Building my first HTPC - a couple of questions

First of all, as it says in the title, I haven't done this before. Also, I've never used a TV card or something like that so I may write something stupid. ;D

I want my HTPC to play Full HD movies and other multimedia stuff like music etc.
Also, it would be nice if I could watch live TV and record it.
And it would be great if it wasn't too loud.

MBO: Intel DH55TC
CPU: i3 530 2,9 Ghz tray (I have a stock Intel cooler for it)
RAM: Kingmax 800 Mhz 1GB

I need to buy a hard drive, a TV card and a case. Am I forgetting anything? I won't buy a GPU.
Hard drive is not really a problem, I'll probably get a Samsung SpinPoint F3.

However, when it comes to PC cards, I don't know anything. Is this okay? If I get this, will I be able to watch and record live TV? I mean, the specs say it's possible, but I want to know if it's possible with XBMC.

And I have absolutely no idea for the case. Frontier cases are cheap and I'm kinda short on cash after buying all this.
Any recommendations on el cheapo cases, maybe?

you are coming alot cheaper(investment and running costs) when you buy an ion board.

you can watch hd movies without any hassle

-andy

Oh, forgot to mention. I already have the motherboard, CPU and RAM. I got the MBO and CPU really cheap.

you are going to want 2GB ram minimum, the i3 will handle all your HD needs, 1080P no problem.

your good to go I am actually thinking about returning my ion and getting an Gigabyte board with an i3 myself as the Ion does not like Hulu very much

this deal for the price you can't beat it
http://www.frys.com/product/6157489?site...IN_RSLT_PG

-=Jason=-

you need a dvb-t card? or s/c?

xbmc cant record stuff, you will ned another software for that. i would recommend installing vdr. do you want to watch live tv with you box, too? or do you watch live tv with your "normal" tv?

i have a similar setup (but with a 2nd box). one for xbmc to watch recordings / downloaded stuff. another box for just recording.

with your power you can do the same stuff in the same box.

-andy

2nd: if you choose this card, you would have to check if is supported by linux/vdr. best is, if you use a card that is fully supported.

see here: http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/DV...PCI-Karten

-andy

more ram and a psu power supply people dont get nice powersuplys

Why would more RAM be necessary, exactly?
One of my computers has only 1 GB of RAM, and it runs XBMC on Windows 7 nicely. Also, Chrome, MSN, Winamp and a couple more applications were running at the same time.

Full HD video was stuttering, yeah, but I blame it on the CPU. It's a Pentium 4.

Is the extra RAM really necessary?

@andy:
I need a dvb-t card.

So, XBMC can't record live TV even with plugins?

Yes, the extra ram is needed for really large files. If you are just messing with scene mkvs, I bet 1GB would work fine though personally I would rather nail my hand to my desk then use a modern Windows system with less than 2GB ram.

Dramamine Wrote:Why would more RAM be necessary, exactly?
One of my computers has only 1 GB of RAM, and it runs XBMC on Windows 7 nicely. Also, Chrome, MSN, Winamp and a couple more applications were running at the same time.

Full HD video was stuttering, yeah, but I blame it on the CPU. It's a Pentium 4.

Is the extra RAM really necessary?

@andy:
I need a dvb-t card.

So, XBMC can't record live TV even with plugins?

nope. there are "live tv" plugins. with those plugins you can manage external software like vdr or tvheadend.

both are free, easy to install, and in case of vdr: its the most used video recording software. just awesome