Turning Pc Into Tv/intertainment Machine

[Latherin]

first i want to say.. this sight is awsome. ive newly retired from playing mmorpg's ( just got repetative and boaring) and have been looking for a hobby to fill that space.
this stuff that you guys have been posting has realy given me something to think about. and i appreciate the information in response to my posts.
so a big THANKS for all that.

now for the, im sure, dumb question. because i am for sure not one of the intel people that whats his name was asking about.

all my current yamaha mech. is a little and a lot behind the times. my dvd player wont play anything burned and im missing a lot of features that are showing up on the newer stuff. BUT to replace my rather expensive equipment would cost me well over 2k i think if i replaced everything.

anyway...l was told that i could take one of my pc's ( i have a few older ones all under 1ghrz, and turn it into an intertainment monster.
one guy even told he runs his pirated ( not that id EVER do that :rolleyes: ) dish information through his pc first, so when his card takes a hit, its his pc that actualy takes it. it simply shuts off, restarts and WALA hes back in buisness.

so im wondering if this is possible first, and second is it cost effective?
also how hard is it to do this?
ive got a ti 4400 card i could use, and i believe its tv ready ( although ive never used it, and im not sure how you hook that up)
and as far as programs.. i only have xp on that pc..nothing extra for media or any sort of video.


i know i said a lot for a simple few questions....

any aid here would be absorbed like a starving spunge.. especialy instructions.. or a site that might tell me how to set this up.


thanks a glob all. :lol:

[gumbydancin]

I'm not quite sure how to respond to your post. To start, if your pc options are all under 1000MHz and you want to turn it into an semi-proficient entertainment pc, you're gonna have to go back to windows 2000/98. Xp will use too much system resources and it doesn't sound like you'll have any to spare. Secondly, there's no way you need $2,000 to make yourself a rockin pc, even from scratch. Here's an example of my recent build. Athlon xp 2500+ 'Barton', 2 60gb maxtor hard drives, 1gb pc2700 ddr ram, ati all-in-wonder graphics card, an lg dvdrom/cd-rw drive, floppy drive, asus a7n8x deluxe mobo, etc. Whole thing cost under $450. I get pretty good performance from the all in wonder (especially for the price) and I can watch/record tv, rip dvd's, watch dvd's, watch/record from vhs, play games, blah blah blah (hence the all-in-wonder) with very good results. There are guides all over the net on how to cheaply turn your old pc into a server, internet hub, low -end entertainment pc, etc. You said you may have a card with a tv encoder, so with that you'll at least be able to watch or record tv onto your hard drive. But you're limited on the recording quality because of the low end cpu. Reply with more specifics and we might have better luck at guiding you in the right direction. And don't be afraid to upgrade your pc or build a new one, a little money can go a long way.