Re: using linux box as a multimedia center -- best buys?

[Oliver Helmling <oliver.helmling@stud.uni-bayreuth.de>]

Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:
> 
> Hi all, I am looking into making my box be a TV/Radio/CD player etc.  The
> question is -- what to buy?
> 
> I think one of the new Hauppage cards will do the tv/fm thing nicely.
> 
> But what about GOOD speakers and a sound card?
> 
> Anyone used the new Hauppage which does Dolby?
hi,
with the TV-card i can´t help you, but i´ve heard from many people among
the win9x community that the haupage shhould be good. my tip is look at
the S.u.S.E. support database at http://www.suse.com. so you can find
out what hardware is supported. S.u.S.E. is german distribution which i
use. but the sdb ( how they call the database) should be of general
interest. concering the soundcard i use a soundblaster awe64 with 8 mb
ram. but the most interesting thing for you is probably that this card
has a line out possibility. so you can use your normal stereo amp or
whatever to hear music. but beware of the new soundblaster live which
isn´t supported by oss, a commercial sounddriver for linux. the basic
driver comes without support of the wave table built in the awe 64 and
costs 20$. the optional feature of the wave table costs 10$. so it´s not
too much. 90% of the software is gpl´ed or shareware. but the shareware
just requires a license if you plan to use it in a commercial way and is
fully functional without a license. well, now the awe 64 is called awe
64 gold and ships with 4mb ram i think which you can upgrade to 12mb ram
if you want to. but be aware of the fact that your pioneering. sound
development is at an early stage in linux.
-- 

Grüße
	Oliver