Will Laptop work for Beyond TV Output to TV?

[skaorsk8]

I currently have a BeyondTV machine, P4 2.4 GHz machine, XP, 1 GB RAM, 256MB 6200LE AGP card. Using a 150 PCI card, and HDHomeRun. Works OK. Not great. I'm guessing it's because the machine is over 5 years old. Hooked up to a 32 inch Samsung 720p TV.

I keep seeing deals for laptops with Core 2 Duo chips, 4 GB of RAM, and Vista for under $500. I'd like to possibly upgrade to a new box, and get a laptop to handle everything (plus get a HD-PVR. Current setup won't allow that because I need Dual-Core, I believe).

I know that laptops use shared RAM, but how would this work in real-world use? I'm not playing Blu-Ray rips or anything, but I'm curious. I guess I'd try to find a laptop with an HDMI-out or use the VGA port on the back of my TV.

Thoughts/suggestions? I'm not going to lie, I'm really, REALLY frugal. (haha). If you had some desktop suggestions, I'd definitely explore those.

[rothe]

I've used BTV on a 1GHz Pentium M laptop, with only 512MB. It was fine for HD/ATSC recording, did OK with Showsqueeze video compression (an overnight task), and played back fine via s-video. So processor power will not be your limiting factor.

As for your video circuitry, I would scour any forums that you can find about that laptop and see what people say about high-def playback.

[tim_d_wagner]

The term you are shopping for is "discrete video" meaning that the laptop does have a deticated video card. Simple way it to is too look for a modle with a blueray drive.

I can not speak for the added load of the HD Home Run, but with a decent CPU even on board video should be fine. In general if it can play blueray it can handle HD from BTV.

[vidiot1985]

For what it's worth, even my Asus 1000HE netbook can playback the MPEG files from HD QAM recordings.

If you want a cheap desktop, stuff with previous generation AMD 690G integrated graphics can easily handle HD QAM and ATSC recording playback. AMD 780G integrated graphics can handle BluRay just fine as well.

[Jakesty]

My cheap ATOM computer can play HD videos fine, but .MPEG it suffers on badly. It's all about the video card though (at least as far as playback is concerned).