Small Form Factor Shuttle and the All In Wonder 9800

Hi all

I'm thinking about building a mini PC using the shuttle SN45G case. In addition to being a normal PC, I also want to use it as a TIVO-box, with the Hercules All In Wonder 9800 SE.

I'm thinking of the Hercules card because it also provides pretty good 3D performance - some of the earlier AIW cards would be fine for the TIVO tasks, but can't handle modern 3D games.

The shuttle barebones kit comes with a 200W PSU, and I'm a little worried that the card will be too much for the PSU to handle. I'm also worried that the card might not physically fit into the case.

Has anyone run one of these cards in a shuttle box? Did it go? Any other advice?

 

For TIVO an AIW should be fine, but if you want to get into pvr with timeshifting, pause live tv, etc... you should look away from the AIW. None of the Ati cards are supported by the common pvr applications such as SageTV, snapstream, WMCE, etc...

 

Thanks for the heads up.

No offense, but the Hexus review says that you can "use your All-In-Wonder like a TiVo or Sky+ device, recording shows on demand, timeshifting the recorded video so that you can pause live TV to use the loo or answer the phone, returning to the exact spot you left it." -Presumably this is using the supplied ATI software rather than a third party add-on, but that's fine by me because the Hexus review seemed pretty positive about the software.

Snapstream's website lists "ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon family" amongst the supported video capture cards, and also supports the ATI remote control (a big selling point for me). MyHTPC appears to be compatible with the AIW cards.

What makes you say they're not compatible?

What other recommendations do you have to replace the AIW?

Cheers

 

200W is enough otherwise they wouldnt kit them out with it.

AIWs will fit - infact all ATIs (reference design) do cause they are designed single slot.

 

YMMV, but I was never really happy with the software that came with my AIW card. Albeit, I only had the AIW VE which ran an older version of the catalyst drivers and multi media center software (wouldn't accept the latest versions from ati's website).

I haven't specifically tried snapstream, but I recall reading from avsforums that many people were having problems with it due to how ati handles their overlay... I could be wrong, I know SageTV and does not work as that's the program I wanted to use. Best check out avsforums htpc section to be sure. MyHTPC does have an Ati plug-in but I never spent enough time with it to actually get it working. WMCE needs a hardware encoder for tv so for sure that's out according to thegreenbutton.

I suggest a seperate Ati display card and a Hauppauge pvr-250, seems like that's a winning combination at avsforums. It's the route I'm going but I hope to run WMCE.

 

The PSU is enough, and it does fit in the casing, however - people have had problems with AIW cards sucking too much power when the hard drives etc spin up, therfore creating a surge of power and it not working at all - therefore some kind of delay circuit needed to be made.

 

Thanks for the clarification E625

I'll have to weigh things up on the AIW vs Hauppauge decision. Incidentally, I can't see any difference between the 250 and 350 Hauppauge cards. Presumably I'm missing something, but what is the difference?

GT3_GOD: If the shuttle PSU needs a delay circuit built, I think I'll go the route of using a standard beige-box and motherboard, that way I can ensure I've got a 300W PSU in there.

Cheers!

 

This effected very few shuttles amd I doubt any newly purchased shuttles will have this problem so don't let this put you off!

 

Oh? If it's something that Shuttle have fixed, that's great. I'll have a more serious look at it then.

Due to advice I've received, I'm now looking at a seperate Hauppauge PVR card and VGA card rather than the AIW anyway, which might alleviate the problem.

Cheers!

 

Yep all fixed, I can send you a circuit with a delay on it which will get around the problem should you be extremely unlucky.

I'd go for a digital card anyway, the analogue tuners are poor poor poor!

 

I'm not sure whether the digital cards from Hauppauge work with SageTV/Snapstream/etc, and also I'm not sure whether I'll be getting a Sky subscription, without which a digital card probably isn't much use.

If I do get Sky, I can always plug the Sky box into the RF input of the PVR-250 and record stuff from there.

I'm just trying to decide whether to go for the PVR -250 or -350.

 

My understanding is that both cards have a hardware encoder, but the 350 also has a hardware decoder built in. So basically with the 350 you can record and watch at the same time and still be at 0% cpu utilization.

Also has an FM tuner?

 

You'll lose a lot of signal using the RF input. I'd connect to Composite Video input

 

Which is almost as bad....