- ASUS "A7N8X-E Deluxe" motherboard ($92 --great onboard sound and Gbit enet)
Sempron 2500+ CPU, 1.75 Ghz ($71)
Rosewill nVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "RW5200-128D3" ($52)
WINTEC AMPO 184-pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 RAM ($37)
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive ($52)
COOLER MASTER Cavalier 3 Black ATX Mid-Tower Case With 350W Power Supply ($76)
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 ($134)
MyBlaster Serial ($40 -- to control DISH-TV tuner or cable box)
250 Gig good meal deal hard drive ($25 after rebates and price match!)
Linux newbie., using KnoppMyth RA12.
Worked like a CHARM, though I did have to flash upgrade the MB Bios first (saw posts warning me about that, though, for this motherboard/processor combo).
I did waste a lot of time trying to get a different IR Blaster working with the system first (a $12 simple one-- I have a DISH TV receiver to deal with), but after that failed I found bought the My.tv blaster which only requires small edits to a single perl script (rather than recompilling device drivers) and it was going fine.
I got nervous with the jumpy-stuttery video before I realized that the default frame rates were over agressive, then dialed them down a bit in the prefs and got smooth video that is still at least as good, if not better, than my ReplayTV box gives.
I did manage to break the CD import by mucking around in the MySQL database where I shouldn't have, but that's my own dang fault. The weater map doesn't work without some fuss, but that's not core functionality to I won't ding the rating for that.
No problem watching one show while recording and commercial flagging another in the background. Nice work.
