home cinema integrating PC

[Luke M]

hey guys and gals,

after a bit of advice on PC kit and what to buy as theres so much out there im struggling to find what i need!

basically i currently have a sony 32" Cathode ray TV with a digibox and DVD player linked up. all sound runs through a rotel stereo amp running a pair of 8" tannoy mercury speakers.

what im basically wanting to do is condense everything down, get rid of the DVD player and digi box and combine them into my PC. im also wanting to expand the audio side to include a second amp running a set of JBL control series speakers, wall mounted as a rear fill and eventually expand that further into a surround sound system. im not wanting to scrap the tannoys and go for one of these all in one systems as these are awesome speakers and have sentimental value.

so as far as im reconning i need -

TV out card - either one that has both a TV and monitor out or one that will work alongside the motherboard mounted graphics card running my monitor.
digi card - ive seen lots of ebuyer and places and cant work out which is best, preferably one with remote.
5.1 surround sound card - simple really, just need recommending one

budget wise im not looking to blow huge bucks on this, reliable kit for a reasonable price, ill buy it as the money comes along.

thanks for help everyone!
luke

 

[Hellcat]

I experimented with this before binning it. Too much noise from the PC, PC taking too long to boot just to watch TV or a DVD.

If you want to do it:

Plenty of graphics cards with TV out. You didn't say if the PC has PCI-E or AGP. It'll be limited res on the TV out though so don't expect HDMI performance.

Digibox - I've a Haupage external USB2. Works a treat. Has remote and is Windows media centre compatable.

Soundcard - Soundblaster?

 

[Luke M]

I experimented with this before binning it. Too much noise from the PC, PC taking too long to boot just to watch TV or a DVD.

If you want to do it:

Plenty of graphics cards with TV out. You didn't say if the PC has PCI-E or AGP. It'll be limited res on the TV out though so don't expect HDMI performance.

Digibox - I've a Haupage external USB2. Works a treat. Has remote and is Windows media centre compatable.

Soundcard - Soundblaster?

luckily my PC boots quick and runs very quiet, barely know it on!

sorry to sound dumb , but PCI-E or AGP? is that the card connection type?
im not expecting HDMI performance as my TV isnt HDMI, it wont be worse than a standard digi box though will it?

 

[coyle]

luckily my PC boots quick and runs very quiet, barely know it on!

sorry to sound dumb , but PCI-E or AGP? is that the card connection type?
im not expecting HDMI performance as my TV isnt HDMI, it wont be worse than a standard digi box though will it?

thats the type of graphics card connection yeh. depends which you have as to which you can get.. mines agp, and last week i bought a new graphics card, with tv out, with a dvi and vga otput. £50 from pc world.. i know i could have got it cheaper, but was in a rush

 

[jenks69]

I have an evesham media centre PC with HD audio card and it's absolutely crap compared to a £25 DVD player from tesco's! That's running on a 32" LCD tv connected over DVI.

There's simply too much background noise through the soundcard - microsoft media centre is really slow and crappy at changing the sky channels - in the end I stopped using it for TV / Sky viewing and got myself sky+

I still have the media centre but I only use it for watching XVID's - and to be honest if my DVDRW played DIVX / XVID my MCE would end up as a door stop / file server!