http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/ Engadget HD Comments for HDTV Media Center for under a grand? http://hd.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://hd.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/Nov 21st 2005 12:51PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/
The hard part is getting the HDTV tuner card. It seems like everytime I go on newegg, there are different cards available (and not available, like some get pulled from the market. Like the HDTV Wonder?).

At $800, I wasn't skimping on the HD, either. 250 GB minimum.]]>Nov 21st 2005 1:46PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/
Also, the other problem is the current ATSC tuners only suport over the air signal tuning. Any encrypted singals (read: cable, satellite)sources have to be run through a set top box that supports a video out. I think this is done now, but its a hack.]]>Nov 21st 2005 2:30PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/Nov 21st 2005 3:03PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/21/hdtv-media-center-for-under-a-grand/
There is NO encoding involved with an HD capture card! Why? The HD stream is already MPEG2 encoded. So all the HD capture card does is capture the video, and the PC writes it to the hard drive. That's it. Recording HD takes maybe 4% of my CPU.

I have no doubt that you could build a Media PC for under $1000. I've done it.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $140
MSI K8N Neo Platinum $95
NVidia 6600GT video card $140
1GB RAM $90
2 160GB hard drives $60 ($30 each on Black Friday)
HDTV Wonder $100 (CompUSA right now)
BenQ 1640 DVD Writer $40
Windows XP Media Center Edition $115
Some case with a 400W power supply $80

That is $860. I used the Kram drivers so I didn't need an SD capture card. And, actually, I already had a power supply and case for it from a previous computer project. I've since added another 250GB hard drive for $90, and I plan on adding another 500GB soon, which should work out to around $120. So, over 1TB for $120 + $90 + $60 = $270 using 5 hard drives. ;)]]>Nov 22nd 2005 8:54AM