Building a media center Pc

[CS-dude]

Hello,

I recently got my hands on an old dell opterex gx270 (1gb ram,80gb hdd, 2.8ghz p4) and have decided to have a go at creating me a media centre.

The pc is going to be connected to my shiny new 32" hd tv, currently by vga, although I'm planning to later connect it via dvi making use of hdmi's backwards compatabilty.

Since the spec isnt really that great by todays standards, i decided to install xp as the basic o/s (as opposed to vista)* and then perform a number of upgrades.

The equipment im currenlty looking at is:

500gb hdd (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129413)- £63
Asus (freeview) tv tuner card (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/117391) -£36
D-link wireless card (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/103208) - £12
I'm also hoping to get my hands on a ati radeon 9550 agp gfx card

Does anyone have any expreince with the componets / know of any better prices :p

Aside from hardware, not haveing a MCE of xp and not wanting to pay for one, ive been looking at free media center software to go with the new box. Currently for windows mediaportal looks at least to be the best. Does anyone have any recommendations in this deparment? or does it all sound good.

Thanks for any feedback,
CS-dude

* ubuntu is duel booted also as im hoping to run boxee on it eventually(an xbmc spin off), though is currenlty throughing a hissy fit about intergrated graphics so will have to wait.

[Recursion]

We used those old GX-270s at the lower school I work in, they wont run HD properly.

That TV Card isn't going to be HD compatible.

Be careful on the TV and D-Link card, if its the computer linked below, then there are only 2 PCI slots.

http://www.myfamilybooktemplates.com/dell-gx270.jpg - Is it this?
(http://www.myfamilybooktemplates.com/dell-gx270.jpg)

[CS-dude]

We used those old GX-270s at the lower school I work in, they wont run HD properly.

That TV Card isn't going to be HD compatible.

Be careful on the TV and D-Link card, if its the computer linked below, then there are only 2 PCI slots.

http://www.myfamilybooktemplates.com/dell-gx270.jpg - Is it this?
(http://www.myfamilybooktemplates.com/dell-gx270.jpg)

Hey,

The HD thing shouldn't be much of an issue, the AGP card I'm looking at should provide the power to render HD should it be needed, but at current i have no HD content to use and the TV tuner is only there to capture standard definition content :)

The gx270's I've got here are similar to the image posted, but not quite the same, for one its designed to stand tall instead of flat. It also has plenty expansion capability with mother board extensions giving me 5 free PCI slots along with the AGP. Though i hear the tuner card is a bus hog so will try to keep as many free as possible :)

Thanks for the input,
CS-Dude

[Jordy]

Beyond TV! is highly thought of and often considered better than Windows Media Centre for recording TV. It's a little expensive but the software is reasonably complexed, I guess you could just torrent it or whatever though ;P

[lolwut]

D-Link Wireless receivers have always failed me. I highly recommend Netgear, never failed me or anything :)

For example, I have a D-Link USB G Dongle and I have to take it out before I turn off else it doesn't work the next time. I have a D-Link PCI Card and it drops out, if I connect to the WiFi via my iPod touch, it's fine. (I have AirPort Extreme base station) This shows it's not with my WLAN, but with D-Link....
I'm now using a Netgear WiFi dongle (802.11n) with a Ubuntu laptop and it's fine. I also have a Netgear 802.11g PCI card in my brothers desktop, works fine. Flawless.

Go with Netgear or maybe even Belkin, although they let me down with routers, twice. :)