Building a computer for home entertainment system!

[Brackus]

Hey,

I must admit, I am not likely to move on this right away, but,

I am wondering, what are the benefits for building a "value" computer for an entertainment system???

I am figuring on hooking it up to my tv/vcr/dvd player, and basically, looking to have it be able to record tv, and output to tv, as well, I am looking to get a fairly good webcam, and hook it up to this.

I know I wont need massive cpu power, and maybe not more than 256 mb of ram, a fair sized hd though, and a cd burner,
but, can I get a good tv card, for my needs, and if I was wanting to play some games on my tv, what would be a good fit for a "value" system.

I would hope to have one card to do both things, but, I realize that usually doesnt work.

Anyway, what costs on certain cards should I expect, and what video card(s) would do well for me??

Thanks,

Dustin

 

[BoomAM]

hi,
look for,

a kt400 baced mobo as it will support the latest processors, agp8 & USB2/firewire (for connection to av devices)

a athlonxp 2000, fast but cheap(ish)

512mb ram, you many not need it now but you will do. you said u might play games on it, ut2003 is pushing 128mb now so its best to be safe and get more than you need. will come in handy with the video/audio encoding as well.

2x 80 western digital HDs. these are cheap now(in uk anyway). one for storing ure videos/music. and one for programs/os. pletny of room to work with. you`ll eventually fill it up, even if you dont think you will.

ati radeon8500 all-in-wonder 128mb. reasonably fast, will play all games well, has all the tv connections you will need and is getting cheaper cos of the annoucement of the 9700 all-in-wonder. has tv card built in. has 128mb memory, which will help in new next gen games. only bout £50 more then 64mb version, but well worth it. also has remote control.

sb audigy platinum (not audigy2). good card, has many connectors and will be cheaper cos of the new Audigy2(almost no difference just 6.1 speaker support) also has remote control.

lite-on 48x12x48 CDRW. fast cdrw, cheap as well, very good quality, i have one. burn a cd in minutes

these are some of the parts, you`ll have to do the rest, like case, mouse, keyboard, ect;

hope this helps you.

 

[Peter]

Such a thing, with its jetplane noise, is no good for the living room.

For TV-in and -out, decent audio, DVD replay and whatnot, something whisper quiet like an ITX box with one of the new 9000 series VIA EPIA boards is very well quick enough, and brings most of the equipment right onboard - six-channel sound, TV-out, DVD hardware decoders. You just need a TV-in card put in your one PCI slot and you're set.

On the games front, you'll have to aim low on resolution and rendering detail (thanks to the rather lowly CPU and shared-memory graphics), but given the picture quality of TV sets, you won't notice.

regards, Peter

 

[BoomAM]

heres an idea, ive just been looking at a computer component supplier, and found that you could get one of them micro pc things. get the one with 1 AGP & 1 PCI, cos then you can put a decent video card in it, like the card i mentioned, then you wont have to go low rez in games, or buy a seperate tv tuner.

and "Peter" the loudness of the system that i originally recommended would not b that loud anyway. it depends on the cooling he chooses to install. the radeon 8500 all-in-wonder is quiet neway. and far more versitile than a seperate tv card.

for a heatsink, (if you get a "normal" system)get a thermalright slk-800 and a silent 80mm ys-tech fan (20dBa)
i have this CPU cooling Setup and its amazingly quiet and cools great.

 

[sechs]

An All in Wonder card is a a must. Everything on one board. If you're not much of a gamer, go for the Radeon 7500 version. If you do game, one of the Radeon 8500 version (8500DV with firewire or 8500 128MB) would be a better choice. If you're a bottomless pit of money, wait for the Radeon 9700 version.

I don't suggest Creative cards because they are expensive and have compatibility issues. I would suggest a Hercules Hame Theater if you have a lot of sources to hook up; otherwise, go with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. I've used both cards, and they are excellent.

For for video capture, you're going to need disk space, a fast processor, and memory, in that order. You can certainly get away with 256MB of RAM, but you're going to need serious disk space. You'll need at least one big drive, and the more video you want to capture, the bigger that'll need to be. If you're up for it, an IDE RAID or SCSI setup would be better; they have cost and are more finicky.

While you could get away with a processor as puny as 500MHz, I'd suggest an Athlon XP 1600+ at a bare minimum. If you want to do real-time capture with reasonable quality, you'll need to give more processing power. Athlon XP 2200+ chips are at a good price, but a 2000+ would be a reasonable choice. Of course, the faster the better.

None of this is going to be cheap. If you go for less expensive components, you're going to get less performance. If you can deal with that, then go for it. If you're serious about basing your home enteretainment system around your computer, don't skrimp.

 

[Peter]

Fast processor is not needed for video capture. You want to store lossless and uncompressed anyway, all you need is good PCI throughput and a large and fast HDD.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Peter
Fast processor is not needed for video capture. You want to store lossless and uncompressed anyway, all you need is good PCI throughput and a large and fast HDD.

Not neccessarily - uncompressed 640x480 video in full color (24 bit) at 30 frames per second will take up approximately 1.5GBytes/min. That means that your nice new 80GByte hard disk will store just under one hour of uncompressed video. You will definitely want to compress the video, preferrably in real time, though if your CPU is not fast enough you can do the compression later. If that's the case, you want to make sure that you have enough space to store the uncompressed video stream temporarily.

 

[Peter]

24 bit per pixel RBG is worst case ... the usual TV card chips can also push the data in more economic formats like YUV.

If you attempt realtime compression w/o hardware support (on the grabber card!), you not only need a really fast CPU, but also MUCH more system bus bandwidth. Why? If you store uncompressed, you have video data travelling from grabber card to system RAM, and from there to the storage device. When compressing in realtime (using the CPU), you have the grabber writing to RAM, the CPU reading this, the CPU writing to another area in RAM, and the storage subsystem reading the result. You need about twice as much RAM bandwidth for that. The PC architecture just doesn't cut it in this case, mainly because of the rather slow PCI bus and storage media.

So either get a BIG disk drive, or a grabber card that does the compression before the data enter the system.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Peter
24 bit per pixel RBG is worst case ... the usual TV card chips can also push the data in more economic formats like YUV.

If you attempt realtime compression w/o hardware support (on the grabber card!), you not only need a really fast CPU, but also MUCH more system bus bandwidth. Why? If you store uncompressed, you have video data travelling from grabber card to system RAM, and from there to the storage device. When compressing in realtime (using the CPU), you have the grabber writing to RAM, the CPU reading this, the CPU writing to another area in RAM, and the storage subsystem reading the result. You need about twice as much RAM bandwidth for that. The PC architecture just doesn't cut it in this case, mainly because of the rather slow PCI bus and storage media.

So either get a BIG disk drive, or a grabber card that does the compression before the data enter the system.

Well, either get a terabyte disk array, or a card that does some compession and a fast CPU. I'd love to have both, but most people on an average budget would probably be much better off with the latter. I still think that storing uncompressed for the purpose of archiving TV shows or pretty much anything else taken with a low quality analog camcorder is not a good idea, but rather that it is just a terrible waste of space.

 

[Mac]

If you plan on hooking this up in your family room, then I think others here are missing some basic issues regarding usability in a living environment. It needs to be quiet. Also, you will probably have it tucked away in a corner or inside of a cabinet. What all this means is you need to determine the minimum processing requirements of your media server in order to reduce the cooling requirements which in turn means fewer fans and a smaller quieter power supply. I've gone through the same exercise and here is what I've put together for my AV media server.

For openers, the video card is easy - ATI All in Wonder. Any of the Radeon AIW's are more than adequate and come with a convenient break out box. A "must have" is the Remote Wonder which is included with the 7500 or better series. You can buy the RW separately for about $50. The card and included SW will do everything you need regarding video. The 8500 DV is a real plus because it has a Firewire connector which is convenient if you have a digital camcorder. You didn't mention anything about gaming but any of these cards will provide acceptable service on a TV set which doesn't require high resolutions. I think the 7500 is best fit. I have an 8500 AIW on my primary system and an old Radeon AIW on the media server in the family room. Use the same Remote Wonder in both rooms.

CPU - an AMD 1600XP+ coupled with a large quiet 80mm fan/heatsink (can you say GC68). The 1600 is more than adequate and is dirt cheap.

MOBO - any VIA 266A chipset or better

Because I don't have CAT-5 running into my family room, I bought a USB wireless network adapter. I have a wireless router in a bedroom, about 20 feet through two walls, which gets the media server on the LAN and allows me to surf the web from the sofa (with Remote Wonder in hand). Wireless keyboard and mouse are prequisites, off course.

Sound - I stuck an old SB Live 5.1 in mine but I think the Hercules Theatre is the best bang for the buck, about $100...has a very useful breakout box which you will want. I am using my AV server as an audio center and have connected it to my receiver. I am in the process of ripping most of my important CD's to high quality MP3 192K or better. Gets the CD's out of the family room and through the building of playlists, it makes my old Sony carousel CD Player seem obselete.

Although I have both a DVD drive and CD-RW in the AV server, I rarely use them except for loading SW or doing an occasional RIP. There is no substituting a dedicated console DVD player (quieter and more features) and it is just more convenient to sit at a regular workstation/monitor if I have a lot of CD's to RIP or master. Same thing goes regarding working with video files. I edit first on my workstation using a firewire drive that I just bought and then play from or transfer to the AV server in the family room.

Monitor - I picked up a relatively cheap 14" LCD monitor for $200 that does 1024X768. It ain't the greatest display in the world but it is perfect for this application. Very useful for managing files / playlists, maintenance, etc. Fits right into the bookcase and takes up very little room.

Storage - I currently use two Maxtor 80GB 7200 drives, non-RAID. I haven't experimented with some of the newer high capacity 160MB (and greater) 5400 rpm drives but if they have sufficient bandwith/throughput, I would consider that due to heat / cooling considerations.

Get a good quality 300W power supply that is quiet and reliable...Enermax or Antec comes to mind.

That's about it. I 'm still refining mine and would welcome suggestions from others.