megab, your TV's ATSC tuner will only allow you to watch HD programming in real time. It does not allow you to record HD programs onto your PC, so definitely an internal ATSC tuner is a great thing to have. See this thread about them:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=42094

I think I have all the answers I need to purchase my htpc :)

Thanks everyone!

I'll post some pics if I have time.

Best regards,

Bruno

Actually, the stock HSF units with the AMD X2 CPUs combined with the AMD "Cool-n-quiet" technology makes for a VERY quiet..
Some things must have changed. My AMD X2 3800+ AM2 Windsor came with an all aluminum cooler that was very noisy when the machine was doing encoding (2AM-11AM) so I had to replace it with an aftermarket.

Anyhow, I concur to try the packaged HSF. Noise is very subjective :)

I am impressed by the choices made. I also echo the comments about possibly upgrading the video card to an nVidia 8600GT. Not essential but a good option to keep open for the future. 750 GB drives have dropped quite a bit in price and deliver close to equal cost per GB as 500GB drives. WD has standard as well as low power "green" drives in the 750GB and 1TB sizes. Both are very good choices for HTPC. I am pulling the 500GB drive in my HTPC and replacing it with a 750GB model I got for $153.

The fact that it is a Windsor core may be the issue.

The X2 chips I am most familiar with are all Brisbane.

If I posted this on the wrong place, sorry. (please feel free to move it) Thanks.
=============================

I was thinking about upgrading my home comp to an HTPC. The basement will hopefully be done this year, and I'll probably move all the av equipment down there (including my internet pc which I want to update a bit).

Right now the comp is around 4 years old (more or less). The basics I already have are...

MB - Albatron KX400+Pro8X. I think it supports Athlon XP, Athlon and Duron Processors from 500 MHz to 2700+

A link to MB is here... http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1361

CPU - AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700+ (but it's around 1.5 right right now)
Video card - ATI Rage Pro 128 (with the last driver update ATI had on their site) No HDMI or composit out, but it does have an SVid out.
Power supply - 420W
Memory - 1 GB of ram (I don't remember the speed though)
OS - Windows XP SP2
Tuner card - Kworld HD PCI 115 tuner (with atsc tuner built in)
DVD rom with Power DVD
Antenna - 4221 channel master

The comp will be used mostly for OTA reception and the occasional DVD (not HD or Blue Ray at this time). It will also be used to surf the net (email, come here and other sites, etc...)

After looking at the specs on the tuner box I already knew that I'd have to upgrade something, and I plan to over time. I just wanted to see if my current set up was even capable of playing an HD signal from OTA, so I installed the card/drivers (etc), and then proceeded to do some testing. It actually worked... well, a bit. lol

All the HD channels seem to have a bit of a slow down motion during fast movements (CBC hockey was painful to watch at times), and it stuttered occasionally. The only HD channel that is not doing too badly was PBS (probably because it was 720 instead of 1080?), but even that channel sometimes slowed down. All SD channels OTA were smooth and fine. NTSC channels were fine for the most part (the usually crappy static on some of them).

ATSC channels that I found when I did the initial scan were...

2.1 NBC
2.2 NBC
5.1 CBC
7.1 ABC
7.2 Wings
7.3 WCSN
23.1 CW
25.1 CBC French
43.1 PBS
43.2 PBS
43.3 Think
53.1 CityTv
66.1 SunTv

I'm missing a few that my Sammy 260 was able to lock on to, but that's probably because of the antenna location.

PC usage is what scared me though lol. I know that running at 100% for any length of time is not good for the CPU. With that said with the tuner on, the HD channels topped out and stayed at 100%, and the SD ones were around 30-50 as per the Windows Task Manager. I know I need to upgrade the CPU (and maybe the video card?), but I don't plan on running and playing multiply sources at the same time with this thing, so I'm looking to hear from you guys and gals what you would consider the basic/minimum in getting a better glitch free outcome from the stuff I currently have.

I'm just trying to save some cash here (aren't we all?) :) . I know some of you will probably chime in saying something along the lines of "spend the money now for best you can afford" (I read through a lot of pages already and know that), but the wife factor is something I don't want to hear/deal with right about now (considering how much I already spent this Christmas) lol.


Btw, I tried doing the time shift thing and also recording the HD signal while watching it, and I didn't see any additional glitches show up (on top of what I already mentioned) while using either method. Wow, just over 6gb for an hour of video :eek:. I can see that I'll need to get a bigger hard drive. (250 won't cut it) lol


One more thing. One of my neighbors has the WMC (2005?) and I liked what it could do, but the tuner card came with ArcSoft's Total Media 3 which looked kinda like WMC. I don't want to or plan on getting WMC. The program the tuner came with was fine imo.

Suggestions? (remember, I want the easiest/basic/cheapest... well, you get the idea) ;)

I'd upgrade the video card. Hardware MPEG acceleration will improve your HD performance. It will certainly help with DVD playback, upscaling and video processing.

I just bought an eVGA 7600 GT 256Kb 8x AGP card. $99.00 from Future Shop during their boxing week sale (Hurry!). It replaced an ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder which is about the same vintage as your card. The performance boost is awesome. I can play most of the current PC games on a widescreen 1680 x 1050 monitor.

Just remember to enable hardware acceleration for edge enhancement, noise reduction and inverse telecine. And you might want to buy the Nvidia codec to fully embrace their PureVideo technology.

Other models of the 7600 use passive cooling for quiet computing or have HDCP and HDMI/DV outputs. Hmm... That reminds me, I also replaced the old case/PSU with an Antec Sonata II (now III) to get a more silent PC.

Check out these articles from Tom's Hardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/09/avivo-vs-purevideo/
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06/08/avivo_vs_purevideo_hd/
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/

Thanks for the links Micheal. I did some reading (so far the first two links... but I still need to read through the third one)... and it seems my best bet right now would be the 8500 or 8600 cards. I've done some looking on the net and have found them for $80-$90 by a few different manufacturers. (I'll assume as long as it says 8500 or 8600 I'd be good to go. ??)

I also see that the driver update for those two cards had not yet been released for XP when those first two articles were written. They mentioned...

However, If you have an older system with Windows XP, you'd be advised to hold off investing in a video card like the 8500/8600 until the drivers are ready for XP.

If you have an older single-core CPU and want to watch HD DVD/Blu-ray disks, your best bet is to wait until Nvidia enables 8500/8600 decode acceleration in Windows XP.

I would assume OTA HD would be in the same boat?


A few questions if I may.

1. Are the XP drivers out yet for the 8500/8600 based cards? I can't seem to find this info.

2. If my lowly 1.7 cpu is at 100% right now with an OTA HD signal, will those 85 or 86 video cards (with XP drivers) really lower the load to the CPU enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it over heating? (I have a Dr. Thermal fan/heatsink on the CPU if that matters). From reading those first two articles it seems it would, but they didn't mention what they considered "low end" or "older single-core CPU". For all I know they might consider 3.0 to be low end, and with my 1.7 it would be stupid of me not to upgrade it as well.

3. They briefly mentioned some new cards that are coming out soon that would remove the load from the CPU completely (or almost completely). If that were true that means I might not have to upgrade my 1.7 cpu to something faster. (more dollars in my pocket) : )


I just bought an eVGA 7600 GT 256Kb 8x AGP card. $99.00 from Future Shop during their boxing week sale (Hurry!). It replaced an ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder which is about the same vintage as your card. The performance boost is awesome. I can play most of the current PC games on a widescreen 1680 x 1050 monitor.

I don't really play games on the comp, so that aspect of the cards ability wouldn't really interest me that much, but playing an OTA (or HDDVD in the future)) HD signal on my "low end" comp without slowdown would. Right now I'm using a Dell 21 CRT (I know, I want to get an LCD eventually)... and that would be where the video would be displayed until the basement is done. After that my Pani big screen has a few different inputs options on it like computer, HDMI, Composit, and Component. I would assume that I would need at least a component out on the card I choose?

Just wondering, what CPU do you have, and do you remember the CPU load numbers in task manager before and after the card upgrade?

Btw, thanks for your help so far. :)

1. Are the XP drivers out yet for the 8500/8600 based cards? I can't seem to find this info.

The latest NVidia drivers do cover all of the features in the new 8000 series cards.

Thanks for that info que3jxp. : )

After reading the third article, I'm now more confused lol. I was originally leaning towards the 85/86 cards, but after some more reading I'm now leaning more towards the newer 2400 Pro and XT models (lol). The pro is half the price of the 85/86 (around $50 when I did a quick search), and the article said...

While the low-end 2400 PRO and 8400 GS show a lot of promise in the decoding arena by offloading CPU work almost identically to their bigger brethren, show stopping issues we experienced - like the maximum resolution cap of the 2400 PRO

They were talking about the higher rez like 1080P. Since my Pani isn't 1080P, and I beleive it can accept up to 1080I, I don't see that part to be a sticking point imo. The other things were probably because they were testing the card(s) at the max rez (1080P), which shouldn't effect me from my understanding.

Wow, if all it takes for me to get great OTA HD video without stutters/flicker on my "old" computer is to get a $50 card, I'm going to go out and buy one this week and let you guys know the outcome.

One little problem though... their forum brought up an important point. The playback of a 1080i signal (which is the most wide spread signal right now for HD) was not tested in those articles. Some people even reported that even with these new HD cards, video playback suffered while trying to display 1080i signal (but it did fine with 1080P). Since most of my viewing would be OTA, the 1080i video decoding capabilities of the card I end up getting would be very important to me. Looks like until the driver guys get things in order, I might be waiting a bit longer before I jump in. :( (it's been a few months since that article was posted... I wonder if they ever got that problem worked out?)


I'd still like to know whether or not my 1.7 will be enough even with a video card upgrade. I would hope so. If not I'd probably look into buying a faster CPU along with the video card when the time comes. The places I deal with will probably give me a better package deal if I get both at the same time, but if I don't have to get a faster cpu... more $'s in my pocket.

I'm starting to get a headache with all these choices. lol


Thanks for the answers guys. If anyone else wants to chime with their 2c's please do. : )

Michael, I looked in my case and I totally forgot that the Rage card I have is AGP and not PCI. I guess this would change my final choice? I'd like to just use the same AGP slot if I could and not use up another PCI slot. I noticed that the card you bought is an AGP. I might have to get the same one unless someone else has an opinion/choice. (I would like to finder something more affordable)



A question for those of you out there that are more versed in this than I am. Since the slot I'm going to eventually put the upgraded card into is an AGP slot, would there be a difference (better/worse) if I went that route instead of going with a PCI video card? Your opinions would be much appreciated.


All the ones I was looking at today were PCI based (oops). I do have two PCI slots left on my board, but if I replace the AGP card I have right now with a PCI version, I'll be left with an open hole at the back of my computer case. I know there are a few PCI dual slot video cards out there that would cover up the unused slot (one slot for the card, and the second slot for the onboard video cooling system/fan), but some of those are more $'s that I'd want to spend. I guess if I did end up getting a PCI card, I'd have to go find a blank blocker plate to cover up that hole (it's been 4 years since I built the comp... I don't remember where I put those blank plates). lol


Any other suggestions?

Read the following review...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/video-playback2_8.html

Here you will see there is no issue with 1080i on these cards.

However...

I would recommend that at the least, you look as an HD2600 Pro. That way you save a few dollars but not at the expense of the post processing capabilities. Those are the capabilities that I am interested in as the 690G based X1250 integrated video on one of my systems is good but lacks the more advanced post processing.

For selection, Gigabyte makes two 2600 based cards and both are silent. They make an HD2600 Pro and an HD2600 XT. There is usually very little price difference from the Pro to the XT so generally, it would be considered a better deal to go with the HD2600 XT.

I'd still like to know whether or not my 1.7 will be enough even with a video card upgrade.

This is the biggest issue...

Because you are strapped to the AGP bus, you are greatly restricted in your vid card choice and the ones above that are so capable are out of your reach as they are PCI-E x16 cards.

For that particular platform, your very best bet is to get a Radeon X1950 Pro AGP. They can be found for about $150 online and frequently on sale for that price at Future Shop.

I know that this is more than what you were likely looking at but the other option is to pony up around $400 for a mobo, CPU, RAM AND a new PCI-E video card. And likely, you will also need a new powersupply.

If not I'd probably look into buying a faster CPU along with the video card when the time comes.

This is not a real option on that mobo. There are no longer first hand new CPUs for Socket A and anything that is on EBay is usually WAY overpriced or high enough that it feels way wrong to invest that much in a 5 year old system/hardware generation.

I'll second upgrading the video card. I have the same proc in my HTPC rig (an AthlonXP 1700+), and it works fine.

OTA HD uses MPEG2 compression, which just about any decent AGP graphics card can handle, even at HD res. I have an old passively-cooled 9550 in my HTPC rig, and it handles OTA HD just fine. I would imagine that a GeForce 6600 or 7600 would do fine as well.

If you want to do BluRay/HDDVD, you'll need something more powerful, namely a GeForce 8500/8600, or Radeon HD 2400/2600. Although BluRay/HDDVD are the same res as OTA HD, they use more advanced compression (h.264), which requires more CPU/GPU horsepower. Note that there are no AGP versions of the GeForce 8500/8600, so in your case the AGP HD 2400/2600 are your only options if you want BluRay/HDDVD playback, and there are reports that some AGP versions of the 2400/2600 don't support H.264 decode, so YMMV.

HTH.

Thanks for the link. : )

There is usually very little price difference from the Pro to the XT

Around here there is. Everywhere I look it's around double (pro=$50->$60, XT=$100 +)

I know that this is more than what you were likely looking at but the other option is to pony up around $400 for a mobo, CPU, RAM AND a new PCI-E video card. And likely, you will also need a new powersupply.


Well I didn't really want to go out and get a new comp... though it would be nice (the wife just wouldn't go for it). Around here I can get a complete comp for around $300-$350 that would probably be a much better starting off point than what I have right now, but again, I really didn't want to spend that much.


Ok, with everything I've read so far (I just want to make sure I understand this), I was under the impression that I would be able to go out and get an HD PCI based card for the mobo I have. Was I wrong to assume this?


If a 2600 pro/xt takes away most of the load from the cpu and it would work with my mobo, then I would assume that the 1.7 I have right now should be enough to get by with. I know I probably wouldn't be able to surf the net, play video games and watch HD DVD's all at the same time, but who would? (at least not me, but I'm sure some of you guys would) lol


If I were to go with a PCI based card instead of an AGP one (with the mobo I have), would a card like the 2600 pro or XT work at all? All I want is the ability to play OTA HD on my comp, and later on be able to use my Pani tv as the display. If I can record to the internal hard drive the shows the wife and I like, and also be able to do time shifting, all the better. Right now (with the HD stuttering set aside), I was quite surprised that with the setup I have right now that is was even able to display a picture with the tuner card I bought. I figured giving the system a bit more headroom would be all I would need to do.


This is why I'm so hesitant of spending a lot of cash and was hoping for a quick fix... a friend of mine had a similar mobo/cpu in his computer that he built around the same time as me, and all he did was upgrade to a new video card (this was about 2-3 months ago...?). He was able to watch OTA HD on his comp without the stuttering I have right now, and the picture on his 720P 42" was really nice (the same visually as my setup with the Sammy 260 and Pani), but I have no way of asking him what card he bought, because he now lives in PEI and I'm unable to contact him. Btw, the card I have right now (the Rage 128) came from him. I used to have a pitiful video card in my case until my friend upgraded his and gave me his old AGP card for free. I don't know if he bought another AGP card or went with a PCI model for HD. Again, I would just ask him but he moved away.


That's why I'm asking you guys here for help. There must be a simple/easy/cheap way to have my setup do what I want it to do. I would love to have this thing up and running before for the new episodes of Heroes returns. : )

ASA - There are very few (if any) video cards made in the last several years that are PCI as it can't handle the bandwidth for modern video cards. That is why the AGP was developed which has now been pretty much replaced by the PCI-Express. PCI-Express is different from PCI - you can't put a PCI-Express card into your PC. I am pretty sure that you will not find a card that can do what you want that uses a PCI slot - it is totally obsolete for video.

Look for the AGP cards suggested by the previous posts.

If your motherboard is AGP, you'll want an AGP video card.

The PCI slots in your machine (not to be confused with PCI-express) are much too slow to handle the bandwidth required for HD.

I had no problems with 1080p playback on a Radeon 9550, so anything higher than that should work fine for OTA HD.

Everywhere I look it's around double (pro=$50->$60, XT=$100 +)

I believe you may be confusing the 2400 series with the 2600 series. Those WILL have a notable price difference.

Another thing that will cause confusion is that I am explicitly referring to PCI-E cards and not AGP.

For you, the only good choice is the X1950 Pro AGP

I was under the impression that I would be able to go out and get an HD PCI based card for the mobo I have. Was I wrong to assume this?

You were wrong. As stated above this post, PCI is OLD. PCI-E is VERY new and is radically different and faster than PCI. There is NO support for PCI-E on the Socket A platform (What you have).

If a 2600 pro/xt takes away most of the load from the cpu

The only problem with that line of thinking that I forgot to mention something. Currently, ATI has not enabled the AGP variants of the 2400 and 2600 to actually do their full hardware accelleration. Because of this, you are out of luck on those cards.

There must be a simple/easy/cheap way to have my setup do what I want it to do.

If you can get your hands on a really well priced Radeon X1600 Pro, you are in business. They are not as fast as the X1950 but they will offload a great deal of video decoding from your main CPU.

I had no problems with 1080p playback on a Radeon 9550, so anything higher than that should work fine for OTA HD.

I seriously doubt that. If anything, I suspect you meant 1080i. I have been testing the lower limit for all forms of HD for the last year and a half and I can pretty flatly state that that claim is false. The slowest card I have ever been able to use for MPEG2 HD (Which is what OTA HD is), is a Radeon 9600XT on a Barton series Athlon XP 2500+ with 1 GB of RAM and the playback was intermittently skipping.

The LEAST powerful card needed for steady playback of MPEG2 HD is a GeForce 6800 GT. It is possible that a 6600 GT may get the job done but I have yet to add one of those to my repetoire.

Well I didn't really want to go out and get a new comp... though it would be nice (the wife just wouldn't go for it). Around here I can get a complete comp for around $300-$350 that would probably be a much better starting off point than what I have right now, but again, I really didn't want to spend that much.

Your problem is that you'll have to spend a good $100-$150 on a AGP video card trying to keep your outdated computer alive when just a few hundred more could get you a somewhat decent new system... crappy, I know! (I went through the same thing). I'd put the $ for a video card towards a new computer... even a used one from your local bargian finder, just something with the newer technology that makes upgrades down the road possible if needed, (new CPU, PCI-E video, ect.)

I seriously doubt that. If anything, I suspect you meant 1080i. I have been testing the lower limit for all forms of HD for the last year and a half and I can pretty flatly state that that claim is false. The slowest card I have ever been able to use for MPEG2 HD (Which is what OTA HD is), is a Radeon 9600XT on a Barton series Athlon XP 2500+ with 1 GB of RAM and the playback was intermittently skipping.

The LEAST powerful card needed for steady playback of MPEG2 HD is a GeForce 6800 GT. It is possible that a 6600 GT may get the job done but I have yet to add one of those to my repetoire.

That's strange, since I've been watching OTA HD on a Radeon 9550 for 6 months now, with no problems. In fact, my wife is watching it now. So your flatly stated claim of falsehood is, empirically, false. :) If you like, I can give you further details of my setup.

And yes, I did mean 1080p: the video card is set to output 1080p (1920x1080@60Hz) via DVI->HDMI to the TV, which accepts a 1080p signal. The video sources, of course, are all 1080i, deinterlaced by the video card and PVR software to 1080p, rather than deinterlaced by the TV, but the DVI signal is 1080p. When actually watching video, the difference is minor, but when playing games or using the BeyondTV UI, setting the video to 1080i shows some pretty ugly artifacts, so I prefer to leave it at 1080p.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that even this old card has enough GPU horsepower to decode a 1080i signal, enough fillrate to fill a 1080p framebuffer and enough bandwidth to scan it out over DVI at 60 frames progressive.

Thanks SenorBlanco. Finally someone that has the same proc as me. : )

The PCI slots in your machine (not to be confused with PCI-express) are much too slow to handle the bandwidth required for HD.

Maybe that's why I was confused. I thought the PCI slot I had on my mobo would be fine for these new HD PCI (express) cards. The tuner fit in no problem and worked, and I thought these newer PCI video cards would be the same way. Thanks for the clarification.


========


Ok, so I have to use an APG card. Undertstood. I guess I'll have to spend a bit more $'s, oh well. So something like this for my HTPC would be what I need to buy?

http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/products/products_overview.php?gpid=180&grp=2


I would love to eventually add an HD drive to my rig. If going with a 2400/2600 Pro AGP card does the job I'm look for it to do, then I'll go out and get that card or something similar by another manufacturer.


SenorBlanco, I was wondering about your setup. You said that you have an older card with the same proc as mine. I guess it's safe to say that the newer cards, like the one I posted a link to, would do a much better job of unloading the work the cpu has to do than the card you have?

If yes, what is your current load while using that card/proc combo while watching a 1080i signal? (the % in task manager?) Thanks.

======================

que3jxp, thanks for those answers. It has helped me understand my options a little bit better. (a little bit) lol

For you, the only good choice is the X1950 Pro AGP

So you wouldn't use the card I posted a link to in this post (just above) with my setup?

There is NO support for PCI-E on the Socket A platform (What you have).

Understood.

The only problem with that line of thinking that I forgot to mention something. Currently, ATI has not enabled the AGP variants of the 2400 and 2600 to actually do their full hardware accelleration. Because of this, you are out of luck on those cards.

I remember reading about that, but I also read that there was a different driver that would allow for it to work and the only problem was with the 2400 and not the 2600. Maybe the 2600 pro agp card is different, but knowing ATI even if there is a problem with the APG version there will hopefully be an update eventually for it, but that would be for 1080P right? Isn't 1080i fine on the 260 pro AGP version?

Btw, ATI also informed the tester...

When we asked ATI about the problem, they let us know that they had intentionally limited the output size on slower cards like the 2400 PRO, because they were worried that HD video would choke on them. However, they also promised us that the upcoming 7.11 Catalyst drivers would remove this limitation, and allow even the lowly 2400 PRO to display 1920x1080 video. So we'll be checking up on their promise in a future review.

At this time, the 2400 PRO is viable either on a 1440x900 or lower resolution, or in Windows XP with the registry tweak mentioned above and 'pulldown detection' disabled.

I have a 720P Pani that can accept a 1080i signal, so I assume that wouldn't be a problem...? I would also trust that ATI will eventually have a driver by the time I do decide to add an HD drive to my rig, but my tv can't display 1080P anyway, so it might be a waste of time to get an HD drive. I guess OTA HD and DVD playback will have to do until I do buy a new tv in the future. (not really sad about that if that is the case), so that card I gave a link to should work...?

(so many questions... sorry guys)


Your problem is that you'll have to spend a good $100-$150 on a AGP video card trying to keep your outdated computer alive when just a few hundred more could get you a somewhat decent new system... crappy, I know! (I went through the same thing). I'd put the $ for a video card towards a new computer... even a used one from your local bargian finder, just something with the newer technology that makes upgrades down the road possible if needed, (new CPU, PCI-E video, ect.)


DJDiggler you make some good points, put I plan to use/keep the same comp downstairs for internet use as well. I have so much stuff on this comp right now, that I really don't feel like going through all the work of buying and then setting up a new one. Besides all the new affordable ones that are out there in my area all come with Vista, and to put it simply I would rather not use that system. I like XP. (I was using 98SE until I built this comp around 4 years ago lol). I will eventually build a new faster comp, but until then I would like to keep using this one. Remember, a $100-$150 video card is still cheaper than a new computer. ;)


So far I am looking at 3-4 choices...

Radeon 9550 (if i can still find one. I remember seeing one for around $70 with 256mb DDR)

AGP HD 2400/2600 (I found both for around $110. I'll assume the 2600 version would be a better choice?) lol

X1950 Pro AGP (I haven't done much research on this one, but I will... $230 though) :eek:


Holt crap... that X1950 is 9.5" long! :p That will almost hit one of my internal hd slots. :eek: lol


Btw, I just found a 9550 for under $30 at Tiger direct, but it's only has 64mb DDR. That wouldn't be up to the job would it? lol