HTPC/server/transcoding and the role of the cpu?

[krunt]

I have read so many guides that I am now only more confused, therefore I turn to the anantech forums where great answers can be found.

FIRST : Assume that three computers exist, one is a HTPC which will, obviously, play videos and netflix/hulu/media center etc... Second is a WHS which stores all of the data. The 3rd is a desktop which will rip the music and dvds as well as game and do desktop stuff.

SECOND : cost, power, noise, heat are all factors. I understand that the latest and greatest will work for all three computers, but that would be overkill.

Thoughts on CPU's? For the HTPC an AMD E-3xx would be a nice and quite choice and should be up to the HTPC needs and it does not suffer from the 23.976Hz bugs. That said, everyone loves the 35w(?) i3-2xxx something. But I do not know if that is for the encoding/ripping or some other reason.

I have a e8400 on the desktop now, and it can stay that way though I do not know if the GeForce 8800gt will provide decent rips. I could put the e8400 in the server and get an i3/i5 in the desktop which can then perform the ripping as well as speed up the desktop.

This leaves a server with an e8400, which idles low enough on temp and power to keep on 24x7, but requires a graphics card (or a new socket 775 motherboard with onboard graphics) which will not be used for anything except allowing the computer to boot, unless the video is transcoded/streamed through the server which should not be the situation in this setup.

I am probably wrong about a few things here, which is why I came here.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ualdayan]

I went with virtualization instead of building multiple computers. It actually was pretty easy, and works well. I run a WHS VM, and a Linux VM on a W7 HTPC setup. That way it's all on one machine, I save power versus 3 setups, and it's incredible easy to back up my entire WHS onto a spare drive just by copying the virtual machine folder. (if anything happens to my system I can just put that spare drive back in, and copy the WHS back onto the computer to have it exactly the same as it was before)

I do have a Zacate setup in another room for media only purposes, and it works good for media playback.

I'd just upgrade my desktop, and move the E8400 to another machine. Run W7 on it for use as a HTPC, and run WHS in a VM on it in the background. The E8400 should have no problems serving both purposes at the same time. You can get a cheap $20-40 videocard with HDMI output nowadays. You'll save power, you'll save money, and it'll be more flexible with you able to move the WHS to any other computer you want to at any time without anything inside the VM changing.

 

[krunt]

Thanks for the thoughts but I am looking for more of an always on always available WHS experience. I am glad to hear that the Zacate works for your media. Is there anything (web content, dvd playback, streaming, music, etc...) that it is not working for which you expect out of a HTPC?

The more I think about moving the 8400 to the server, the less I like it if, and it is a big if, something quieter and cooler can take its place. Afterall, I do not think I need any special performance out of it, hard drives should remain the bottleneck.

 

[Claudius-07]

I pretty much have a setup exactly as you described (and yah it's probably overkill). I have my server which runs WHS (it's an Acer Aspire H340). I know it’s an all in one solution – I did not build it, it simply came all set and configured with WHS. I had bought it a long time ago and it's just a plain box, with no video out, comes with an Intel Atom 230 CPU (that’s all you need for WHS), 1 TB drive, 2 GB or RAM and place for 3 more drives (I’ve since added 3 2TB drives). I forget exactly but NCIX a while back had such a sale on them I simply could not pass it up – I bet in the US it would be even cheaper. It’s dead silent and sucks up almost no power. I simply remote into it when I need to but you hardly ever have to. Took 10 minutes to set up, leave it and forget it. With came a program called Lights Out which puts it in standby by at certain hours of the day when it’s not used. If I am away for extended periods, then naturally I just turn it off. This server has all my DVD/BR rips, music etc, and backups.

I then have a desktop which is a quad core Intel 9550. That is what I use to encode, rip etc. If you use an app like DVDfab (you gotta pay for it), you can take advantage of the Cuda or Dxva features of your card to help decode/encode. I also use MakeMKV (free while in Beta), which simply rips a whole movie, no compression, no encoding and that really cares not much for anything other than the speed of your DVD/BR drive. This really is the only system that needs to be beefy.

My HTPC, again something I did not build, but rather bought exclusively for HTPC purposes. It’s an Acer Revo 1600. Best damn box I ever bought – I have XBMC live running on it (flawless perfect install – lots of guides made just for this little box), nothing else. Again dead silent and uses almost no power. All the video decoding is done from its GPU, full hardware decoding…. I can play 30 GB BR RIPS with no issues over a wired connection. It’s controlled using my Logitech Harmony remote in my living room). There are addons of course to get other apps running on it… but in Canada, almost all the stuff you guys get access to online does not work with us unless I want to mess around with IP spoofing programs.

Now consider that I did not have any other computers other than my original desktop 9550 so I had to start from scratch. After doing research to decide how much it would cost to buy and build and price and set up, for me it was just easier to go with the H340 for the WHS and the Revo 1600 for an HTPC. From reading your post I take it you have all your hardware already or not?

 

[krunt]

Claudius, thank you for the post. It was very informative and helpful. In answer to your question, no I do not have all the equipment yet, I only have the e8400 desktop. I am glad to hear the Atom works for your WHS and HTPC. Lots of folks are using (or at least saying they want to use) i3-2100s for their HTPC. I do not understand why they need so much power in an HTPC and figured I was missing out on something.

 

[jedimasterben]

I don't understand why someone would need that much CPU power when the GPU will be doing most of the work (and the codecs that don't use DXVA will most likely be older, lower bitrate files that even low-power CPUs can handle), but I know some people like everything to be overkill.

Here's my setup, for example:
My desktop has an i7-2600K. Even at 4.8GHz, while encoding, the system uses less than 300w. I use very customized settings for encoding that maintain all possible quality, but the file size is still reduced to about 20-30% of the original size, and all audio is simply passed through in its original quality. Average file size of Blu-ray rips are 8-12GB.

Total cost on that will depend on your components, but will be at least $500 once you get a motherboard and RAM and such.

My WHS server is based on a Zacate platform. 2GB of RAM and three 2TB Samsung hard drives. Idles at 38w and while streaming it goes to 45w. The performance is significantly higher than my previous Atom-based WHS (the HP LX195). Power consumption is identical, but it starts up in seconds compared to minutes, and streaming is easier as I do not have to use NFS shares for high-bandwidth videos, it worked out of the box on the default SMB shares.

Total cost on that was about $450 (found the case and motherboard/cpu "used", so that knocked the price down by about $50).

What I use to play back videos is a bit different, though. It's not an HTPC, it's a Western Digital WDTV Live Plus. Handles Netflix and pretty much any video you throw at it, and passes through digital audio to my receiver. Uses around 10w at any given time, lower than any HTPC. One thing I miss about an HTPC is web browsing, but then again, I have my desktop for that.

Total cost for that was $100 shipped .

I did just build a Zacate-based HTPC for a friend, it has no issues playing any video I threw at it (running Windows 7 and Shark007 codec pack). All HD videos played with DXVA were flawless, as were DVIX/XVID files. Total cost on that system was around $300, and it idled at 20w and while watching a video it was up to 30w.


Now, you mentioned encoding on your 8800GT using CUDA, but I will advise against it. GPU-enabled encoders have a long way to go before they become a viable option if quality is a concern. They can blaze through a job quickly, but you don't have any of the quality adjustments that Handbrake or straight x264 have, and their overall quality is much lower than a CPU encode.

 

[elconejito]

I don't have any input on the newer CPUs, unfortunately, but I figure I'd chime in on my setup. I have an HTPC/fileserver running MediaPortal (kinda like Windows Media Center, but open source) on Windows 7. This box has a Q8200 quad core, 4GB ram and an assortment of drives (OS, TV Recordings, long-term storage on RAID5). It pulls around ~100w all day. I put that much horsepower into it (probably over a year now) so it can compress some of my tv recordings at night. I use a program called Subsonic (win, linux, mac(?), streams to android, iphone, web clients) which transcodes video on the fly so I can watch my entire video library from the road and it streams my music collection (kinda like amazon cloud player & google music).

I then have my desktop Q9650 OC'd which in addition to actual "desktop-like" work I cut out commercials and compress other recordings that I plan to keep long term, rip DVDs, etc.

 

[sm625]

As a rough approximation, you are saving *roughly* 1 dollar year year for every watt you can shave off of something that runs 24/7. So if an atom board replaces your server board and it saves you 50 watts, then in 2 years it pays for itself. For HTPC it is a little more complicated because of sleep modes. I think the most important thing to do is just getting systems that sleep properly.

 

[krunt]

again, thank you for the replies. I am always impressed with the quality of responses on this board.

ElConejito- your setup sounds great, and I would like to learn more about it, but I need the "keep it simple stupid" that WHS has to offer.

Additionally, I want to keep my server and my htpc separate because I am not completely convinced I need a PC to be my htpc given the number of people with $100 boxes that do almost the same thing (well if i went with anything else it wouldn't be an htPC but you know what I mean). There are a number of reasons, chief among them is that the htpc, or whatever, is going to be in the living room while I want to hide the server so the kids can't unplug it or feed it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk.

jedimasterben - thank you for the input. I think i will leave my desktop as is, as there is no urgent need for me to upgrade and why bother if I don't have to. I think I will use handbrake. If it is too slow on the e8400 then I will consider upgrading but I think I can manage. My library is not that large.

sm625 - I am not worried so much about the cash savings from a small system, though it is nice. I am also looking at the start up costs of the system. A Zacate platform is just cheaper to put together then even a modest standard desktop. I recently built a x3 (unlocked to 4) system for under $500 but I already owned a few components. From scratch I think I can put together an htpc or whs server with combo motherboard + case + ram + psu + OS for ~$300 - $350.

So my plan now is to build a Zacarate WHS box. Put together an HTPC with just the OS on it, run media center and a browser, and store everything on the server, ripping from the e8400 when needed.