WTB: HTPC

[WarPirate]

I hit a deer last night with my car.

So HTPC project has been temporarily canceled

[MDS]

HTPC as in a home theater PC? If so what kind of specs are you shooting for and what kind of budget?

[WarPirate]

Main goal is to play MP3 and record Live TV

Specs can be a wide range if someone has a nice system that only has say a celeron 1 ghz chip in it but has everything else and its cheap ill buy it and replace the cpu.

This will be my first Home Theater PC and I just want to get something to mess with originally.

However I would like it to function. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be top of the line and it certainly doesn't have to be in a "HTPC" style case.

HDTV compatibility is not necessary.

Preferably as inexpensive as possible I will most likely be purchasing a WinTV pvr-500 to go in it and thats going to cost me some bucks.

[MDS]

reason I ask is newegg has an Iwin shuttle like barebones for AMD or Intel chips. I built one a few weeks ago for a customer for $650 and that included the barebones(intel setup),512mb ram, 2.4gig cpu, dvd rw drive, 80gig hard drive, Capture Card,xp home.

[bombledmonk]

What program did he or she use for the recording TV functions?

[MDS]

Power VCR II or WinDVR, there is a mountain or software out there you just need to find what suits your needs. Every one has it's perks as power vcr has a reg hack for a higher quality mpg2 compression on the fly, and WinDVR has record timer/calender. I personally like pinnacle studio and power VCR II.

[samwichse]

http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html

A relatively easy to install and feature-rich Linux distrobution designed to make a nice set top box setup.

[WarPirate]

Im really looking for the hardware side of things.

I've already decided to go with WinXP MCE 2005 or Sage TV so the software is a done deal for me.