What uses the most processing?

Hey all,

I just bought an el cheapo desktop. It's the Acer Arevo R1600 that I bought
at Best Buy for $199. It's an incredible machine with low specs, an atom 230
single 1.6ghz processor with an integrated Nvidia Ion LE graphics card. It
came with XP SP 3 on it but the first thing I did was wipe the hard drive an
installed a version of my family pack Win 7 home premium on it. I also
bought an el cheapo (hey I'm cheap) Kworld USB tuner from New Egg for only
$29. Now with such a low spec setup you wouldn't think that I would be able
to use this as a PVR but guess what, Windows media center runs incredible
and it has no problem recording and playing hi-Def video. I'm really amazed.
My question is this. I would like to add a second tuner to it (the same
one). I'm worried if this machine can record 2 programs at once. What uses
the most processing power? To record videos or to play videos? It doesn't
have a problem playing and recording at the same time. But will it be the
processor, the graphic card or the hard drive that will be doing most of the
work recording a second channel?

Thanks,
T-man

Recording used almost no CPU power and no GPU power since the incoming
already encoded video is passed directly to the disk drive using DMA.
It is the playback which requires the power to decode and de-interlace the
content(if required) and then prepare it for display by your graphics
card/(chip)

"T-Man" <> wrote in message
news:39D79A7A-A63A-4E9D-B7A7-...
> Hey all,
>
> I just bought an el cheapo desktop. It's the Acer Arevo R1600 that I
> bought at Best Buy for $199. It's an incredible machine with low specs, an
> atom 230 single 1.6ghz processor with an integrated Nvidia Ion LE graphics
> card. It came with XP SP 3 on it but the first thing I did was wipe the
> hard drive an installed a version of my family pack Win 7 home premium on
> it. I also bought an el cheapo (hey I'm cheap) Kworld USB tuner from New
> Egg for only $29. Now with such a low spec setup you wouldn't think that I
> would be able to use this as a PVR but guess what, Windows media center
> runs incredible and it has no problem recording and playing hi-Def video.
> I'm really amazed. My question is this. I would like to add a second tuner
> to it (the same one). I'm worried if this machine can record 2 programs at
> once. What uses the most processing power? To record videos or to play
> videos? It doesn't have a problem playing and recording at the same time.
> But will it be the processor, the graphic card or the hard drive that will
> be doing most of the work recording a second channel?
>
> Thanks,
> T-man

Thanks, That makes sense. So adding a second tuner won't tax my computer
much. I'll give it a try.


"Curious" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Recording used almost no CPU power and no GPU power since the incoming
> already encoded video is passed directly to the disk drive using DMA.
> It is the playback which requires the power to decode and de-interlace the
> content(if required) and then prepare it for display by your graphics
> card/(chip)
>
> "T-Man" <> wrote in message
> news:39D79A7A-A63A-4E9D-B7A7-...
>> Hey all,
>>
>> I just bought an el cheapo desktop. It's the Acer Arevo R1600 that I
>> bought at Best Buy for $199. It's an incredible machine with low specs,
>> an atom 230 single 1.6ghz processor with an integrated Nvidia Ion LE
>> graphics card. It came with XP SP 3 on it but the first thing I did was
>> wipe the hard drive an installed a version of my family pack Win 7 home
>> premium on it. I also bought an el cheapo (hey I'm cheap) Kworld USB
>> tuner from New Egg for only $29. Now with such a low spec setup you
>> wouldn't think that I would be able to use this as a PVR but guess what,
>> Windows media center runs incredible and it has no problem recording and
>> playing hi-Def video. I'm really amazed. My question is this. I would
>> like to add a second tuner to it (the same one). I'm worried if this
>> machine can record 2 programs at once. What uses the most processing
>> power? To record videos or to play videos? It doesn't have a problem
>> playing and recording at the same time. But will it be the processor, the
>> graphic card or the hard drive that will be doing most of the work
>> recording a second channel?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> T-man
>