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HTPC - Anyone building and why?

H

hokahknow

Senior member

I'd like to see who is building (or has built recently) an HTPC and what they are building it with??

Also what are you really using it for??

Is it working out how you thought it would??

I'll be building a new PC for HD x264 video editing and figure i'll try to build a HTPC that is powerful enough to encode my HD video as well.

Some of the things I am looking at so far:

Thermaltake DH101 or DH102 HTPC case. (Also like Silverstone and Zalman)
CPU Quadcore Phenom (May not be a good choice due to 125W)
MSI board
ATI Video (Like the AMD chipset and ATI GPU combination) However I'm an NVIDIA fanboy.
Blueray drive



 
Well, I've had an HTPC of one sort or another for years (since maybe 2004). My current one was upgraded recently. Here are the specs:

AMD x2 5200+ (1MB cache 65W version)
Scythe Mini Ninja heatsink
A-DATA 2x2GB DDR2-800
Abit NF-M2 Nview motherboard
Gigabyte Radeon HD 2600 Pro 512MB (passive version)
Antec NSK2480 desktop/HTPC case w/PSU
various optical/HDD
Leadtek TV tuner

I'm using it primarily for a TV tuner (my 42" LCD doesn't have a tuner), as well as watching encoded media. I occasionally game on it (WoW, Flatout2, etc.) and used to use it for DVD playback until I got a standalone DVD player recently.

It works exactly as I envision it would.

Here's an old picture of my setup. It was before I upgraded the HTPC, and also the receiver and center channel speaker are now different, plus I now have a DVD player and a PS2 in there (tried PS2 for DVDs but it butchers aspect ratio).
 
Ibuilt one last year --

AMD X2 4800+ (939)
Asus AN8 MVP-32 (forget if that is the exact name)
2 GB PC3200 RAM
ATI X1950XTX (was crossfire but I did not need that type of performance)
LG Blue Ray/HD combo drive
2 X WD 500 GB SATA drives
Antec Sonata 2 case
Onboard audio (Optical out)
Wireless mouse and keyboard
Plugged into my Sharp Aquos 42" LCD 1080P TV via DVI to HDMI.
Onkio 635 Receiver

Now... I was hoping to game with it (WoW and EQ etc) but I just found sitting on the couch (far away from TV) and staring at a 42" LCD running 1080P resolution was not viable for gaming? too small to read chat etc.

I used it to play MKV high def downloads, rips of my DVD library and also to play my Blue Ray movies. I used the copy of Power DVD that came with my drive but that was a crippled version. Having upgraded to the full version you get better sound, but.... at least as far as I know, there was no way that I would ever get TrueHD and DTS-MA sound using my computer from Blue Ray movies. Everything was downed to 5.1 DD. Anyhow I liked it... but then... honestly I found my new love... the Playstation 3.

After that, and running Tversity on my computer for those odd times I may want to watch a movie I have on my computer, I never went back to the HTPC. Maybe things are different now with the newer mobos... maybe you can get all the new HD audio formats to play through your computer to your Receiver... lossless etc but I am not sure and use one HDMI cable to do both audio and sound.

Now if I have any video file that is not compatible with the PS3, or that for some reason Tversity cannot transcode, I simply covert to MP4 directly so the PS3 can play it. It plays Blue Ray, plays my normal DVD?s, plays from my external hardrive any collection of HD files I have (MP4 all converted from MKV using MKVtoVOB).

I still have the HTPC but now my GF uses it as her normal computer plugged into her 22?LCD.
 
I'd really like to build an HTPC, but the @#$^@#$ encrypted cable / satellite tv makes it much less useful to me. If I could run some DVR sofware and record HD (more than OTA) channels, I'd do it in a second.
 
There are some firewire drivers floating around for some receivers that will allow you to stream data that way (and even control the device without an IR blaster). I wish I could give more details, but I have justed started researching.
 
my old htpc

lasted a few years currently in my mame bartop
ex task:netflix, basic tv ,network file server, dvr
current task: just mame
CPU: Intel Pentium M Dothan 735 ZALMAN CNPS7000B-ALCU 1700MHz @ 1851MHz
Motherboard: Aopen i855 GMEm-LFS
Memory: 1536 MB of Gskill PC3200
Video Card: 6600 Nvidia
Hard Drive: WD 300.0 GB
Monitor: 15'' lcd
DVD Manufacturer & Model: Lite on
Operating System: XP Pro

my new htpc
with a pretty simple task
netflix, some hd content (720p) and basic cable tv for my projector

CPU: Intel E2160 Stock HSF 1800MHz
Motherboard: Pc Chips P55G
Memory: 2048 MB of Super Talent PC6400
Video Card: Sapphire HD3450 ATI
Hard Drive: DiamondMax 21 320.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS
Monitor: 92'' Grey Wolf 2 Screen , Optoma DV10
DVD R/W: Pioneer
Operating System: Vista HP x86
Other Components: PVR-150


 
Originally posted by: SpeedEng66


my new htpc
with a pretty simple task
netflix, some hd content (720p) and basic cable tv for my projector

CPU: Intel E2160 Stock HSF 1800MHz
Motherboard: Pc Chips P55G
Memory: 2048 MB of Super Talent PC6400
Video Card: Sapphire HD3450 ATI
Hard Drive: DiamondMax 21 320.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS
Monitor: 92'' Grey Wolf 2 Screen , Optoma DV10
DVD R/W: Pioneer
Operating System: Vista HP x86
Other Components: PVR-150
Click to expand...

How is the video quality with the Saphire HD3450 on that 92" screen?? My future plans (next 2 years) is to get a big screen 1080P projector. This HTPC would be connected to it.

My plan is a lot of Netflix Blu-ray and also watch the HD video that is encoded on that HTPC. Will also use to play MP3, photos, and some gaming.

Pretty sure I'm going with this so far.

Thermaltake DH101 (once I confirm what size video card fits in that case)
MSI K9A2 Platinum
AMD Phenom 9850 BE (have read that intel has issue with blu-ray on there current CPUs)
HD3870 512MB RADEON
Blu-ray drive (read only)
4GB PC-8500 1066
 
I built one just recently.

I had been using a Via Epia M10000 with a Leadtek WinTV running MythTV and Linux. But I wanted to try to get QAM w/ HD, generally a faster and more responsive system, and I wanted a better remote control, and better ability to move the TV shows over to my iPhone and it looked like I was going to need a fair bit more horsepower than the Via M10000 could give to move to the next level.

My goal with these things is cheap, and quiet... so I scrounged around the house, bought a super cheap CPU and bought an open box motherboard from Newegg and came up with my new one with is based on a 2.6GHz Celeron CPU, 1GB Crucial DDR2 memory and a MSI PM8M3-V motherboard. I used an old leftover AGP video card (some nVidia 5000-series, I think), and an old hard disk, the XP license from before I upgraded my main computer to Vista, a really old ugly beige case with an even older power supply and then a spare 250GB hard disk and DVD drive. Total money spent was $70 for the tuner, $25 for the motherboard, $30 for the RAM and $40 for the CPU, everything was spare parts. No keyboard or mouse... I just use the remote for navigating Windows. My TV is a 37" 720P LCD.

I splurged on the ATI HD650 tuner card and remote. For software, I looked at SageTV, Vista's Media Center and BeyondTV and settled on BeyondTV. I've had it running for several weeks now and it's working great. I like the compatibility with my iPhone - it generates H264 videos automatically, the video quality is good, I love the way BeyondTV handles commercials - it can remove them all by itself, the HD650 remote is way better than my old Leadtek and is very responsive. About the only thing that I don't have is the clear QAM, but I'll keep working at it and I should be able to get something.
 
Originally posted by: hokahknow
Originally posted by: SpeedEng66


my new htpc
with a pretty simple task
netflix, some hd content (720p) and basic cable tv for my projector

CPU: Intel E2160 Stock HSF 1800MHz
Motherboard: Pc Chips P55G
Memory: 2048 MB of Super Talent PC6400
Video Card: Sapphire HD3450 ATI
Hard Drive: DiamondMax 21 320.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS
Monitor: 92'' Grey Wolf 2 Screen , Optoma DV10
DVD R/W: Pioneer
Operating System: Vista HP x86
Other Components: PVR-150
Click to expand...

How is the video quality with the Saphire HD3450 on that 92" screen?? My future plans (next 2 years) is to get a big screen 1080P projector. This HTPC would be connected to it.

My plan is a lot of Netflix Blu-ray and also watch the HD video that is encoded on that HTPC. Will also use to play MP3, photos, and some gaming.

Pretty sure I'm going with this so far.

Thermaltake DH101 (once I confirm what size video card fits in that case)
MSI K9A2 Platinum
AMD Phenom 9850 BE (have read that intel has issue with blu-ray on there current CPUs)
HD3870 512MB RADEON
Blu-ray drive (read only)
4GB PC-8500 1066
Click to expand...


I dont see a huge difference with the geforce 6600(my old htpc) vs the hd3450 vs IGP 7050 with dvd playback via projector

only difference I see is lower cpu ult.. and the 3450 comes out a tadbit crisper with the colors
but I would have been fine with the igp for what I needed the htpc to do


wow thats a pretty high end rig you going to be setting up
thats going to be a really nice set up!!
 
Originally posted by: SpeedEng66
Originally posted by: hokahknow
Originally posted by: SpeedEng66





wow thats a pretty high end rig you going to be setting up
thats going to be a really nice set up!!
Click to expand...


Yeah, it is going to be a little on the expensive side. However the wife wants to be able to watch the kids HD video😀 So I need a machine that can encode it in less than a day.

I heard back from Thermaltake. They say a 10.6" long video card will fit in the DH101.
Time to start buying parts as they go on special🙂 That will take a few weeks I'm sure.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I built one about two years ago and have been upgrading it from day 1. Currently it is:

A64 X2 4000+ (35w)
Scythe Mini (love it)
2GB RAM
AMD 3850 video card
Asus M2N-E
2xATI Theater 550 Pro NTSC tuners
Sondigo inferno
Logitech Harmony 880
LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo drive
Seasonic 380w
Windows Vista home premium
Samsung 1080p LCD

I use Windows Media Center for my HTPC, and previous to that I used MCE 2005

The only thing it doesn't do that I want is HD Cable, still waiting for HD capture cards (no ATSC here in Canada) or official QAM support. Currently my HDTV is via DSL so I need a capture card for component, or I'd have to switch providers for my cable to even have a chance at QAM and even then I have no idea what would even be available on clear QAM.

I love my HTPC, it's slick, easy to use, tons of storage, and allows me to play everything from picture slideshows to HD movies. My wife loves it as well so no worries there about making the TV too complicated.

I rented my cable companies PVR just to do HD but it was just so awful - slow, clunky, poorly laid out menus etc that I ended up returning it. Once you have tasted the HTPC bug you really get stuck with it. It's also cleaned up my rack from having a VCR, DVD Player, CD changer, etc to just the HTPC and receiver.

I don't recommend a quad core especially the Phenom (I have one in another computer) because you really don't need more than a dual core and the extra heat is tough to get rid of in a tight HTPC case. My lowly 4000+ is just 2GHz dual core and has no issues at all. I can even game on it decently. Just make sure you spend a bit extra to make sure the thing is as silent as you can because nothing is worse than a couple loud fans in your living room.
 
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