Hi, I have been speaking with a computer company about building a Home
Theatre PC, however, I have some questions that I hope y'all can help me
with. We currently receive our programming through Comcast, view tv through
our plasma and all of which is run through my 5.1 stereo system. The Home
Theatre PC, if purchased, will have the following major components:

a. amd x2 4400 cpu
b. 600 watt power supply
c. Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 256 MB 16X PCI-E - fanless
d. Nvidia 2-Channel NVTV tuner PCI
e. Not sure of best sound card given our set-up.

My Questions:
1. Is there a preferred sound card?
2. With this system, will I still have access to the 500 channels?
3. Will we be able to watch the High Def channels - above 240?
4. Will we be able to watch Comcast On-Demand?
5. Is is best to wait for Vista?

thanks in advance.


--
Troy Brady

If you are not a gamer then 128MB 6600GT is fine.
You will not be able to watch HD programs using your Cable STB in HD since
the only outputs from a STB that an MCE tuner can accept is SD video using
RF or S-Video(Preferred) and the STB will downscale the HD resolutions to
SD.
Also you will need 2 cable STB if you want to use a dual tuner card so that
each tunere can receive a separate signal.
Check antennaweb.org to see what digital stations you can receive OTA and if
there are several then getting one NTSC tuner and one HDTV tuner would make
sense since then you can least receive the local station's HD broadcasts
OTA.
"pseudocajun" <pseudocajun@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3ECA5A29-1261-4D6F-A06C-DA82221F6D5D@microsoft.com...
> Hi, I have been speaking with a computer company about building a Home
> Theatre PC, however, I have some questions that I hope y'all can help me
> with. We currently receive our programming through Comcast, view tv
> through
> our plasma and all of which is run through my 5.1 stereo system. The Home
> Theatre PC, if purchased, will have the following major components:
>
> a. amd x2 4400 cpu
> b. 600 watt power supply
> c. Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 256 MB 16X PCI-E - fanless
> d. Nvidia 2-Channel NVTV tuner PCI
> e. Not sure of best sound card given our set-up.
>
> My Questions:
> 1. Is there a preferred sound card?
> 2. With this system, will I still have access to the 500 channels?
> 3. Will we be able to watch the High Def channels - above 240?
> 4. Will we be able to watch Comcast On-Demand?
> 5. Is is best to wait for Vista?
>
> thanks in advance.
>
>
> --
> Troy Brady

Have you considered buying a brand-name PC with MCE pre-installed? There are
many nice options to select from and some units don't look like PCs at all -
they actually look like stereo cabinet components.


"pseudocajun" <pseudocajun@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3ECA5A29-1261-4D6F-A06C-DA82221F6D5D@microsoft.com...
> Hi, I have been speaking with a computer company about building a Home
> Theatre PC, however, I have some questions that I hope y'all can help me
> with. We currently receive our programming through Comcast, view tv
through
> our plasma and all of which is run through my 5.1 stereo system. The Home
> Theatre PC, if purchased, will have the following major components:
>
> a. amd x2 4400 cpu
> b. 600 watt power supply
> c. Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 256 MB 16X PCI-E - fanless
> d. Nvidia 2-Channel NVTV tuner PCI
> e. Not sure of best sound card given our set-up.
>
> My Questions:
> 1. Is there a preferred sound card?
> 2. With this system, will I still have access to the 500 channels?
> 3. Will we be able to watch the High Def channels - above 240?
> 4. Will we be able to watch Comcast On-Demand?
> 5. Is is best to wait for Vista?
>
> thanks in advance.
>
>
> --
> Troy Brady

that wasn't the question. There is no difference in pre-built and home
built. In fact you most likely to get a better machine by building it
yourself.

No HD from Cable until Vista as it stands right now. All other stuff looks
great. check to see what board you have if you pass 5.1 audio then the
onboard sound with SPDIF out should be sufficient. If you want to use dual
tuner use 2 ATI 550 theater based cards as they offer much better SD picture
quality then the current Nvidia NVTV... or wait until Nvidia releases their
Updated cards sometime next year. Video On demand I think only works thru
SD since the PC will control the STB but there is no way to do HD even with
cable card support which was recently announced as it is Not bidirectional.

"osu9400" <osu9400@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e0t775f9FHA.3660@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Have you considered buying a brand-name PC with MCE pre-installed? There
> are
> many nice options to select from and some units don't look like PCs at
> all -
> they actually look like stereo cabinet components.
>
>
> "pseudocajun" <pseudocajun@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:3ECA5A29-1261-4D6F-A06C-DA82221F6D5D@microsoft.com...
>> Hi, I have been speaking with a computer company about building a Home
>> Theatre PC, however, I have some questions that I hope y'all can help me
>> with. We currently receive our programming through Comcast, view tv
> through
>> our plasma and all of which is run through my 5.1 stereo system. The
>> Home
>> Theatre PC, if purchased, will have the following major components:
>>
>> a. amd x2 4400 cpu
>> b. 600 watt power supply
>> c. Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 256 MB 16X PCI-E - fanless
>> d. Nvidia 2-Channel NVTV tuner PCI
>> e. Not sure of best sound card given our set-up.
>>
>> My Questions:
>> 1. Is there a preferred sound card?
>> 2. With this system, will I still have access to the 500 channels?
>> 3. Will we be able to watch the High Def channels - above 240?
>> 4. Will we be able to watch Comcast On-Demand?
>> 5. Is is best to wait for Vista?
>>
>> thanks in advance.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Troy Brady
>
>