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Scott's Column
TV on a Portable Device, Resurrecting
an old PC
May 1, 2008
By Scott Lewis
It has still been very busy at work. We are getting close to turning off our HP mainframe, and a lot of things are coming up that need to be finished. I have 7 or 8 active projects, half related to turning of the mainframe. Add to that my wife and I bought a new home gym. It is a Marcy SM 4000. I am loving it. I have gotten better works than I ever thought possible at home. However, mix the evenings on assembling the and the workouts I have been doing with all the work at work and I still have not had the time to write enough.
I have been enjoying my Zune 80 immensely. I watch movies on it during my lunch break. I would love to use it to catch up on TV shows as I am having less time for that with the new workout routines. SO I did a little digging to see what it would take to put TV on a portable device. Some of the information is generic, and some specific to the Zune. Getting TV on a portable device led to the next topic, which is what it would take to resurrect my old desktop PC.
Enjoy this month's infotainment.
Current Topics:
I have been using my Zune 80 to watch movies during my lunch breaks.
It is awesome, really. The next logical step would be to catch up on TV
shows. But how do you get TV shows onto a portable device. This month we
will get into a "light" discussion on getting TV shows on a portable
device and what would be the best way to do that.
iPod fanboys will be quick to point out that they already have TV shows
on their device of choice. But I beg to differ. What iPod
zealots have is a device that makes them BUY TV shows
for their hardware. I get TV shows at home for free (well, not exactly
free as I pay my monthly cable bill and have to endure commercials), so
why should I have to buy them. I am not interested in buying TV shows
from iTunes to watch on an iPod or an Apple TV (don't even get me
started about a device called Apple TV that cannot be
used to watch TV, only paid for TV shows from a nearby computer).
So, the big question is... how do I get my own TV programming from a
cable or satellite provider onto my portable device. My DVR has an
option to "copy to VCR," which could be used to copy to a portable
device that can record video content. The Zune does not have a record
feature, so that is not an option. Even the pricey
Home A/V Pack is a display only device. I am
seriously considering getting this for my next vacation. I can copy a
bunch of movies to the Zune and hook it up to the TV in our condo at the
coast. It would be easier than lugging a bunch of DVDs. But that is for
another article.
Microsoft does have one neat feature. If you have a Windows Media Center
or Vista computer you can record TV shows from a TV tuner card, and
these shows can be synced up with a Zune. Hmmm! I am not so sure I want
to tie my laptop to a RG-6 cable, but it might be an option. I could get
a USB TV Tuner device, such as the
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 available for $64 at
Newegg. Then all I have to do is hook up a RG-6 cable and I can
record any analog TV show from my cable provider. Then
the shows ban be synced with my Zune.
This is certainly the easiest solution, but it does tether my laptop to
a cable. It is far from an elegant solution. It would be better to hook
up a desktop PC to a TV tuner card and cable connection. This would
eliminate the need to drape a cable over the floor to my bed where I
mostly use my laptop. I even have a cable connection in my computer
room.
The next hurtle becomes digital TV. The 950 only does analog cable and
over the air HDTV. I am not really concerned with HDTV on my 3.2"
screen, so we will leave that out of this exercise. I get a significant
number of digital channels as part of my cable TV packaging. Of
particular note is Speed (Channel
208) and HBO (Channels 320-331). I like a few automotive related shows
on Speed and would love to record shows from HBO to time-shift and watch
during my lunch hour. Unfortunately we need to move up to a
digital TV tuner card.
If we move up the Hauppauge line a bit we come across the
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600. This will record analog and
digital TV channels. But it will only record QAM
digital TV. What is QAM? Good question. I don't know.
Regardless it is not a form of digital television I get from Time
Warner. From what I have read I will have to wait until February 2009,
when all channels are to be broadcast in digital and the cable companies
start using CableCards.
I am getting close to building a new computer for my computer room. When
I do that I plan to move all my music & movies to the desktop and do all
my syncing from there. I will probably start using the WiFi syncing
capability of the Zune at that time as well. I have an A/C adapter for
it and leave it next to my cell phone charger on the kitchen counter. I
come home and plug the Zune in to charge it. With the desktop on all the
time I could let the Zune sync automatically without having to do
anything more than I do now.
Since I can only do analog at this time I will probably stick to the
cheapest method possible. Why bother with a more expensive digital
solution if it will become obsolete next year. Or.. I could just wait
until next year.
I am considering resurrecting my desktop PC. I did some shopping
around to get some prices. It would be expensive to build a good
gaming machine. Granted, to me a good gaming machine is one
that will run Crysis at a good frame rate (30+fps) with all the eye
candy turned on using a 1920x1200 widescreen display. I would need a
$400+ video card from some of the benchmarks I have seen with Crysis so
far. Read
this article for a little on Crysis and video cards.
From what I have read I will need a minimum of a nVidia
8800GT video card to play Crysis. The 8800GT card is still going for
around $200. At the moment I do not have enough spare cash to justify a
$200 video card, no less a $400+ video card, on top of the other
components I need.
As a recap, I know my motherboard is toast.
Other items may have also gone bad, but there are two things that would
require me to replace at least 4 components. 1) It is my philosophy that
you should replace the motherboard, CPU and memory together.
If the computer is going to be used for gaming then you should replace
the video card too. 2) My motherboard/CPU/Memeory/Video setup is all out
of date. It is an AGP based motherboard so I have to replace the video
card with the motherboard. Current motherboards have different sockets
then when I bought my last motherboard/CPU combination. And the memory
is different too. So I have to replace all four components.
I am hoping that the DVD Drive and hard drive are still usable from my
old computer. I priced out the following components for the
basis of a decent gaming rig... should I eventually go that
route. Here are the base components:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 65W
179.99
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX
89.99
Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
66.99
GIGABYTE GV-NX85T512HP GeForce 8500GT 512MB x16
67.99
------
Sub-Total 404.96
I went with the E6750 processor because it was the fastest Intel Core 2
Duo for under $200. The Gigabyte motherboard has some overclocking
features, but it nothing too special. It does have 4 memory slots so I
can easily add two more sticks of memory to get up to 4 GB. I only went
with 2GB for now, and stuck with name brand Kingston memory for this
configuration. The GeForce 8500GT video card will not run Crysis.
This motherboard does not have built-in video and the 8500GT should beat
my old 6600GT for playing all my old games (FarCry, Halo, F.E.A.R). That
makes this about the lowest I would go. This motherboard will take Quad
Core CPUs and can run its front-side bus up to 1333MHz (that's fast, for
those not into the technical stuff).
This should have me up and running. Notice that this is an ATX
motherboard. That is a little outdated as most newer systems are built
using Micro-ATX boards, but as a price compromise I will be using my old
case... though I would prefer upgrading the case to an Antec Sonata III,
but that would cost another $130. Ouch!
So, for $400 I can be up and running. This machine will feel very fast
running any normal software, especially loaded with Windows XP. This
should be an excellent machine to run Windows Vista. The only thing
Vista brings to the table for me is two things... 1) DirectX 10 support
for games, but we don't have the video hardware at this price, and 2)
much improved multi-user features. I like Vista's ability to have
different users and the security levels work great for me. I am probably
the only person that likes Vista's UAC (User Access Control). Since this
computer will go into my den, everyone will have access to it and I
don't want the kids messing with my stuff or playing games like F.E.A.R.
Vista is perfect for this.
Next up is an inexpensive way to capture TV on the machine to sync with
my Zune 80. I priced out a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 for
$64 on NewEgg (BTW, all prices in this article are from NewEgg and were
current for products in stock on 4/3/2008). The HVR-950 will record
analog video... up to channel 99 from my Time Warner subscription. That
leaves out Speed and HBO. I think this is the most practical solution
until the whole digital conversion takes place (supposed to happen in
February 2009). Why waste money for a fancy digital TV tuner card that
may or may not be compatible with what my cable provider will provide.
So for less than $500 I can have a pretty fast Media Center style PC.
Next month I will outline what components it will take to get this
computer to a solid gaming machine. The biggest issue
for me is getting a new monitor. The one I have is a 17" monitor and I
want a nice LCD. I will also need more drive space and the all important
video card. Stay tuned and see what it will take to build a good gaming
& media PC.
Conclusion
That's it for this month. I am going to continue the PC resurrection to configure a nice gaming machine. Then I have to try and convince my wife that I need it.
Until next month.
