Advantages of HTPC

[coldmeat]

What are the main advantages of having a HTPC over a regular home theater setup?

I know at least some of you have them, so what were the main reasons you got one?

 

[cpals]

Originally posted by: coldmeat
What are the main advantages of having a HTPC over a regular home theater setup?

I know at least some of you have them, so what were the main reasons you got one?

You can use it to stream movie files from a server, play netflix on demand via the web or any website for that matter, use it as a DVR, etc...

I use it mainly to stream my movies.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: coldmeat
What are the main advantages of having a HTPC over a regular home theater setup?

I know at least some of you have them, so what were the main reasons you got one?

seems only natural to me. why wouldn't i hook everything together? in the past couple years, the power and quality have approached stand-alone gear in some ways.

pc pro's:
-obviously, computer usage, including kick ass video games
-storage and playback of 10 dumptrucks-worth of music and video is almost effortless.
-easy access to free material
-maybe cheaper to go with a 100% computer-based setup. lots of the hardware can do double-duty, maybe even more. if you take your audio seriously, as you should, only a stand-alone receiver or amp will do.

conventional pro's:
-quality
-reliability
-it's sexy

 

[scootermaster]

The way I see it, I'm not quite sure if most HTPCs make sense, but I still want to build one.

In reality, here's what you can do with an HTPC:
- Tivo/DVR
- Media streaming
- Web browsing
- Gaming/Emulation
- Hi-def/upscaling DVD
- ??? (am I forgetting something?)

Now, if you look at the prices for standalones, you've got something like this (with the plus or minus meaning whether a computer/HTPC can do this better or worse than standalone)
- Tivo/DVR - $300 for a TivoHD, plus fees (- , unless OCUR matures/becomes feasible)
- Media streaming $250 for an iTV (+, although iTV is sorta slick)
- Web browsing N/A
- Gaming/Emulation, N/A, or $200 to get various NES/SNES/n64 systems (+, because ROMS are "free", although things like Wiis are making this simpler)
- Hi-def/upscaling DVD $300 (-, because of issues with only passing 5.1 audio through current HDMI implementations of graphics cards).

So that's like $850 (plus Tivo subscription fees) in stand alone equipment to get the functionality of a fully-fledged HTPC. It will be better in some cases (Tivo software, Digital cable tuning, better HD/BR support) but worse in others (web browsing, getting ROMs for emulators, high-quality gaming, etc).

Now, to truely do an HTPC "right", you'll need around $1000-$1200 in gear. Most of that is for a nice, $250 HTPC case, a $200 BluRay drive and an $150 HDhomerun TV tuner. If you can do without the nice case (which to me, is essential; there's no way I'd have an Antec tower in my living room) and have spare parts lying around, you could do it for around $500.

So the questions are:
1). Do you have parts lying around?
2). You you relish the idea of building the system?
3). Is there something specific -- like, say Tivo software -- that you really want/need that an HTPC can't do?
4). Is money an issue?

I want to build one. Badly. I love the idea of having one central "brain" that controls all of my media. But it's difficult. A minor thing like figuring out which program to use for audio playback (my main motivation; having random access to all of my music collection) is tough. iTunes has a great interface, but doesn't support flac and doesn't support bitperfect ASIO drivers. Foobar does do both, but has a weaker interface. Maybe Windows Media Center is better. Maybe not.

So those are the issues you have to worry about if you're building a HTPC.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: scootermaster
The way I see it, I'm not quite sure if most HTPCs make sense, but I still want to build one.

In reality, here's what you can do with an HTPC:
- Tivo/DVR
- Media streaming
- Web browsing
- Gaming/Emulation
- Hi-def/upscaling DVD
- ??? (am I forgetting something?)

Now, if you look at the prices for standalones, you've got something like this (with the plus or minus meaning whether a computer/HTPC can do this better or worse than standalone)
- Tivo/DVR - $300 for a TivoHD, plus fees (- , unless OCUR matures/becomes feasible)
- Media streaming $250 for an iTV (+, although iTV is sorta slick)
- Web browsing N/A
- Gaming/Emulation, N/A, or $200 to get various NES/SNES/n64 systems (+, because ROMS are "free", although things like Wiis are making this simpler)
- Hi-def/upscaling DVD $300 (-, because of issues with only passing 5.1 audio through current HDMI implementations of graphics cards).

So that's like $850 (plus Tivo subscription fees) in stand alone equipment to get the functionality of a fully-fledged HTPC. It will be better in some cases (Tivo software, Digital cable tuning, better HD/BR support) but worse in others (web browsing, getting ROMs for emulators, high-quality gaming, etc).

Now, to truely do an HTPC "right", you'll need around $1000-$1200 in gear. Most of that is for a nice, $250 HTPC case, a $200 BluRay drive and an $150 HDhomerun TV tuner. If you can do without the nice case (which to me, is essential; there's no way I'd have an Antec tower in my living room) and have spare parts lying around, you could do it for around $500.

So the questions are:
1). Do you have parts lying around?
2). You you relish the idea of building the system?
3). Is there something specific -- like, say Tivo software -- that you really want/need that an HTPC can't do?
4). Is money an issue?

I want to build one. Badly. I love the idea of having one central "brain" that controls all of my media. But it's difficult. A minor thing like figuring out which program to use for audio playback (my main motivation; having random access to all of my music collection) is tough. iTunes has a great interface, but doesn't support flac and doesn't support bitperfect ASIO drivers. Foobar does do both, but has a weaker interface. Maybe Windows Media Center is better. Maybe not.

So those are the issues you have to worry about if you're building a HTPC.

I use mine for Tivo, movie/TV streaming, and for emulation.

As a TV/Tivo, its marginal. You really have to add in a ton of tuners in order to match what your cable co. can give you, and without QAM/Cablecard in Media center, its fairly useless for HD. WMC's interface for anything but TV/DVR is *horrible*. If it were easy for me to just get a cable company DVR, I'd do it in an instant.

For streaming movies, music and tv shows (DLed off torrents) from my server, I primarily use mediaportal, which is a bit buggy, but it's interface is FAR superior to MCE for those aspects, but its likewise, fairly horrible for TV.

And it is a total pain in the ass swtiching between them.

For emulation, I use GameEx as a frontend, linked to a logitech wireless rumblepad. There is no better way. Seriously, if 15 years ago, I could glimpse into the future and take a peek at this setup while I fumbled away with cartridges, I would totally have shat myself. Thousands of games from dozens of systems, all no more than 2-3 button presses away.

All in all, the setup was pretty cheap. Took a hot deal compaq, threw in the cheapest dual core (E1800) I could find, and a $20 8400gs. Before that, I was using a 4 year old 3ghz P4, and it worked like a champ for anything but 1080p. Theres no reason you need to spend over 1k on an HTPC, it can be done for *well* under $500.

 

[TheDrake]

I personally love the fact that you can record shows and just edit them, burn them to a DVD... I mean its very convenient, but if your planning to do any 1080p content then you will need a pretty high end core 2 duo and decent video card at least. I remember having a P4 overclocked and that was sooo choppy it wasnt even funny. But what Home Theater equipment thats reasonably priced will allow you to record, edit, and burn a DVD or even a HD/Blu-ray disc? Its really all about what you want to use a HTPC NOW and in the Future.

 

[Exterous]

The big reason I did it for my setup was that I was tired of having music upstairs that I couldn't play downstairs unless I burned it to a cd. I also got tired of having to go downstairs and look for a DVD whenever I wanted to watch a movies upstairs.

Solution:
HTPC

I also like the flexibility of being able to upgrade any software I want. Does the new Divx player have better playback? No problem. Oh, I can get that in FLAC which my dvd/cd player wouldn't know what to do with? No problem. Annoying wife using the computer upstairs to check her email? No problem.

I don't agree with the high end c2d and high end video card comments. There seem to be a lot of comments here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26
that seem to agree with me. Using an AMD 5200+ and the GA-MA69GM-S2H 690G motherboard with integrated 1080P HDMI output I have been able to play HD-DVDs (although it did take me some time to find the right codecs) I have not played Bluray with my setup yet. The cost for those parts is ~$200 total on newegg (drive not included but you can get an LG hd-dvd/bluray optical drive for ~$250)

As others have mentioned tv tuner cards can get more complicated. I did not opt to go that route yet as I am so far happy with my comcast dvr box capabilities, so I cannot offer any insights

I love my HTPC and can't think of the last time I used my DVD player
Oh, and this all make Netflix's instant watch feature amazing - its a big reason I actually joined

 

[BirdDad]

you can have subliminal message flashers on while watching a dvd or whatever your doing