Turning PC to DVR

[waryuser]

Hey guys...I was wondering what you guys thought about turning my old PC into a DVR like this article. http://www.makezine.com/extras/4.html


The article is kinda old. Do you think its worth it to do this? If so what suggestions do you recommend?

this is the PC that im working with...

Dell dimension 4100

Intel Easton D815EEA motherboard
intel P3 700 MHz
512 of Ram
Windows XP
one 38 Gb hard drive and one 186.3 Gb harddrive
Samsung DVD-ROM (apparently doest read dvds with windows XP tho looked it up no new drivers

I think that is it for the specs.

what you guys think

[gimpster123]

wow, great article, i think that will be my next project. The remote access is also pretty awesome.

Your specs look allright, except you might want a faster processor if your mother board will take it. Some more hard drive space couldn't go wrong either.

[waryuser]

Thanks...will this computer do pretty much what windows media center does?

[gimpster123]

I'm not to familiar with windows media player, from what i've heard its jst an over glorified version of xp.

This computer in the article, i imagine does much much more then windows media center edition.

Using it as a server, so u can get at any media from anywhere, as well as the game emulators are definatly NOT stock on windows media player.

For your operating system, I recomend XP pro. Vista may not have the driver support u need, and the freeware programs, since they are older, may not work on Vista.

[Bill_Marsden]

I've done something similar. I gone through several computers doing it, a 400Mhz is the absolute bottom of the specs, and while the VooDoo 3500 worked the ATI Rage series work very well. Nowdays I'm using a 1.8Ghz Radion 7500 AIW.

[hugh750]

Buy your self a ati all in wonder video card they have a built in tv tuner, that would help in making your pc a dvr.