new htpc, on a budget (1 Viewer)

[Dean_R_L]

Newbie to both this forum and th HT.

I've bee condidering getting a projector for some time becasue of the cost benefit/flexibility over a rear projection unit.

I recently found a BenQ 6200 XGA projector for $1200 shipped after rebate and figured I couldn't go wrong (would have rather had a 1280 x 720 chip, but too expensive for my start into HT. the 6200 also only has analog rgb in, but good for staters.

Haven't received the projector yet, but am now exploring processing options.

Ideally, I would like to scale standard tv inputs(vhs,cable TV, Svideo) to the RGB input (XGA) for the projector, and to have 2 inputs displayed side by side, (Sunday Ticket Football games).

The only thing I've found is an Aurora XTUNE Pro, but it costs over $1200 (more than I paid for the projector) and has many more features than I need.

So I am considering doing this with a HTPC. I don't need a TV tuner card, because all sources will tune for me (satellite or digital cable box) so I figured 2 video capture devices with at least svideo, possibly component for DVD and/or HDTV inputs.

And then a magical software that can do all of this. Dscaler seems like a good choice, but how to get the 2 sources with PIP and PNP(Picture next to Picture)?

Can someone help to point this newbie in the right direction?

Thanks

 

[Scott L]

I think the Sage Software with 2 PVR-250s can do this. Link

Not sure if any current computer can handle 2 separate video streams in DScaler. That thing is a CPU hog.

edit- browsing their site it doesn't mention anything about PnP, just multi-tuner/input support. :frowning: Guess this means you can switch back and forth between S-Video streams.

 

[Dean_R_L]

I also looked there, and have found some discussion in the forum, but the product can't do PIP or PNP yet, no announcement if that is coming soon.

Any other advice out there?

 

[John_Bonner]

DScaler doesn't work with the Happuage PVR-250 cards.