :-)

--
Please quote "easytiger" for your PlusNet referral :-)

- Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE TV card

Im curious why you went with the 150 card instead of the 250?

In ,
Stephen Neal wrote:


"Tiny Tim" wrote in message
...
[snip]

The box will be feeding a PAL widescreen TV through s-video (or possibly a
VGA-RGB converter lead). Given that, would I gain any advantage by getting
a higher spec card or by choosing a budget ATI rather than nVidia? If my
needs change I can always upgrade memory and video in the future but right
now I need to keep the price down. I figure the rest of the components
should last me a good while to come.

As per the other thread we are both contributing to - AIUI nVidia cards
don't support a simple VGA-SCART video cable in the same way that ATIs do.
Think the ATIs are the only ones that happily generate composite syncs (as
required for SCART) and an interlaced video output (as required for normal
TVs) on their VGA outputs.

Both nVidia and ATI cards will happily generate a TV-out - but this is not
RGB and is a processed version (rather than a clean version) of the Windows
desktop. (It is scaled and flicker fixed)

Also consider a Matrox. They support composite sync too and the S-Video
TV-out is allegedly much better than Nvidia or ATI.

As I have yet to see an ATI actually running RGB into a TV and displaying
video I have no idea if the quality is better or worse - though others say
it is better. Until I see how it copes with interlace I can't really
comment further.

IME with the ATI and Voodoo 3, the interlacing makes the dekstop quite
unpleasant, but not impossible, to use. It's fine for DivX, with RGB
giving considerably more vivid colours than S-Video. For Tiny Tim the
big question is whether his TV card records interlaced or not and/or
whether MCE supports software deinterlacing. Matrox cards can sync
interlaced MPEG to the TV-out, otherwise if you're using RGB or
otherwise displaying PAL without hardware scaling etc, you'll need
software deinterlacing. The results should look OK [1] with a CPU as
fast as an A64; my 1.2GHz Celeron was just about unable to keep up, or
completely overwhelmed, depending on what software I used.

[1] I find it makes things look somehow slightly soft and unrealistic,
but it isn't distracting.

--
The address in the Reply-To is genuine and should not be edited.
See http://www.realh.co.uk/contact.html for more reliable contact addresses.

wrote:
- Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE TV card

Im curious why you went with the 150 card instead of the 250?

AIUI the 150 is a brand new model and is cheaper. Comparing specs side by
side there appears to be nothing missing in terms of features if you are
using MCE whereas the 250 provides more software/function to run on plain XP
that are simply not required if you have MCE, but do add to the cost. The
MCE version is the same as the non MCE version but deletes the remote, which
is superfluous if using the Microsoft MCE remote.

Details here - http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/produ...pvr150mce.html
and here - http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/produ...pvr250mce.html

The sections for MCE users are the same, but for XP users there is a whole
stream of extra features/software with the 250 that I do not require.

--
Please quote "easytiger" for your PlusNet referral :-)

Tony Houghton wrote:
In ,
Stephen Neal wrote:
Both nVidia and ATI cards will happily generate a TV-out - but this
is not RGB and is a processed version (rather than a clean version)
of the Windows desktop. (It is scaled and flicker fixed)

Also consider a Matrox. They support composite sync too and the
S-Video TV-out is allegedly much better than Nvidia or ATI.

As I have yet to see an ATI actually running RGB into a TV and
displaying video I have no idea if the quality is better or worse -
though others say it is better. Until I see how it copes with
interlace I can't really comment further.

IME with the ATI and Voodoo 3, the interlacing makes the dekstop quite
unpleasant, but not impossible, to use. It's fine for DivX, with RGB
giving considerably more vivid colours than S-Video. For Tiny Tim the
big question is whether his TV card records interlaced or not and/or
whether MCE supports software deinterlacing. Matrox cards can sync
interlaced MPEG to the TV-out, otherwise if you're using RGB or
otherwise displaying PAL without hardware scaling etc, you'll need
software deinterlacing. The results should look OK [1] with a CPU as
fast as an A64; my 1.2GHz Celeron was just about unable to keep up, or
completely overwhelmed, depending on what software I used.

[1] I find it makes things look somehow slightly soft and unrealistic,
but it isn't distracting.

I'm allowing myself to be guided by the hardware compatibility list here -
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/m...erlisting.mspx
for MCE 2005. I see no mention of Matrox or Voodoo so have no information on
which to choose such a card. If the card doesn't work fully with MCE 2005
then it is not of interest to me.

But perhaps I'm misunderstanding something. As a laptop user of almost 10
years I have never really bothered about graphics before as everything has
worked just fine on the TFT display, and I don't play games. As my video
signal from the STB will be interlaced PAL and my TV expects interlaced PAL
then I do not understand why I should be concerned about software
de-interlacing - or is that only where DIVX is concerned? If so, my current
nVidia Geforce2go 32MB laptop graphics card seems to manage quite well at
producing a watchable TV picture through s-video so long as I use TVTool to
magically transform the picture. WMP 10 uses about 50% cpu of my PIII 900
processor when playing a DIVX movie.

So if I've got the wrong end of the stick please enlighten me, but I think I
need to stick with nVidia or ATI.

Cheers :-)

--
Please quote "easytiger" for your PlusNet referral :-)

Voodoo3? thats how old? its not surprising there are issues.

"Tony Houghton" wrote in message
. uk...
In ,
Stephen Neal wrote:


"Tiny Tim" wrote in message
...
[snip]

The box will be feeding a PAL widescreen TV through s-video (or possibly
a
VGA-RGB converter lead). Given that, would I gain any advantage by
getting
a higher spec card or by choosing a budget ATI rather than nVidia? If my
needs change I can always upgrade memory and video in the future but
right
now I need to keep the price down. I figure the rest of the components
should last me a good while to come.

As per the other thread we are both contributing to - AIUI nVidia cards
don't support a simple VGA-SCART video cable in the same way that ATIs
do.
Think the ATIs are the only ones that happily generate composite syncs
(as
required for SCART) and an interlaced video output (as required for
normal
TVs) on their VGA outputs.

Both nVidia and ATI cards will happily generate a TV-out - but this is
not
RGB and is a processed version (rather than a clean version) of the
Windows
desktop. (It is scaled and flicker fixed)

Also consider a Matrox. They support composite sync too and the S-Video
TV-out is allegedly much better than Nvidia or ATI.

As I have yet to see an ATI actually running RGB into a TV and displaying
video I have no idea if the quality is better or worse - though others
say
it is better. Until I see how it copes with interlace I can't really
comment further.

IME with the ATI and Voodoo 3, the interlacing makes the dekstop quite
unpleasant, but not impossible, to use. It's fine for DivX, with RGB
giving considerably more vivid colours than S-Video. For Tiny Tim the
big question is whether his TV card records interlaced or not and/or
whether MCE supports software deinterlacing. Matrox cards can sync
interlaced MPEG to the TV-out, otherwise if you're using RGB or
otherwise displaying PAL without hardware scaling etc, you'll need
software deinterlacing. The results should look OK [1] with a CPU as
fast as an A64; my 1.2GHz Celeron was just about unable to keep up, or
completely overwhelmed, depending on what software I used.

[1] I find it makes things look somehow slightly soft and unrealistic,
but it isn't distracting.

--
The address in the Reply-To is genuine and should not be edited.
See http://www.realh.co.uk/contact.html for more reliable contact
addresses.

In ,
Philip Taylor wrote:

Voodoo3? thats how old? its not surprising there are issues.

It doesn't really have any disadvantages for 2D compared to ATI or
NVidia. Like them it can display 800x600 with hardware scaling and
deinterlacing, with the scaling destroying the quality. Displaying a
native PAL resolution, and using software deinterlacing when necessary,
gives better quality.

--
The address in the Reply-To is genuine and should not be edited.
See http://www.realh.co.uk/contact.html for more reliable contact addresses.

Tiny Tim wrote:
- 250GB SATA HDD (haven't chosen model - any suggestions?)

Any reason for going SATA? At this point in time, there is no benefit to
SATA, especially if all you're doing is HTPC: the HDD activity is not too
intensive.

- 2*256MB PC3200 DDR400 ram (any reason not to simply get budget
Crucial/generic memory?)

I'd be tempted to go up to 1GB here. No reason not to get budget RAM: high
performance is not the issue with XP MCE, but the more memory the better.
With a HTPC, you don't want pauses as the OS swaps out to disk.

- Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE TV card (to record from Sky satellite set top
box - no UHF TV required)

Is this available in the UK yet? Also consider the Black Gold DVB-T or
Nebula cards.

- nVidia FX5200 128MB DVI video card (no brand chosen but anything
cheapish so long as it keeps MCE 2005 happy)

I'd go for an ATI 9600 non-pro 128MB. It has no fan and you can use the
VGA-out to feed your RGB-enabled SCART on your telly. Alternatively,
consider passively cooled versions of the 9600Pro or 9800Pro. Although
another poster recommended the Matrox card, which does have excellent
TV-out, MCE2005 requires a VMR9 capable card (i.e. DirectX9), which the
Matrox isn't.