Hi all,
Now that I am back in a house after being on a narrowboat for seven years, I can think about HiFi/Cinema again.
Pre-boat, I had a Pro-Logic system and it is fascinating to see how things have moved on in that time.
PCs have moved on too and since I work in IT I have in mind creating a Media Centre type PC as the hub for all audio-visual stuff.
I have acquired a slightly used quad-core HP xw4400 with 4GB RAM (max 8GB) and with acouple of 1TB HDDs, it should work fine for a while.
I need two things for it - a TV tuner card and a graphics card and wonder if anyone could advise here.
With the Freesat HD card available from Hauppauge - the HVR4000 (which also has Freeview and Analogue tuners on the card) it seems short-sighted not to include this, despite not having a dish at present.
Is there a better card now available? This one dates back to 2007.
Secondly, graphics cards...
An ATI 4850 based card seems well thought of with its ability to send video and HD audio over HDMI.
As always, this is generic and there are a number of manufacturers using this chipset on their cards.
Sapphire, Asus, Powercolor, Diamond – all these do ATI 4850 cards.
Some will doubtless be better than others – and I welcome any recommendations.
(I am thinking of going for a 1GB version incidentally).
When the time comes, the rest of the system will (at the moment) comprise Q-Acoustics1010i and whichever receiver is well rated at the time (after an audition of course!). Currently the Denon AVR-1910.
Oh! nearly forgot - will need a BluRay reader or reader/writer at some point too!
Thanks all!
Martin
Now that I am back in a house after being on a narrowboat for seven years, I can think about HiFi/Cinema again.
Pre-boat, I had a Pro-Logic system and it is fascinating to see how things have moved on in that time.
PCs have moved on too and since I work in IT I have in mind creating a Media Centre type PC as the hub for all audio-visual stuff.
I have acquired a slightly used quad-core HP xw4400 with 4GB RAM (max 8GB) and with acouple of 1TB HDDs, it should work fine for a while.
I need two things for it - a TV tuner card and a graphics card and wonder if anyone could advise here.
With the Freesat HD card available from Hauppauge - the HVR4000 (which also has Freeview and Analogue tuners on the card) it seems short-sighted not to include this, despite not having a dish at present.
Is there a better card now available? This one dates back to 2007.
Secondly, graphics cards...
An ATI 4850 based card seems well thought of with its ability to send video and HD audio over HDMI.
As always, this is generic and there are a number of manufacturers using this chipset on their cards.
Sapphire, Asus, Powercolor, Diamond – all these do ATI 4850 cards.
Some will doubtless be better than others – and I welcome any recommendations.
(I am thinking of going for a 1GB version incidentally).
When the time comes, the rest of the system will (at the moment) comprise Q-Acoustics1010i and whichever receiver is well rated at the time (after an audition of course!). Currently the Denon AVR-1910.
Oh! nearly forgot - will need a BluRay reader or reader/writer at some point too!
Thanks all!
Martin
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