[leglug-users] Home Entertainment

[Denys (VISP)]

Hi

HDMI? On my opinion enough DVI, most of LCD TV's(modern) and cards have DVI 
interface. Mine is 40' LCD, 1080i supported over it.

Computer in best choice something completely fanless. 3.2 Ghz as far as i 
know - mostly old ugly Prescott or similar, which produce a lot heat(and as 
result fan noise), and it is not power efficient. Maybe, because there is 
still no cards with hardware acceleration for HDTV, so weak processor like 
fanless Via not possible, prefferable to have some Core 2 Duo 1.8-2.0 Ghz. 
Mine is Core 2 Duo 6600 (2.4 Ghz), much faster than 3.2 Ghz old generation 
P4. Very important IMHO is RAM. If u have 4GB+ RAM, u can make ramdisk and 
prefetch/cache whole(or most of) CD/DVD, so noise from running DVD will not 
bother u, while you are watching TV.

About shared storage not sure, i'll prefer more HDD's in PC, cause even 
Gigabit connection not so fast like SATA cable. As backup storage - maybe 
good external too, but as online - IMHO not.

TV tuner - not too much choice in lebanon, i manage to work some USB called 
Pinnacle USB 2 PCTV, works fine, but cable in my area so crap quality + last 
lighting f***ked my LCD TV(recovered) over this damned cable(they are not 
installing supressors!!!), and i am foreigner, arabic TV channels for me 
useless. But on my opinion, not best choice to run broadcast TV on big LCD.

Software, long time ago i like MythTV a lot.

And... lebanese reality - buy UPS for all this.

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:11:35 +0200, Abdallah wrote
> Hello all,
> 
> I know that for most of us home entertainment means a laptop and some
> just-for-fun coding, but for our families it isn't. And since i'm 
> about to have one of my own, I'm thinking of building my own system 
> from "Open Source" components (I know what you're thinking: "cheap 
> bastard"). So, let's hear it, what do I need? Here's what I have: 1- 
> Sony bravia s series 32" lcd tv 2- P4 Computer 3.2Ghz 3- Matrox 
> shared storage II (1 Tb) 4- DVD R/W
> 
> Here's what I think I should have: *suggestions welcome
> 1- A good HDMI capable graphic card
> 2- Gegabit Ethernet setup (cards + hub/switch)
> 3- TV Tuner (external) + infrared receptor
> 4- Software ...
> 
> Please don't even try to FGI me, I'm asking for suggestions and real-
> life details based on your experience.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> Abdallah Deeb


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