Hi, everybody. I recently acquired our old family computer and would like to convert it to an htpc running linux, most likely knoppmyth. Here are the specs: 700mhz celeron, 64MB ram (upgradable to 256 if necessary), 30 GB hdd (much more storage on network), intel onboard graphics. I checked the manual online, and it appears that this chipset does not support tv-out through the vga port without an encoder. I want these functions: record tv, play recorded tv, play dvds, play music, run emulators. Here's the problem: what I want to do requires a NIC (already have), tuner, video card, and sound card (already have), but the computer has only 3 pci slots and no agp. So, I would like some advice about which option to choose.

1. use a usb tuner (probably not a good idea with usb 1.1)
2. use an external vga-to-tv box
3. use vga monitor instead of tv (not very convenient)
4. put the tuner in a different computer and transfer recorded video via ethernet
5. use a tuner with built-in tv-out (expensive)

My budget is extremely tight, so I can't afford a hauppauge pvr-350. Even though it's not the most convenient, it's looking as though number 4 is the best idea. What do you guys think? Thanks in advance!

I would just grab an ATI TV Wonder PCI on ebay, I saw they are going for $20 with shipping. I had one of these cards kicking around when I built my HTPC and seems to work fine, although I have a ReplayTV which I mainly use for recording TV so I've only used the ATI card for limited stuff. But as I mention seemed to do the job fine.

You can also probably find a cheap PCI Video card with S-video output. Found this on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814139151R. But my guess is that if you can find a local used computer store, you'd probably be able to pick up a card for $5. I would just make sure that it's Nvidia based GPU as those cards seem to have slightly better support in Linux.

Here is what I would do:

Use KnoppMyth or Ubuntu.

Be sure your NIC is 100Mbit.

Get an FX5200 PCI with DVI, TV out
http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=154213&cmArea=SEARCH

Staples has sales, price matches and takes competitor coupon's, like $10 off $50 from Officemax, etc. Also Froogle for other FX5200 PCI deals or Ebay. THe FX5200 has become a de-facto standard for Myth boxes.

Get the WinTV Go card for $18, less with coupon code "dealsea"
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WINTV-GO-CO&cat=VCD

Use a USB sound card like this for $8
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HE-280B&cat=SND

If all you want is stereo 2 channel, this should be fine on USB1.1 Search the forum and google to ensure Myth/Ubuntu compatibility.

In all, you can make the box Myth capable for about $100 with tuner and DVI/Svideo out card as listed.

Sell the MB on ebay and replace it with something a lot more capable. You're just throwing good money after bad trying to use this for an HTPC. I'm assuming you are wanting to record free OTA TV. ATSC is the only way to go. You could add ram to this box and use it for a backend server since ATSC doesn't require encoding, but for a frontend display, it's way to weak even with deocoding assistance of the video card. I wouldn't evne waste my time wit NTSC since ATSC is so much better and NTSC is scheduled for broadcasting death in 2 years anyway. Just my 2 cents. If you still want to give NTSC a go, then get a cheap card with onboard mpeg-2 encoding and expect it to be worthless in a year or so. You'll definately have to add ram to. Still say it's a waste of money.

Sell the MB on ebay and replace it with something a lot more capable. You're just throwing good money after bad trying to use this for an HTPC. I'm assuming you are wanting to record free OTA TV. ATSC is the only way to go. You could add ram to this box and use it for a backend server since ATSC doesn't require encoding, but for a frontend display, it's way to weak even with deocoding assistance of the video card. I wouldn't evne waste my time wit NTSC since ATSC is so much better and NTSC is scheduled for broadcasting death in 2 years anyway. Just my 2 cents. If you still want to give NTSC a go, then get a cheap card with onboard mpeg-2 encoding and expect it to be worthless in a year or so. You'll definately have to add ram to. Still say it's a waste of money.

That is another option.

These boxes look interesting for the money, though you need to do the research to verify slot types, video out connectors, and Linux driver support:


http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=IBMNVPIV18-3B&cat=SYS

Though NTSC analog OTA will go away some day soon, many of us will keep using NTSC analog cable until they pry it from our cold, dead hands ;). NTSC analog cable provides a good image (assuming a clean, good signal from a good provider- I get great results from WOW analog cable in SE Michigan), and is able to be split at your discretion to as many tuners and devices as you want in your house, while retaining non-DRM access to a lot of decent channels like Discovery, Comedy Central, TDC, National Geographic, History, Bravo, A&E, TCM, and others. If cable forces the switch to digital/QAM, all our tuners (PCI cards, USB tuners, Tivos, legacy VCR's, set top DVD+/-R recorders, etc) would be useless and unencrypted access to these channels would be threatened.

The OP's post highlights a common dilemma- do you dump money and effort to upgrade old hardware to achieve new functionality, or buy into newer hardware? I usually recommend not to "buy backwards"- i.e. don't buy hardware that can't be used on more recent vintage machines. An example would be spending a lot to add legacy memory types (EDO, PC100/133) plus a new hard disk controller to an older machine with low memory and non-48bit LBA capable motherboard HD controllers. It would probably be better to apply the money to get a more recent used motherboard with newer RAM type (DDR/DDR2) and updated USB2 and HD controllers vs dumping the money "backwards".

But the parts I described can all be used on current machines, so the only questionable part would be the PCI FX5200 vs AGP or PCIe. But even the PCI video card could be used for SD video on a current PC.

Thank you all for the quick replies! They were nice to come home to after yet another day at school. Yesterday I forgot to mention another option, which would be to use the onboard stereo sound. As much as I would love to use my 5.1 surround card, I think that maybe I should just split the stereo signal? I'm not that much of an audiophile, so that would probably be acceptable. Then I'll have room for a tv-out and a tuner, but if the machine can't handle encoding, then I'll have room for the sound card! (edit: and maybe geexbox, then, instead of something more demanding. That's right, I called linux demanding.) This is looking better than I thought! Now I just need to decide which cards to buy. Updates soon.

@wnewell: I would love to try atsc, but we don't pay for hd. The tv in our living room is at least twenty years old (think fake woodgrain on the case), and mine isn't much better. I realize I'll only be able to use this for a couple years, but by '09 I won't have to buy everything through my parents. They already don't like the amount I spend on computers, and I haven't even brought up the ram and (future) dx10 card that I "need" to speed up Vista.

@rgb: That p4 box looks like a good deal, but that would use up my whole budget for this project, so I'm stuck with the pc I have. When ntsc goes away, I probably will retire my current gaming rig to the media life. But then what to do with this 700? :D

I have a box with similar capabilities, and I'm using it as my MythTV backend w/ NFS mounted storage. I've got two ATSC tuners, and a PVR500. I, too, do not yet have an HDTV, but the ATSC channels still look awfully good on my flatscreen tube TV. I use a $15 dollar antenna from "Big Orange", and the PVR500 (only using one tuner right now) is hooked to a low-end satellite box.

I'll tell you this right now - there is absolutely, positively no way that box will be able to play back HD/ATSC streams. It *might* be able to handle SD streams. Maybe, provided you've got hardware encoding and an Nvidia card. At the very least, stuff a lot of RAM in that box.

I would highly suggest a PVR350. I know you said it's not in the budget, but I think that would pretty much guarantee success.

A few more observations:

As others mentioned, you need to max your RAm to 256MB (your stated max) or 384-512MB if possible (check the system manual/mobo manual).

If the sound is on the motherboard and not in a slot, then you don't need the USB sound card I mentioned.

However, you should check to see if your mobo supports the PIII socket 370 CPUS, as there are great deals at geeks.com:

http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=284

Get the fastest your machine is compatible with. At those prices, it's the last hurrah for the P3. I use several P3 boxes in my house. Verify your mobo can support 133Mhz bus speed.

Another TV card option is the PVR150 from hauppage.com, which does hardware encoding, which means little CPU is needed to record. Use froogle to find best deal, but reabtes are frequent to take it to $60 or less after MIR. Check newegg.com for a whitebox version.

I did some testing during my snow day today. I installed a dvd-rom drive and powerdvd 5 and played Star Wars Episode III. Performance was excellent at 800x600, adequate at 1024x768, and unacceptable at 1280x1024. Now without checking, I think the resolution of the tv is maybe 640x480, so any card with tv-out should be fine for dvds. Does regular tv require any more power for playback than a dvd? Also, I reread the hardware section of the linux htpc howto and found this:

"For SD (Regular) TV:

* CPU of 800Mhz per "Dumb" TV Tuner card. (If you get a PVR-x50 card you won't need over a 1.5Ghz for just TV)
* Disk space needs (up to 2GB/hr, normally 1GB/hr, as low as .3GB/hr)
* Shared type of interface between TV and video card (See video page for comparisons)
* Shared type of interface between stereo and sound card (See audio page for comparisons)
* At least 256MB RAM
* Remote control support
* Network card "

I haven't yet found any decent resource for my motherboard, so I'm not sure of PIII compatibility, although it looks like I have the correct socket. If I stay with the cpu I have and max out the ram at 256, do you think I would be able to squeak by with software encoding? I plan on doing only one thing at a time, so full power would be available. If the 800Mhz is an absolute minimum, I wonder if I could just overclock it? 14% shouldn't be too bad on the stability...

I froogled "hauppauge pvr-150" in case I do need it and found this:
(sorry, can't link yet) directdial.us/1047_HAUPPAUGE_WINTV_PVR_150_PCI_PERSONAL_VIDEO.html They add $20 for handling and the shipping is $14, but the original price is only $7, for a total of $41 delivered. Has anybody used this site? I don't know if I should trust a place that charges me $20 for every order under $25, but if they had some in stock it might be worth a try.

I'll try to get to the computer store sometime within the next week or so to see what they have in graphics cards. My friend insists the place is crooked because he got screwed there once (they actually took the modem out of his computer to put in a different one they were fixing), but I don't need to worry about that because they won't be anywhere near my hardware.

What is the brand and model number your machine?

It's an eMachines etower 700ir. While I couldn't find any manual-type document, I did see somewhere that it will only accept a specific type of memory, not just any pc100. Could there really be some kind of restriction on this? I saw two sticks of 128MB pc100 on ebay last week for $16 for the pair, so I'd like to be able to get some generic ram.

The closest manual on the net is for the Anaheim-2A motherboard. Your 700ir uses the Anaheim-3 mobo- no manual to be found, but sounds similar to the -2A

http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/TriGem/manuals/index.html

You just *had* to have an eMachines ;)

According to this discussion,
http://www2.geek.com/discus/messages/27/12044.html?1114716421

a P3 might not work, though it could be a multiplier or bus speed settings issue.

Another suggestion would be to bum an old machine from someone upgrading- a friend, school worker, family member- that has a more standard motherboard and probably a better CPU. People give away P3 boxes now, or Celeron S370 boxes with more standard, easily upgraded motherboards. The plan would be to find a Socket 370 or later box.

Thanks for the info, Rgb. I think I'm going to go to the computer store on Saturday, so I'll talk to the guys there about it. Maybe if I buy a PIII and it doesn't work, they'll take it back.
<quote>You just *had* to have an eMachines </quote> I was waiting all along for this comment. Of course, I would never buy an eMachines myself (this one doesn't count as buying; I just gave my brother a couple dollars for it), but it's the pc I grew up using, so I'm kind of nostalgic and want to keep it. In a related twist of fate, my parents just bought a computer. It's the first one they've ever bought, and, you guessed it, it's an eMachines. I think they're better now that they're owned by gateway or somebody like that, but I'll never need to use the thing anyway.

If you can't find something for free, you can piece something togther on the cheap, examples:

ebay item #200078880372

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=KG-200&cat=CAS

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=FP-FX5200-128MB&cat=VCD


http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WINTV-GO-CO&cat=VCD

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HSP56&cat=SND

The drives could come from your eMachines, as well as mouse/KB.

The total of all these parts is less than $100, and the CuSL2, which was a reference standard mobo for HTPC around 2001, can handle up to 512MB. You emAchines is capped at 256MB, which won't help going forward.

Check ebay for other CuSL2/TuSl2/CPU/RAm deals.

This site has great prices, and free shipping:

http://3btech.net/chnvfxul128x1.html

If you can use the power supply from your eMachines, these cases are great deals, as shipping on cases can be high due to weight:

http://3btech.net/basic.html

No luck at the store today. With all this talk of upgrading the system, and no help at the computer store, I'm beginning to wonder if I should just give up on this machine. I could wait awhile until I have more cash and put something together on a spare motherboard I have. It's the same one that's in my main pc (biostar nforce4 socket 939) and would be much easier to upgrade. I really liked the idea of the microatx in the emachines, but if that computer doesn't work out, I guess I'll just have to accept the full atx. Should I scrap what's left of the emachines and buy a cheap a64? If i went this route, I would need a cpu, ram, video card, and tuner, costing probably $150-175. I was trying to hold off on considering this idea because I really wanted to find a use for the old computer, but I don't want to start pouring money into it for only marginal performance at best. Well, should I give up and save for a bit longer?

Put it to some other purpose. It could be a dedicated music computer. If you aren't already into internet radio, try out shoutcast: http://www.shoutcast.com/

All right, I think I have a final plan at last. I will watch ebay and buy ram, a graphics card, and a tuner. I'll install all of it in the computer and see how it works. If it is able to do what I want it to do, great. If not, I can reuse the tuner in a different computer and use the old one for music and low-end gaming (age of empires, counterstrike, etc). Okay, that's about it. Depending on what kind of deals show up, it might take awhile to get everything, so I might not even get around to putting this together until this summer. We'll see.

Wow, it's been a long time. I found an ATI (I know, ATI...) all-in-wonder rage pro card on ebay. It supports tv-in/out but only has 8MB of memory. $22 including shipping. What do you think? Should I buy it? That 8MB kind of scares me, then put together with ATI, I'm not so sure...
Link. (http://cgi.*********/ATI-AIW-64BIT-64-BIT-XP-PCI-TV-CAPTURE-TUNER-VIDEO-CARD_W0QQitemZ270108425158QQihZ017QQcategoryZ3761QQrdZ1QQcmd ZViewItem)

I don't think the ATI All-in-Wonder cards are supported under Linux (and MythTV). See if you can get an Nvidia FX5200 based card, cheap. You'll be much better off (and $$$ ahead).

Okay, thanks.

You definitely want to use a linux distro given your budget and the older components.