For viewing downloaded films, TV series, youtube clips, online content and playing MP3's and CD's. I've got the bones in the form of motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive and dvd player but could do with some recommendations on a reasonable but not OTT graphics card and a decent sound card which will allow me to hang some proper speakers off it. Some form of remote might be nice, a soundproof case, decent looking, which has to be a desktop format by preference and generally any hints, tips, gotcha's, would be very useful.
I want to make a multimedia PC
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It has tah. I don't need the home cinema card and the graphics card is a bit too (gulp) high spec for my needs but I didn't know about the sound proofing kit.
I was thinking more about a graphics card with an HDMI output or one which will most match a TV resolution and a budget under a hundred if possible.
courtenay
New Member
- Location
- Port Talbot, South wales
courtenay
New Member
- Location
- Port Talbot, South wales
obviously it goes without saying check the reviews and do a search for others with similar specification, just need to look for them 2 magic words "nvidia" and "hdmi"
More like it. What do you think of this, has the advantage of being silent. Quite surprised at the low price of some of these cards actually.
courtenay
New Member
- Location
- Port Talbot, South wales
Good card a lot better than the PNY i just showed you and at a very reasonable price, ASUS components are very well made and relaible, have not tried there graphics cards personally but now they use radeon ati proccesors which as good as nvidia IMO asus components have quite a lifespan aswell as good driver support on there website.
My current asus motherboard is 7 yrs old and the only part of my machine i havent needed to upgrade yet.
My current asus motherboard is 7 yrs old and the only part of my machine i havent needed to upgrade yet.
courtenay
New Member
- Location
- Port Talbot, South wales
There are soundcards with remote control, but they are generally quite expensive.
Due to the fact that soundcards dont have amplifiers you have 3 options.
Option 1 : use a decent set of PC speakers, there some quite good setups these days.
Option 2 : connect the line out on your pc to the AUX on your hi fi.
Option 3 : connect the line out to a stand alone Aplifier.
option 2 & 3 would give you the remote control you require, but when watching movies speaker position is paramount as otherwise it can make the sound seem disjointed.
Due to the fact that soundcards dont have amplifiers you have 3 options.
Option 1 : use a decent set of PC speakers, there some quite good setups these days.
Option 2 : connect the line out on your pc to the AUX on your hi fi.
Option 3 : connect the line out to a stand alone Aplifier.
option 2 & 3 would give you the remote control you require, but when watching movies speaker position is paramount as otherwise it can make the sound seem disjointed.
An amplifier, right. I do have a very nice Nad amplifier, old but good but I'm wondering about the wisdom of using that for movies or whether to now buy an AV amp (if that's the right word) to feed telly, DVD and PC into. Are these capable of good music playback too or am I expecting a bit much here? Of course if I do that I should get a surround sound speaker system and suddenly that's looking more expensive than I was initially planning; hmmmm, maybe keep it simple first.
courtenay
New Member
- Location
- Port Talbot, South wales
being brutally honest im not sure when it comes to the av amps, i tend to use a hifi with surround sound .
It's a Samsung LE32B450 I have now but I will be buying another for the front room, a Samsung again.
rh100
Well-Known Member
ok - will take a look later and get an idea of what connections you can make use of as it will influence the best pc bits to get
the thing is, with the right hdmi card which has audio on board, you can get rid of the sound card requirement altogether if you want the sound via the tv (hdmi to tv then analogue output to the hifi should work) or hdmi via a HDMI amp/receiver then onto the TV, this gives the full digital audio to the amp, and the video goes on to the tv from the amp. Other devices can also connect to to the amp such as sky hd, xbox ps3 etc and the amp acts as a video switch. It also has an auto lip sync function because they are all minimum hdmi 1.3, lip sync was a major issue for me before getting the hdmi amp and was relying on digital coax to the old amp for the audio.
the thing is, with the right hdmi card which has audio on board, you can get rid of the sound card requirement altogether if you want the sound via the tv (hdmi to tv then analogue output to the hifi should work) or hdmi via a HDMI amp/receiver then onto the TV, this gives the full digital audio to the amp, and the video goes on to the tv from the amp. Other devices can also connect to to the amp such as sky hd, xbox ps3 etc and the amp acts as a video switch. It also has an auto lip sync function because they are all minimum hdmi 1.3, lip sync was a major issue for me before getting the hdmi amp and was relying on digital coax to the old amp for the audio.
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