Cheap HTPC Build

[Brainonska511]

Edit 11-23-2010: Update.

Budget: ~$400-500 (including the Windows license), but cheaper the better

I want to build an HTPC to pair with my 1080p tv via HDMI. It will mainly be used for web-based content, such as Youtube, Hulu, maybe Netflix, etc... I would like it to flawlessly handle 1080p video, but I imagine that won't really be a problem given today's hardware. I would also like it to be able to record TV - just one show is fine (I don't get many channels or watch that much); I'd run a splitter on the line so I could control the TV separately from the tuner card.

Would a sempron-based system + a 785G board, 2GB of RAM, W7, med-sized hard drive, a tv tuner card, and a PSU < 400W be good enough? Or should I look at Dual-cored systems?

Any recommendations on cases as well? It doesn't need to look like a piece of home theater equipment, but it also shouldn't be gaudy. (slim or standard are fine; probably looking more towards mATX though).

Thanks.

I expect to put this together between now and Christmas.

Edit:
I'm also okay mixing and matching a system - if the motherboard is cheap enough, I can always get a cheap ATI 5450 for HDMI. I also think that there should be a PCI-Ex1 slot just for the tv-tuner.

Edit 2:
Would I be better off getting a cheap Dell system from the outlet and adding my own TV tuner card &/or graphics card?

 

[mfenn]

It's probably pushing it to expect a single-core Sempron to play back all 1080P streams flawlessly. I think $500 is still doable for what you have in mind though.

Athlon II X2 250 + ASUS M4A785-M combo $110 - it's DDR2, but who cares in an HTPC?
Patriot DDR2 800 2GB $32
Hauppauge TV Tuner $50
Samsung F3 1TB $75
Samsung DVD Burner $20
Apex HTPC case with 275W PSU $45 - The PSU isn't going to be the greatest, but it is more than sufficient for this build
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit $100
Total: $432

 

[Brainonska511]

Thanks.

I'll probably go with a smaller/cheaper hard drive. Even though I want to record video, I'm not really going to store any of it long term - just time-shifting purposes and then deleting after watching.

The integrated HD4200 can handle 1080p video?

 

[mfenn]

Thanks.

I'll probably go with a smaller/cheaper hard drive. Even though I want to record video, I'm not really going to store any of it long term - just time-shifting purposes and then deleting after watching.

The integrated HD4200 can handle 1080p video?

Yes, the HD4200 has the UVD2 decoding engine, which fully supports 1080P H.264/AVC, VC-1, and MPEG2.

 

[Brainonska511]

Thanks a lot.

I think I'm going to go with this (probably sit on it for a few hours before ordering):
Lite-On DVD burner (SATA) - $17
WD Caviar Blue 250GB - $43
Rosewill B/G Wireless - $12
Hauppauge Single TV Tuner - $50
Antec EarthWatts 380W PSU - $40 - $15 Rebate ($25)
Patriot 2GB DDR2 800 - $32
Athlon II X2 250 + Asus M4A785-M combo - $110
Windows 7 64-bit HP + HEC 6T mATX case combo $125

Price after shipping & rebate: ~$426

 

[IGemini]

Maybe a dual-core Atom would work better?

Apex Mi-008 Mini-ITX case w/250W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811154091

Samsung F2 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152173

Hauppauge HVR-1250 tuner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815116028

Windows 7 HP 32-bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116752

2GB G.Skill SO-DIMM DDR3-1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231212

ASUS AT5IONT chipset w/Atom D525, dual-core, 1.8GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131663

Total: $478 incl. shipping

The Hauppauge 1850 might be a better card though that puts it a little over-budget, just putting this out as a preliminary SFF build.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I built a HTPC back when the 780G (not 785G) was the hot new thing on the block. I paired it with a BE-2400 45w dual-core 2.3Ghz CPU.

Well, I'm not happy with it. Hulu full-screen (1366x768) was skippy, and so were 1080P Planet Earth HD-DVD rips.

I overclocked it to 2.875Ghz, and that made Hulu better, but I was getting some RAM errors, even after I lowered my DRAM multi to something pretty low.

So I recently reformatted, and set everything back to stock. With updated Flash Player and updated ATI drivers (10.10, instead of 10.4), Hulu plays fine now.

But I installed the newest Media Player Classic Home Cinema version, and I cannot get DXVA to work for my HD-DVD rips (MKV files). If I uncheck H264 (FFMPEG) in the internal filters list, and leave H264 (DXVA) checked, I get no picture.

But with FFMPEG checked, it seems to be using software decoding. Which, at 2.3Ghz, if I select VMR9 Renderless, with subtitles, I get horrible hitching in places. Whereas, if I select VMR9 Windowed, I don't get subtitles, but my framerate lags. It should be 24FPS, but I get 18-21. The strange thing is, I don't get any dropped frames. Which I should be getting. Otherwise the video desyncs from the audio. In a movie with dialog, this is totally unacceptable, although with the Planet Earth videos, it's only slightly annoying.

So I purchased an AMD Athlon II X4 640 and an MSI 785G mobo from Microcenter, and am planning on rebuilding my HTPC, with the hope that things will be improved, and if nothing else, if I cannot get the proper hardware decoding to work, then at least the quad-core can handle software decoding without issue. At least that's my hope.

You would think that at this point in time, hardware-accelerated playback would be easy. But it seems that many times, it just doesn't work properly.

Thankfully, the HDMI has worked fine thus far, both video (no overscan) and audio. Although when I first listen to an online radio station in Flash Player, it seems like the audio plays at max volume, until I touch the volume control, then it "snaps back" to the proper setting.

Edit: This is all running XP, perhaps things are better for hardware acceleration in the Windows 7 world.

 

[Brainonska511]

Maybe a dual-core Atom would work better?

I thought about Atom-based systems, but from what I've been reading, Silverlight + Ion = horrible performance, so streaming Netflix in HD, which I don't yet have, but am considering, would be out of the question.

 

[IGemini]

^^In that case I have a couple recommendations for your current build idea.

- Go with an 11n wireless-adapter instead of just G. If you plan to do serious HD streaming, you'll eventually go to n even if you don't have it now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833166051

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320048

- Go with the hard drive I listed instead of the Caviar blue. That model is a much slower drive and if you plan on recording shows you'll find the extra space very helpful.

- As well with HD capability in this system, you could go with a blu-ray drive (that also has DVD burning ability) instead of just a regular DVD burner.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151199

This is all running XP, perhaps things are better for hardware acceleration in the Windows 7 world.

It is, in fact. XP is limited to using an older DXVA API which doesn't accelerate HD as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It is, in fact. XP is limited to using an older DXVA API which doesn't accelerate HD as well.

Interesting. Perhaps I'll try a test install of Win7 on that machine and see what happens. I still don't understand why I cannot get DXVA to display a picture at all though.

 

[IGemini]

^^Just read your post in a bit more detail, I recall having a similar problem back when I was using XP on a Radeon 4850. I think VMR7 renderless gets DXVA to work in that case.

 

[Brainonska511]

- Go with an 11n wireless-adapter instead of just G. If you plan to do serious HD streaming, you'll eventually go to n even if you don't have it now.

I wasn't planning on streaming in-network. Plus, with an internet connection that tops out at 10mbps and no near-future plans of upgrading my wireless, b/g is fine. Also, other wireless items on my network (roommate's laptop, my laptop) are only G, so it would slow the wireless down to those speeds anyway. I can upgrade it when/if I eventually upgrade my network.

- As well with HD capability in this system, you could go with a blu-ray drive (that also has DVD burning ability) instead of just a regular DVD burner.

AFAIK, the cheap blu-ray drives don't have software, so that would be pretty useless at the moment. Wasn't planning on getting into Blu-ray either. But thanks for the suggestion.

I will go with the hard drive suggestion though. I didn't realize it was that cheap.

 

[Brainonska511]

This is what I went with (in case anyone ever searches for HTPC builds):

Lite-On DVD burner (SATA) - $17
Samsung EcoGreen 1TB SATA - $50
Rosewill B/G Wireless - $12
Hauppauge Single TV Tuner - $50
Antec EarthWatts 380W PSU - $40 - $15 Rebate ($25)
Patriot 2GB DDR2 800 - $32
Athlon II X2 250 + Asus M4A785-M combo - $110
Windows 7 64-bit HP + HEC 6T mATX case combo $125

Price after shipping & rebate: ~$433

 

[master7045]

Looks like a pretty good build. Let us know how it turns out. I'm particularly interested in how it plays back Blu-ray's

 

[Brainonska511]

Looks like a pretty good build. Let us know how it turns out. I'm particularly interested in how it plays back Blu-ray's

Sorry, I won't be able to tell you about Blu-Ray playback (I'm forgoing that 'feature' for now), but I will definitely download a little genuine 1080p video to give it a whirl and post back here. I imagine that it will be okay considering many Atom based systems do okay. If worst came to worst, I could always throw in a cheap AMD HD5450.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Great news! I installed Win7 HP 64-bit, and MPC-HC 64-bit.

At first, using the Win7 built-in drivers for the 780G (which handle desktop graphics and Aero fine), I got repeated loops of frames, and then it skipped ahead, then looped again. Obviously, video acceleration support was broken.

So I installed Cat 10.10 drivers, and viola, it works.

Unchecking "H264 (FFMPEG)" in the "internal filters" list, and leaving "H264 (DXVA)" checked, and setting output mode to "EVR" (default under Win7), and I get subtitles, and a rock-solid frame rate at 23.97 FPS on Planet Earth.

I could even stream them from my NAS over 65Mbit N wireless running WDS mode!
(Not perfectly though, the "bird scene" from the first volume, and the monkey scene from the second, both had problems streaming wirelessly, but didn't have problems played off of the HD.)

I don't know why I couldn't get DXVA working under XP with the newest 10.10 drivers, since Flash video acceleration worked.

 

[Brainonska511]

Update:

The PC I built works fabulously. So far, it's played everything I've asked it to play. The only 1080p video I've really tried out were some Apple trailers. But they played flawlessly. Other web video plays great. Records TV perfectly. Internet TV channels in WMC are nice - just wish it put some of Comedy Central's stuff in there too instead of having to go through a web browser.

My only big complaint is with the wireless keyboard - I had to disable wake from sleep on the mouse and keyboard, because the keyboard would constantly wake the machine. No big deal - just use the power button to wake it from sleep.

 

[hoorah]

Update:

The PC I built works fabulously. So far, it's played everything I've asked it to play. The only 1080p video I've really tried out were some Apple trailers. But they played flawlessly. Other web video plays great. Records TV perfectly. Internet TV channels in WMC are nice - just wish it put some of Comedy Central's stuff in there too instead of having to go through a web browser.

My only big complaint is with the wireless keyboard - I had to disable wake from sleep on the mouse and keyboard, because the keyboard would constantly wake the machine. No big deal - just use the power button to wake it from sleep.

Thanks for the update. If I had seen your thread earlier, I would have told you that 1080P would be fine on that setup. My laptop has switchable graphics (4200 integrated / 4550 dedicated) and even on the integrated graphics 1080P plays fine so long as you're using DXVA.

Additionally, I just bought the same setup you did (X2 250 + ASUS 785g) with 4 gigs of DDR2 as my main system. Its considerably faster than my S939 X2 4200+, which THAT system is considerably faster than the A64 3200+ I use as my HTPC, and even that can play most 1080P stuff as long as its using the graphics card for decoding. Haven't tried blu-ray with it though.

So yeah, you'll be setup for a nice HTPC experience with this board.