PC Peripherals Assembling a media center PC. What do u recommend?

M

MacFanBoy

Disciple
OK. My first post on TE. As my userid suggests, I m a Mac guy completely. But now it seems that I`ll have to settle for a PC with XP:(

So here`s the story..

I have an Apple notebook which stays in my office and is connected to a 300GB HDD. Now I have a lot of videos in that HDD but a computer screen is no match with a 50 inch projection TV. Running a 100+feet AV cable from my office to bedroom will result in extremely bad video quality due to interference. And after that I`ll have to think of a way to control them from my room. So the best(read cheapest) possible way to watch these vids and other stuff on my TV is to get a cheap computer with TV out and connect it to my router(either wifi or LAN) which again connects to my Mac.

And since I m going to get a PC for my room I decided to get a TV Tuner to use it with Tata Sky as DVR. Now I dont really want to need the best quality recordings(if that keeps the budget low). Even CD quality will be OK. What specks wud you recommend.

All I need is a CPU consisting of a processor,mobo,tuner(hopefully XP-MCE compatible with an IR blaster),80GBHDD and a UPS. I dont need any optical drive, monitor, Keyboard etc. All I want is a way to get video in from tatasky, record it, and play it back(along with other downloaded vids) on My TV using video out.

My budget is 15K:ashamed: . which I had saved for a tat sky dvr. But that dvr doesnt seem to be coming anytime soon. I can stretch this budget but not by much.

BTW I recently tried recording video on a new AMD sempron 2800 PC(that cpu cost me 9000 bucks including 512MB,80GB,Cabinet,mobo,procesor) using an old pinnacle TV tuner and was extremely satisfied with the recording quality and divx playback on the pc monitor.

So what system should I get,
 
To use it as a DVR,
AMD Athlon AM2 3000+ 3300
Asus M2NPV-VM ~4000
512 MD DDR 2533 1900
Zebronics Lava Case 1500
Hauppauge PVR 150 MCE+ Remote ??? (I'm not sure if we get them in India)
Seagate 160GB - SATA 2800
This config will cost more than 15K but will be miles better than a DVR
1. Component outputs - not found in all DVRs I guess
2. Digital audio out - connect your av receiver for surrond sound (You need to buy/diy a bracket for this)
3. Install a HTPC frontend (say my favourite meediaportal :) ) and use it as a HTPC
4. Will be able to get programme schedule using softwares like TVxB

(Note this mobo is AMD Live! ready. It also comes with a bundled component video out bracket )
 
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