what would you recommend

[winkiwin]

first off - i have no allegiance to shuttles - anything goes :O


HELP ME - pretty pretty please



im a tower man / multiple drives etc....

but after finding the joys of WIFI and streaming things i find the need for a SFF to go under my main TV for divx streaming and maybe capturing (PVR)...

starting with a clean sheet what would be the most cost effective system to base it on

biostar/aopen/shuttle - as the opening statement - anything goes

would onboard graphics allow tv out and if so are they good enough??


i prefer AMD but if intel is better for video then im open to suggestions


i have a leadtek 3000 deluxe for the PVR side

[Da Hoe]

I shall kick off waving the AOpen EZ65 flag then. Very cheap from eBuyer, superb build quality and to be honest its almost unaudible (The mini fridge in my computer room is louder than my gaming system playing Doom 3 or Planetside).

For the price I think they are unbeatable to be honest and I'm extremely pleased with it. And from the people I've spoken to about the EZ 18 (AMD) as are they. However, from memory I think the EZ18 only supports DDR 333.

[Hottentot]

Any modern SFF with a 2Ghz + processor will make a good PVR. The two main pionts to focus on are the quality of the TV-out and what input will your TV accept.
Oh and you may be concerned with noise so a quiet system woild be preferable.

I use an n-force 2 shuttle with a silent X PSU , XP2500-M , WinTV PVR USB2 and an Asus 9200SE which gives superb TV out via S video to my Sony TV. The system is still a bit too noisy for my liking but it is very flexable in what it can do.

[winkiwin]

ASUS

looks pretty trendy - my tv is black , so blends in better than a shuttle - still looking at the AOPEN though

how good it the WINTV USB cause if i got that i could hook up to laptop

[Hottentot]

WinTV USB2 works well , it encodes to MPEG2 so the files are very large. Never had any problems. As long as your laptop has USB2 it would work.
What I really want is a hardware divx solution.

[Jiff Lemon]

ASUS

looks pretty trendy - my tv is black , so blends in better than a shuttle - still looking at the AOPEN though

Was going to suggest one of those as they look more TV cabinet friendly than a shuttle.

However, they've a few oddities - Only 1 IDE channel IIRC and no audio digital out at the rear (but is under the front flap...)

[Zak33]

Aopen EZ-18 is so quiet I find it hard to believe its on. But I am still scared to death of nForce 2 BIOS's...I have killed so many, and never killed a VIA or Intel one

[Jonny M]

I'm a fan of the Aopen cubes.

[Jonny M]

But have a look at the Asus Digimatrix, if it was ever fully released.

[winkiwin]

or how about a micro or flex atx

(edit - if anybody knows good sites for micro or flex - can they post them please. struggling to find good sites)


just seen a case that would sit on the shelf and its micro atx - looking at ebuyer i could get a case and MB for about £60 this means (technically) id get the memory for free and i get 4 pci slots

[menthel]

Have you tried kustompcs.co.uk?