Hi all, thanks for taking the time to read my post! I've had a look through the stickied FAQ and that has been very helpful however I still have a few questions on specifics which I was hoping those with experience with various components may be able to answer.
Budget ~400 pounds
I am planning to use the media pc for:-
- Music, lossless copies of my CDs. I have an iphone so possibly using Itunes as it works as a great remote with the PC/TV screen off etc. however potentially I could keep music to sync to the phone separately (using itunes) and use another multi-purpose media player on the media pc.
- DL'ed videos, avi's etc. up to 720p and potentially any Hulu-like service if one is ever released in the UK
- Recording/watching freeview TV
- Potentially streaming stored media online to my phone via Orb or similar
I do not need it for blu-ray as I have a separate blu-ray player. As I understand it I therefore do not need a motherboard that is HDCP compatible.
As I am attempting to keep the cost down I had planned to go for and AMD 5050e paired with a 780G motherboard, however I have read on the forums that the deinterlacing performance of the onboard graphics is quite poor. This would obviously be a problem for TV-usage. Is the performance of an Intel combo using the 9300/9400 better? Or would I be better off using discrete graphics such as a radeon 4350 or similar?
Also, any advice on frontend software that has good TV recording scheduling etc. but still performs well for music and video downloads would be great.
Thanks in advance - Boffinboy
Budget ~400 pounds
I am planning to use the media pc for:-
- Music, lossless copies of my CDs. I have an iphone so possibly using Itunes as it works as a great remote with the PC/TV screen off etc. however potentially I could keep music to sync to the phone separately (using itunes) and use another multi-purpose media player on the media pc.
- DL'ed videos, avi's etc. up to 720p and potentially any Hulu-like service if one is ever released in the UK
- Recording/watching freeview TV
- Potentially streaming stored media online to my phone via Orb or similar
I do not need it for blu-ray as I have a separate blu-ray player. As I understand it I therefore do not need a motherboard that is HDCP compatible.
As I am attempting to keep the cost down I had planned to go for and AMD 5050e paired with a 780G motherboard, however I have read on the forums that the deinterlacing performance of the onboard graphics is quite poor. This would obviously be a problem for TV-usage. Is the performance of an Intel combo using the 9300/9400 better? Or would I be better off using discrete graphics such as a radeon 4350 or similar?
Also, any advice on frontend software that has good TV recording scheduling etc. but still performs well for music and video downloads would be great.
Thanks in advance - Boffinboy