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DVR - Digital Video Recorder 
PVR - Personal Video Recorder

DVR Putting It Together - Page 1

Now that you have made all your functionality choices, and also collected the required information about the basic and optional DVR components, you can now make a final determination of the remaining components, like the processor, memory, and motherboard.

Use a print out of this page to capture your card requirements. Below are boxes to write in the requirement details.  

A larger version of these tables is available for printing - click here. 

Video Card

Capture Card

Sound Card

Other Card

Below we show the sample requirements for two cards, lets say a capture card (top) and a video card (bottom).

To ensure that you build a system that works, the highest value of all components becomes your minimum system value. That means comparing processors; either 1.2 or 1.4, your system minimum must be 1.4GHz. 

And same for memory; in this case it needs to be at least 256MB. One note, typically the minimum memory specified is never enough. I usually double the amount. In fact for my DVR I went with 1GB of memory. Also, if you play games, they may have a higher memory requirement then the video card. Memory is the best way to drive performance.

Lastly you need to match OS choices. If you decide you want to use Media Center Edition for example, you need to make sure all the components you want to use support it. While Media center is a version of XP, not every card supports the Media Center version of XP.  

Now is a good time to consolidate all the information you have collected about various components. 

You can use this table to hold your information. How many PCI slots will you need – enter the number. Will you need an AGP or PCIe slot – write the type needed in the box. What is the minimum (system maximum) processor speed needed - enter the speed, or higher if you plan on getting more plan. How much memory do you want – enter the MB / GB amount. What OS will you use – enter the name, for example, Win2000, or a version of XP. 

The data in the table will be used to find the right motherboard and memory type.

Here is a sample of the final configuration table completed.

In this example, we decided on one capture card, one wireless LAN card, and one modem card. In addition we are going use a PCIe video card. The processor minimum was 1.4GHz, but we felt we wanted a bit of extra power to drive future applications. And we expanded the memory, since it’s cheap and can have a dramatic impact on performance. Based on all the feature functionality of the Media Center , that is the final choice for the OS. Some of the features already built into MCE would cost extra, since you would have to buy additional applications. 

From the completed table above, we can now find a motherboard or a bundled motherboard and processor combination that provides at least 3-PCI slots, 1- PCIe slot, and the ability to support at least 1GB of memory. 

On the next page, P2, we will wrap up the discussion of the components, and let you get started putting it together.

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