so when I got my new tuner I was told there was no more distro that would easily run my setup and I couldnt afford to build a new one so I gave up and ran windows media center off my laptop.

where should I start? my setup is in my signature line

_________________
MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

First

Glad to see your moving back!!!

Second,

I would recommend looking at your hardware before you do anything

MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

The PVR-350 is only supported up to Myth .23
The HDHomerun Prime is ??? Linhes 7.2

AGP Nvidia 5200 512mb graphics card would really help your system along with 1GB more of memory

Just clear things up a little bit:


You can still use your PVR-350 as a tuner in later versions. Only the analog-out is not supported after Myth .23

Also your HDHomerun Prime will work with 7.2 and 7.3 but you have to jump through some hoops to get it configured. Full support was included in Mythv 0.24-fixes and .25 Since you'll be using 7.4 it should be a non issue.

Rather than a Nvidia 5200 I would go for a newer NVIDIA version that supports vdpau. You can find supported cards here

You can find them in both PCI and AGP versions.

Tim

the only reason I kept the 350 was for the decoder, if you're telling me there's a card with a built in decoder that might have dvi or HDMI support, as long as it's cheap, I'm all on board.

another gig of ram could be difficult.

any glitches in the audio? I never had luck with the built in audio under older versions

_________________
MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

Yes NVIDIA cards that support vdpau can be found in the $30 - $50 range and have dvi or HDMI ouput.

VPAUD takes a big load off your cpu so that should help clear up any audio problems you may have had in the past

"VPAUD takes a big load off your cpu so that should help clear up any audio problems"

It definitely does in a modern system but I doubt it with older boards like MSI K8MM-Vm because it does not support PCI-Express

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130494

That a big issue. There are old AM2 nvidia boards based on 8200 that would do it all for you but it will be a little more $$

it appears that solution wont work, all of those cards are PCI-E and my board will only support up to AGP8x

I bought this to run laptop processors in he idea I would eventually build a fanless system

_________________
MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

I'm running a PNY VCG84512SPEB GeForce 8400 GS 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI with no problems on an older motherboard.

Check out ebay ...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid= ... &_from=R40

Lots of PCI cards there

didnt know it was PCI, I figured some dummy didnt know the difference between PCI and PCI-E. ebay's like that

_________________
MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

look at the picture, you can tell if it's pci agp or pci-e

soooooo yeah ram 2gb $11, NICE!
video card, $45 not bad

and it WILL work with my audio right? this should be fairly plug and play with minimal tweaking? if so this will be awesome.

I'm guessing this wont do HD... but neither does my laptop because of network lag.

_________________
MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

If your want HD look for a board that's micro atx and dual core it will have pci expess and that will give you a much faster connection. Additionally if needed will be able to use modern low cost video cards that support VDPAU. Your old board is VIA chipset and they had lots of issues like you describe. Check out Gossamer there is lots of info about VIA chipset around 2008. Don't underestimate this issue you know it first hand.

yeah but for the prie, sounds like I'll play with this first. I can always make it into a front end later.

what is gossimer?

_________________
MSI K8MM-V Micro ATX motherboard
3100+ socket 754 AMD Semperon
1GB DDR ram
1TB WD Green Hdd
Hauppauge PVR-350 (tv-out)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime
16X memorex DVD drive

I understand your point on the budget, nothing wrong with trying. Gossamerthreds are great source for tech info

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/

Also here's a PCI PNY card that should work for you

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PNY-VCG84512SPE ... 257a74e30a

Good luck

Any of the cards that support VDPAU should be able to do audio over HDMI too. It may take a small amount of dinking around with ALSA to get the right output selected for everything but it's pretty easy. Here are a couple options that should work for an older PCI MoBo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814187194
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814500262

The RAM would definitely help too, extra buffering space can cover a lot of lag.

On the "how low can you go" for a new system front. The Zotac ZBOX-ID41-U would make very nice one and all it needs is some RAM and a hard disk or SSD. Say ~$350 with 4Gb RAM and a 750Gb HD, but some frugal shopping might knock $30 off that total. Of course used/salvaged hardware might your total down to $0.