Yet another cheap HTPC build..

Newtown90

Well guys and girls!

Have been looking over the past few threads about advice and I'm thinking everyone's needs leads to different recommendations for the hardware they need for the HTPC Build..

What i have:

* USB DVB-S Tuner

* USB DVB-T Tuner

*1tb external


And an old laptop, not sure will it be any use to me!

Anyways, I would like to build a HTPC that will integrate one satellite tuner (2 in the future) and one terrestrial tv tuner... Be able to watch my Tv shows / Movies on my external hard drive which i would like to expand to 2 tb's at least... And listen to the music from it also...

I already have Surround Sound System / Bluray player and would like to intergrate thiss if i could!

I have a copy of Windows 7 and would like to use Media Portal...

Any advice on what i'd need is appreciate..

Cheap as possible in these times would be appreciated..

Thanks

Carter P Fly

First Question you need to answer is can your laptop Graphics card handle full HD? If it doesnt have a HDMI port Id say probably not.

Your USB tuners are ok, you'll get the saorview with the DVB-t and freeviws SD channels with the DVB-S

I think the DVB-S2 usb recievers are ugly and clunky and expensive for what they are.

Again back to what ports are on your laptop, chances are you have only a stereo out jack which you can hook up to your surround sound but probably wont get anything special out of it. If it has a HDMI port and your speakerrs/amp take an audio over hdmi In your laughing.

No issues with your external drive.

Do you have any other kit? deskttp PC etc?

but in short you could hook up your laptop with your usb tuners, configur e the bios to not shut down when lid is closed and turn off all power saving options on the Laptop (usually on by default), connect the VGA port to the PC, Connect the stero out jack to the surround system, use a wireless keyboard/trackpad and away you go using Windows media center or mediaportal.

Newtown90

Carter P Fly wrote: »

First Question you need to answer is can your laptop Graphics card handle full HD? If it doesnt have a HDMI port Id say probably not.

Your USB tuners are ok, you'll get the saorview with the DVB-t and freeviws SD channels with the DVB-S

I think the DVB-S2 usb recievers are ugly and clunky and expensive for what they are.

Again back to what ports are on your laptop, chances are you have only a stereo out jack which you can hook up to your surround sound but probably wont get anything special out of it. If it has a HDMI port and your speakerrs/amp take an audio over hdmi In your laughing.

No issues with your external drive.

Do you have any other kit? deskttp PC etc?

but in short you could hook up your laptop with your usb tuners, configur e the bios to not shut down when lid is closed and turn off all power saving options on the Laptop (usually on by default), connect the VGA port to the PC, Connect the stero out jack to the surround system, use a wireless keyboard/trackpad and away you go using Windows media center or mediaportal.

What you have said there is exactly what i'm currently doing and using the Hadu plugin with media portal too

Laptop doesn't have a hdmi.. Its an old Presario V5000...

I was looking at getting something fancy... Was looking at Acer Revo's and similar machines today...