I've been thinking about getting a Dell Inspiron to use as a DVR (and general media center with DVD/CD/photo) under my HDTV since I can get $300 off a $1000+ system through a discount purchase scheme.

I used to be pretty PC literate but I have been out of the new tech loop for too long and haven't managed to catch up with all the advances.

Here is the rough set up that I've put together:
PROCESSOR AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium
MONITOR 17 inch ViewSonic VA1703wb LCD Monitor
MEMORY 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD+/-RW Drive
VIDEO CARD Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 graphics GPU
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
TV TUNER AND REMOTE ATI Theater 650 PRO Combo Analog/Digital TV Tuner with Remote Control
MODEM & WIRELESS Data/Fax Modem plus 802.11b/g wireless PCI card


Is there any lower limit for a current CPU/RAM or do they all pretty much handle the basic stuff I will be doing? Is recording/playback very intensive? I've got the option to switch the dualcore Athlon 3800 for a Sempron 3600+ and save money or spend a little more on an Intel Core2 Duo E4300. I don't plan on doing any video editing but I might end up doing some, so is this a "buy the best you can afford" issue?
Is it worth getting a separate graphics card rather than using the integrated one? I won't be using it as a games machine at all.

Does Vista Premium contain loads of DVR related stuff? The Dell site tells me I can't use the TV/Remote upgrade with just ordinary Vista. How easy is it to do a DVR without Vista? Seems a bit like overkill for what I want to do.

Non-DVR question:
Can two PCs connected to a wireless router exchange files and share devices (like a printer) like you can on an ordinary network?


If someone could answer at least one of my questions it would be a big help. Thanks

....Does Vista Premium contain loads of DVR related stuff? The Dell site tells me I can't use the TV/Remote upgrade with just ordinary Vista. How easy is it to do a DVR without Vista? Seems a bit like overkill for what I want to do.
Personally I'd use XP Professional. It is less of a systems resource hog and, I think, will do all you want. JMO.

Non-DVR question:
Can two PCs connected to a wireless router exchange files and share devices (like a printer) like you can on an ordinary network?YES. That is as long as you set the permissions to do so.

If someone could answer at least one of my questions it would be a big help. ThanksWhile you are not planning on doing any editing right now, what happens when you record something you want to archive to DVD and take out unwanted stuff like commercials? I would get enough processing power to have LOTS left over, and certainly be able to do basic editing.