Re: Shuttle SN41G2 as "All purpose entertainment PC"

I don't have a TV capture card, but I use my SN41G2 for DVD, video,
music and games. I go 1366x768 VGA to my 43" plasma TV and DD5.1 to my
amp, both using the onboard hardware. The quality on both is very good.
I can't speak for the TV out, but you seem to be more interested in
HDTV, so that doesn't matter.

Without an extra graphics card and with the box set back on a shelving
unit, I find the noise perfectly acceptable. It's audible in a quiet
room, but as soon as you start playing music or movies, you can't hear it.

I say, go for it.

Dave Johnson wrote:
> In February 2003 Maximum PC magazine did an article on building an
> SN41G2 to become a PC based entertainment center. Of course one of
> the reasons they chose the SN41G2 is because of the nForce2 chipset
> and the Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding in real time. In the article they
> used an ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro with a Sony DRU-500AX DVD/CD
> rewritable drive. The idea in this article is to throw away the game
> console, standalone DVD player and TiVo. With such a system they
> claim the ability to play DVD's, record live TV, and manage entire
> video and audio music collections from the Shuttle based PC. Of
> course from a video standpoint you can hook it to a TV, HDTV, or a
> monitor. From an audio standpoint your would hook up a good 5.1
> speaker set with a digital decoder.
>
> My question to the users of this group is has anyone tried this type
> of setup or is it even practical today. For example is the quality of
> audio and video acceptable from an entirely PC based system. Let's
> pretend for a monent that I hooked up an HDTV to the system for video.
> Does the PC based Sony DVD present a signal to the HDTV that will
> allow the high quality picture the HDTV is capable of providing in a
> normal home theatre type of setup. In that case you have a standalone
> DVD along with a high quality receiver and a good set of speakers. I
> believe one of the reasons the HDTV gets a quality picture is because
> of the progressive scan signal the standlone DVD player provides.
>
> Of course the fact of a PC based entertainment system sounds
> intersting but is it really yet practical. ????????
>
> Any comments from any of you that have experience in this area would
> be appreciated.