HTPC Woes

[Aldus]

After many woeful months of my dad yelling at me how he wasted his money on a computer that cant do what he wants it to Ive gotten sick of it and am going to completly redo the whole thing. Im going to list the hardware, what I want to be able to do, and the problems Im having now.

Hardware
2 x Athlon XP 1700+s modded to MP's
MSI K7D-L Master
1x512mb Crucial PC2700
120GB WD SE HDD
9700Pro All-in-Wonder
Hercules Game Theater XP 7.1
Toshiba SD-R5002 2x DVD Burner
16x Toshiba DVD Drive
Windows 2000 Pro
TV: Mitsubishi 65" Diamond Series WS-65711 2002-2003 model

What I Want To Do
1. Browse the internet.
2. Watch movies from the harddrive.
3. Play music from the harddrive.
4. Play games.
5. Record TV. (DirecTV)

Current Problems
1. When I have the computer connected to the TV through the S-Video out it displays the computer booting up until it changes to the login screen at which point it proceeds to go blank. Ive hooked it up with a VGA cable from the computer to the TV and it works fine always. About 10% of the time it will get into windows fine using S-Video.
2. While using either S-Video or VGA once into windows the desktop is "distorted" (cant think of any other way to say it). When you open things you cant see the whole window. During games this means you cant see everything and doing everyday tasks you have to struggle to find the X to close the window while its maximized. So I need a way to make the resolution fit the TV screen.
3. The program that came with the ATi card to record TV doesnt work with satalite, only cable. Can anyone recommend a Tivo-like program that will work with satalite ?

Thanks for making it this far. Now the first question I have is, with the current hardware that I have will I be able to do everything that I want ? Also would it be worthwhile to get a copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition ? Im going to hopefully be fixing all of this on Monday when Im out of school for MLK day.

Any and all help is appreciated!

Thanks
Chris

[sky]

the hardware should be good enough to run all that. - maybe not at the same time :D. are those 2 1700xp->mp processors oc'ed or running at default speeds?

so one thing that i'm not 100% sure about is the gfx card. it has a tuner included, but is that a satelite tuner or a cable tv tuner?
if your gfx-card actually has a satelite tuner onboard (dunno if there's 2 versions of the card), then you're done. hook it up to your dish and that's it.

if it's a cable tv tuner, i'm afraid you won't be able to use it as intended (at least not with a sat.dish). you could merely use it as a passthrough, changing channels would have to be done on a separate sat-receiver right before the gfx-card tuner (basically you would be using the video in port than). so if that is the case, you should go looking for a dvb-s card. haupage builds cards like that and a couple of other companies copy their design. that card would serve as a digital sat.receiver and would allow you to view tv straight from your dish - nothing but a cable between feedhorn and pc. with most cards of that type you can loop the output to a standalone sat.receiver - not necessarily digital, if you got a universal lnb (=feedhorn), because they can handle analog and digital signals. and from that sat.receiver it's just your standard coax cable to the tv. so if your pc is off, you still could watch tv using the standalone receiver. - i got my system rigged like that, and if both receivers are on, my pc is the "dominant" one and blacks out the standalone (basically because he is first in line anyway and passes his signals on to the standalone).


for problem with the tv not showing stuff everytime...
hm what's your screen resolution in windows and how are your displays (primary and secondary) setup?
i have the secondary output activated all of the time, so that if i hook up 2 displays - one crt and on tv - both will show the same stuff. both displays are set to the same resolution (1024...) tho the tv shouldn't be able to handle that, it displays it anyway! ;)
800x600 should be about right for a tv (it's real resolution is usually a bit below that, but that doesn't matter atm).
so my tip would be activate both screens, set the second to copy the first, select different refresh rates (1st, crt -> 85hz; 2nd, tv -> 60hz) and that should be it, even if you don't have a screen hooked to the 1st - could still be used for a quick diagnostic session, when the tv messes up everything like you described before.

got a presantation scheduled tomorrow, so i guess i'll quit here and continue tomorrow..

hope this mess up there has been of some help ;)