Getting HD video from PC to TV?

[Gamera]

Hello.  I have a Mac G5 (2.5 dual) desktop and a Toshiba (46HM95) DLP TV.  Aside from the handful of channels available through Time Warner cable, I have no real way of getting HD content to my TV.  I have some HD animation content I've created on the Mac that I'd like to view on the TV.  Aside from an AppleTV which sounds like a good solution but still in it's very early stages of evolution, is there any DVR or other device that will record video from a PC and store for playback later on my TV?  I'd rather not hook up the Mac directly to the TV (if it's even possible.)  I'd like some sort of hard drive device (like a DVR) that will store the content for playback later.  I'm relatively new to this and I know the whole HD scene is still in its infancy, just curious if there's a solution to this.  Thanks!

[murdoc]

If you have DirecTv, the HR20 is supposed to support streaming video in the near future.  It works very much like AppleTv, but you don't have to have everything formated for iTunes.  For software, I'm running Eye Connect 1.1 by Elgato Systems on my iMac.  It sees my D* box, and streams music, pictures, and soon video.  It's a nice all-in-one solution and I can't wait until D* enables video streaming.

[AndrewP]

Connected my PC to TV with component cables and with projector with DVI cable and watching sometimes recorded shows on PC (Fusion USB HDTV tuner) on HDTV and HDTV projector for two years already. Also can watch it on another Sony HDTV through XBOX 360. No problems, and it is not infancy anymore.

[waterhead]

Most who want to do this have a HTPC (Home Theater PC).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTPC

It is basically a dedicated PC that will be a component to your Audio/Video setup.

I actually have three, two running windows, and one running Linux w/MythTV. I don't have an actual HDTV. I have my HTPCs hooked up to LCD monitors. The largest is a 42" Westinghouse 1080p monitor.

The most important thing in this setup it the video card. For windows, I had to buy fairly expensive ATI cards. The Linux PC uses a cheaper nVidia card. Maybe the cheaper nVidia card is all you need in windows, too.  A fairly large CPU is usually a good thing too, especially if you want to compress the video.

The AVS Forum has a large section devoted to HTPC's:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

There are also sub-sections for Mac and Linux HTPC's

[Doug Mohr]

I have a question regarding the original post.

You are looking to store HD content for TV viewing without connecting the computer? Like burning a Blue-Ray disc?

If I were you, would just build an HTPC and use that. I have three PCs, each hooked up to a HD monitor (no tuners). I use the MyHD card for ATSC/NTSC tuning, DVD Playback and file capture playback. Because of that, I can use a slow system and average video card because the MyHD has the encoder/decoder chip on it and doesn't use the PC's processor for its tasks.

Doug

[Gamera]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.  As of now it looks like AppleTV is my best bet.  It'll synch to my G5 wirelessly and download any media I want and store it.  It'll hook up to my TV just like another component and with the included remote I can call up any of the media I wish.  I just have a feeling that the technology will be upgraded drastically the moment I order one to include other technologies like DVR.  Thanks again.