HTPC build

[Adcadet]

Hey gang,
With the baby on the way, I'm looking to finally build a home theater PC. I would love to use the internals from my current PC if possible to save money - this includes a Core 2 Duo 6300 (I'd de-overclock it), and Asus P5NE-SLI 2 GB RAM, and GeForce 7900GS. I'd want to add in a blue ray reader and a large hard drive (probably 2 TB via a Samsung F3EG vs Barracuda LP). We bring cable TV in via coaxial cable. I'll be getting a new TV as well which would also provide speakers. Is there anything wrong with this setup if I add a TV tuner card (a Hauppauge card on my PCI-E 1x slot?), an OS that has good support for this sort of thing (Win 7 media center?), and make sure that my chosen case can fit where I want it to go and still fit in the ATX motherboard and provide reasonable cooling?

Thanks,
Adcadet

 

[CougTek]

The smallest case you could have that fit a full-ATX motherboard and full size graphic card would be the Silverstone LC16M. It is still a substantial enclosure and it won't fit in many audio/video furnitures. Since you're American and therefore, you probably don't understand the metric system, it measures 16.73"(W) x 16.73"(D) x 6.7"(H).

Windows 7 Home Premium with the appropriate codecs will do the job for a HTPC.

 

[BingBangBop]

Avoid Seagate LP as a rather unreliable drive.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't think that's an exactly ideal set of parts to work with. That's probably overkill in the video card department, for one thing.

I'd probably look at something I could fit in an Antec NSK-2480, for starters.

My current HTPC just has a simple Gigabyte G31-based motherboard and an E5300 CPU, with a passively-cooled Radeon 5450 and an Auzentech X-Meridian sound card. I store everything on file servers so the noise in my living room is minimal, but the NSK-2480 is designed to minimize drive noise, so I would think that 2TB or so of disk space would be tons.

I use a Logitech keyboard for Playstation 3 and a USB-to-Bluetooth adapter for control, but I lose connection occasionally, so I leave a regular keyboard and trackball plugged in as well.

My optical drive is an LG HDDVD/BD reader. They're not sold any more, but based on my observations, I'd rather have an LG BD drive than a Pioneer or LiteOn; both of the latter are substantially louder in normal operation, at least among the models I've encountered.

I don't really worry about recording TV any more. I have a USB tuner if I really care, but I can't get reception where I am anyway. I've heard that there have been improvements made in Cablecard-based tuners, but I've also heard nightmare stories about getting support for cablecard-based anything. I figure it's not worth the effort.

My current HTPC has Windows 7 Business on it; I won't install anything that doesn't do Remote Desktop.

 

[Adcadet]

Win 7 home premium doesn't do Remote Desktop?!

 

[Adcadet]

...then what do I use after securing my VPN connection to use my work desktop?

 

[ddrueding]

Home can run the remote desktop client, you just can't connect to a Home install.

 

[MaxBurn]

If you have a home server you supposedly can RDP into anything through that whether it supports RDP or not.

 

[ddrueding]

The new Mac Mini looks like a pretty good place to start an HTPC. The server version can hold a pair of 500GB drives and 8GB of RAM.

 

[timwhit]

The new Mac Mini looks like a pretty good place to start an HTPC. The server version can hold a pair of 500GB drives and 8GB of RAM.

Seems like a pretty expensive option.

 

[ddrueding]

It is. But the feature set is nice, and you can't beat the form factor or appearance.

 

[LunarMist]

Surely 640GB drives would work as well. Why would one want such an overpriced little device unless space is really tight?

 

[ddrueding]

Tight space or wanting a clean look.

 

[timwhit]

I'd much rather have something that can take several large drives. I have a 1TB drive in my HTPC. I store a variety of media locally though, because my network is so damn slow.

 

[ddrueding]

Drives are inherently noisy, I'd rather have them off on the network somewhere.

 

[timwhit]

Drives are inherently noisy, I'd rather have them off on the network somewhere.

What if your network could only transfer at 500 K/s?

I definitely can't hear my HTPC running. I haven't shut it down since the last time I went on vacation.

 

[ddrueding]

What if your network could only transfer at 500 K/s?

I'd rebuild my network? That is really slow, are you having cabling issues?

 

[timwhit]

I'd rebuild my network? That is really slow, are you having cabling issues?

No, I'm using powerline networking. WiFi doesn't work worth a damn in my unit and there no where to run Cat5.

 

[ddrueding]

Ah, that does suck. Honestly, my installation has my file server right next to my HTPC (in the same chassis, for that matter), but they are still separate machines.

 

[Stinker]

Since you're American and therefore, you probably don't understand the metric system.

You must be Canadian to be that mis-informed.

 

[time]

Ouch!

Stinker, do you have accident insurance?

 

[CougTek]

Not worth a trip to break a kitchen counter with his forehead. If he had been in front of me when saying it though...

I should have written "not familiar" instead of "not unerstand". I'm sure Adcadet is perfectly capable of converting the millimeters to inches. However, due to the fact that he's more than thirty years old, that the imperial system was a lot more used in the early eighties in the States (about the time he learned to measure stuff) and that the metric system is still struggling today to penetrate the American market, I believe a size in inches must tell him a lot more than a size in millimeters.

Calling me a Canadian for this was exagerated and uncalled for.

 

[LunarMist]

We had to learn the metric system in the 1960s and it became a major thinking mode in school in the 1970s for us science/engineer types. The English system is too difficult, especially for liquid volumes. Everthing is µL, mL or liters to me. Likewise small distance measures are all metric. I do sometimes think in inches/feet for intermediate measures of ~1.5-10 meters, then I think in metric again. Temperatures I do both and the equivalents are so ingrained I switch back and forth depending on who I am speaking with. At work everything is °C of course.

 

[BingBangBop]

All I can say on this subject is that if a penis is measured using inches it certainly is much smaller than when measured in millimeters. I'm sure that that is why Canadians and Europeans are better in bed than Americans.

 

[LunarMist]

All I can say on this subject is that if a penis is measured using inches it certainly is much smaller than when measured in millimeters. I'm sure that that is why Canadians and Europeans are better in bed than Americans.

I don't understand either of those statements. :monkey:

 

[Adcadet]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.

Given that my main job these days is research, which is all done in metric, and my backup gig is medicine, which is also all in metric, I'm pretty familiar with metric units of measurement.

 

[BingBangBop]

I don't understand either of those statements. :monkey:

Size does matter!

Take an arbitrary penis size in inches and take that same size in mm. Which number is bigger? bigger is equivalent to better in bed. QED.

How good is a joke, if it has to be explained?

 

[LunarMist]

An object has a certain physical size that is independent of the measurement units. Another example is would money be worth more in a currency with lesser denominations? Of course not.

 

[timwhit]

An object has a certain physical size that is independent of the measurement units. Another example is would money be worth more in a currency with lesser denominations? Of course not.

IT'S A JOKE!

 

[BingBangBop]

It really must have been a very bad joke that even after explaining it needs to be corrected as to how it does not match reality. Jokes are about absurdity, not reality. Bad joke! Sorry for inflicting upon you.

 

[LunarMist]

Sorry. I didn't mean to derail the thread.

 

[Howell]

Calling me a Canadian for this was exagerated and uncalled for.

:-D

 

[LiamC]

Calling me a Canadian for this was exagerated and uncalled for.

Being Canadian is bad?

:drl::lol::smack:

 

[time]

This thread explains.

From this post:

But you live in the country called Canada though, right? Were you born there?

I'm born in Québec, which isn't in the Canadian constitution since 1982 (or was it 1981, I never remember). Although not officially a country, Québec is also not really Canada either. Of course, I'm born well before 1981 when both Québec and Canada shared a common constitution, but no matter what I look that is "canadian" (people, flag, RCMP, beaver), I don't feel I'm concern/related to it.

Canada has always been a forced wedding between two people who were not made to live together. It's more than time to do a divorce. The same is true for Scotland and England IMO. But that's a whole different story.

 

[Adcadet]

Well, 5 months later, and I'm now planning a build sometime before Christmas. Man I'm slow. It also doesn't help that I know jack squat about AV things. My 7 year old Tivo is dying, so I can't sit on this forever.

I've ditched the idea of re-using my old PC. I also have yet to buy a new TV to go with this, but I'm thinking about a 40-ish inch LCD TV. I still wish to build a HTPC to record and watch TV shows, play back DVDs/BDs, and maybe even play games on it as well.

My biggest question is whether the integrated graphics on a Clarksdale i3, together with a TV tuner card, would give me everything I need. Should I insist on getting a Display Port? Is the onboard graphics on the i3s really good enough for light gaming now, and for a few years to come?

On option is a mini-ITX case and motherboard (for an example, see http://techreport.com/articles.x/19641/1). This would only give me a single PCI expansion slot, which would likely be used by a TV tuner card, and I'd be stuck with the onboard graphics of a Clarksdale i3. I suppose I could get an external TV tuner device, but that would seem less cool.

A slightly bigger option is a micro-ATX build with a discrete graphics card (such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102902). This would give me a Display Port, DX11 support, and better graphics performance (I presume).

Does anybody have suggestions for a TV tuner card? The only thing I know is "Hauppage", but that's because I've seen them in Best Buys for years.

Are you guys building HTPCs these days? Thoughts?

 

[ddrueding]

I haven't built an HTPC with specialty capture gear in years, though I will have to soon. The integrated graphics are alright, but nothing exceptional. It can handle Civ5 on lower settings, but I wouldn't go FPS on it.

 

[Stereodude]

Does anybody have suggestions for a TV tuner card? The only thing I know is "Hauppage", but that's because I've seen them in Best Buys for years.

I like the HD Homerun assuming you're talking about OTA HDTV or clear QAM.

Keep in mind the integrated Intel solution doesn't do 1080p24 correctly.

 

[Adcadet]

Keep in mind the integrated Intel solution doesn't do 1080p24 correctly.

Why is that?

 

[Stereodude]

Why is that?

I think it's because it doesn't support 23.976FPS. I haven't looked into it too closely, just know that's what been widely reported at AVSforum that it's not the solution to use if you want 1080p24 (really 23.976) so the video will stutter as a result every so many seconds.

 

[CougTek]

At this point, I recommend you wait for SandyBridge. The integrated controller will be so much better, you'll regret to miss it because you couldn't wait a few months (rumored to be released in January IIRC).