a 66mhz media center

[notbob]

using a "surplus" computer, i made it into a media center

i put in an ATA card, a 160 GB hdd, and a fancy PCI video card with 64MB of RAM

the computer itself is a 66mhz pentium 1 with 80MB of ram

it plays mp3 and avi and whatever else i want through my stereo and tv (no skips or bad sync)

a remote would be nice, but the keyboard is ok

net price, about 200 bucks (without counting the spare parts i had laying around)
vid card=79$ (officemax "Mad Dog" PCI"
ATA card=30$
hdd=120$ (pricewatch)
66mhz box=free

so now if anyone tells you your computer is too slow to play movies you can tell them to shut the hell up

[Krell]

Thanks notbob!


I made a reference recently about that, 5 years ago I was watching TV on my computer, and recording movies to my hard drive, and lots of multitasking. The system did fine for converting to Divx, just a bit slower.

I did this thru proper management of resources, and setting up the hard ware correctly.

I didnt tell anyone to shut the hell up, but it does get my gourd that these kids whine about their systems, instead of learning to use it,

great post man.

[notbob]

i wouldn't use it for video editing, but i do use it to rip records and tapes

it's networked to this computer and i clean them up over here

i can also dump in "new aquisitions" via the network

[SUprEMeBeiNg]

66mhz?? its rough playing video on a top speed pentium 2. Do you have this tweaked?

[Munchables]

Yeah, a lot of motherboards have the ability to have a simple IR device, they will work for IR networks and almost all remotes(even non-univerisal). If you motherboard dosen't ahve. Hit www.pricewatch.com i know you can find them there.

Yeah I am gunna do the same thing, like thought togahter a cheep comp in the 'not extaly new' section and put in a huge HD, have s-video out, DVD, hook it up to my network so i can send movies to it over the network or if someone is watching tv I can watch a movie that is on the 'media center.' Also I am gunna get 4 usb controlers so I can play: NES, SNES, Game boy, gba, n64, ps, arcade and what ever else I wanna play like it should have been played.

But this rases an interesting point, TV IS OBSOLETE! I mean there is so much software out there so you can use your comp as a TiVo, not only that I mean you can get most movies b4 they get reliced in theaters. The welth of tv shows is just insaneand it only going to get better. I think all wireless communication should be surrenderd to a digtial standred (IE 802.11) and soon to come 802.20 where if you are travling under 60 mph then youget 256k a sec, if you are still then you get 1mbit, this is suposed to eventurally take over Cell phone ranges. Also 2 littel wires that you need for your phone (and Adsl) can provide 8 mbit up 8 mbit down, you can have up to 4 lines in most houses with no hardware charge, you can get more but you will have to pay for the phone company to get the lines to ya.(yeah i know the current phone netowork would have to go though change in order to provide everyone with 4 lines, currently in most citys it probalby can't handel every one with 2 phone lines) Also a lot of houses are wired for calbe aka 10BaseT which i think has a max speed of 10 up and 10 down. so dam with out a huge change in our communication network (a big change would be going opitcal) you are looking at 42 mibt down and up, not to mention wireless networks.

Also by 2008 or so we are suposed to have 50 gig hd's that are the size of a penny. That couppled with the 802.20 that is just insane.

All this with such uncontroleable networks as FreeNet. ISP's and artists will have to learn to use this as an asset. I think that artist should make there money from touring. I duno what tv and movies are gunna do.

[notbob]

Originally posted by SUprEMeBeiNg
66mhz?? its rough playing video on a top speed pentium 2. Do you have this tweaked?

it has win 98 some music progs, all the right drivers, and nothing else

strictly minimum--no extra junk wasting RAM or proc time

it does have a pretty good video card (DDR RAM, etc)

not knowing what video card you have i couldn't say whether that's actually your problem (it could be, or the drivers that run it)

[isus]

lol...it sounds interesting. how long does it take to start up? lol... i have a 100mhz pentium that takes about 5 minutes to start up win95... i only ever wrote my school papers on it bc it was too slow to be good at anything else.

[notbob]

maybe a minute and a half

i solve that by never turning it off (it runs for weeks at a time)

its a gateway 2000 p5-100 if that matters, built way back in '95

[isus]

Originally posted by notbob
maybe a minute and a half

i solve that by never turning it off (it runs for weeks at a time)

its a gateway 2000 p5-100 if that matters, built way back in '95

lol. good job. i dunno when my 100mhz comp was built, just that it was packard bell. i haven't heard of them (hewlett-packard maybe?) in a long time, so...

anyway, the comp was a piece of trash.

but it came with 8mb of memory... woohoo. and an 850mb hard drive!