Newbie here looking for any and all advice with a setup....

[MAC]

Hi Everyone,

I have been reading through the site the past week while contemplating if it is worth it for me to add in some hardware to a desktop I plan on building to allow me to 1) Have a PVR  2) Extend some Television to a few other TV's in the home

So hardware wise I am currently putting spec's together to build a desktop with these type of spec's:
i7 920 Processor
MoBo that can support up to 24GB Ram,  PCI Express 2.0 x16,  Ability to Crossfire with 2-3 Large Video Cards
Probably 1.5-2 TB of Internal Space

What I currently have running:

Living Room
Comcast Digital HD/DVR Cable Box
LG Blue Ray Player/Receiver + Surround Sound System
42inch Panasonic 720p Plasma Screen 
Modem, Wireless Router
Wii 

Bedroom 1
Comcast Digital SD Cable Box
24inch HD LCD TV

Bedroom 2
Boring old SD TV

Questions I Have:

• Is there any hardware I can install into my desktop or outside connected to it that will allow me to record anything I am watching off the HD/DVR box?
• Is there anyway to transfer what I record on my comcast box over to the desktop?
• Is an HD extender the best way to get HD television to bedroom 1?  If so,  which would you suggest?
• Any other creative ideas you can think of based off my setup?

[Miller]

Ok some thought for you. First is that the system is WAY overkill for what you want. A 920 is a fine chip, but all you really need is a cheap dual-core or maybe quad-core. 4GB or RAM is also plenty. You also only need one videocard. Something like an ATI 5670 would be plenty. So unless you are trying to build some cutting edge gaming machine or you do some really high end video-editing all that other stuff is overkill.

The main component you left out is the tuner. For recording HD off of a box your only option is the HDPVR from Hauppauge. You'll also need to build a client computer for each other telelvision or get some sort of extender. SageTV makes a nice HD extender and the XBox 360 also works nice as an HD extender.

The only way to transfer the content from your calbe dvr over is to manually play back each show and record them as they playback with the HDPVR. It will work, but it laborious.

[MAC]

Thanks Miller for getting back to me. 

Don't mind the powerful desktop,  I know it is way more than I would need for this (And I probably will only load it with 6GB of RAM).  But between the gaming,  and amount of time I will spend on this desktop I am putting together it will all be well worth it. 

So if I connect the HDPVR to my comcast box will I still be able to use the DVR on the comcast box?  Will the HDPVR only record what is currently displaying on the screen? 

Thanks for the help.  I am just trying to see if it is actually worth it for me.

[Miller]

Because of your kind of cable service, you will only be able to record what you're currently watching on the cablebox.

[MAC]

Thanks again. 

One last question.  What extender(s) would you recommend and do you know any links to info on how exactly they work?

[Miller]

The main component you left out is the tuner. For recording HD off of a box your only option is the HDPVR from Hauppauge. You'll also need to build a client computer for each other telelvision or get some sort of extender. SageTV makes a nice HD extender and the XBox 360 also works nice as an HD extender.

It really depends on what pvr software you're going with. Do you know?