Topic: Building an A/V PC

[taylorc]

Probably going to have one built in the coming months (maybe monarchcomputer.com).  Placing it in the rack with my main gear/television, and using it for VR, video playback and audio playback.

Any discussion for recommended components to use (for improving performance)?

[taylorc]

For starters, I've considered the following...

Case: SilverStone LC10M/LC14M - http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc14m.htm
OS: Winows MCE
Motherboard: ?
Power Supply: ?
Memory: ? - 2x512
Processor: Intel P4 3.0 2MB
Internal Hard Drives: (2) - 1 for OS/Apps [WD SATA 10kRPM 74GB], 1 for DVR Storage [Hitachi SATA 7200RPM 400GB]
External Hard Drives: LaCie Big Disk Extreme (FireWire 800)
Sound Card: M/Audio Audiophile 2496 (PCI)
Video Card: ? - DVI > (TV) HDMI or Component > (TV) Component
HDTV Tuner Card: ATI
FireWire 800 Card:

[Daryan]

Soundcard should go to 24/192 for future upgradeability.

[ducati]

I've been considering one.  I like these cases:

http://www.ahanix.com/ahanix_product_list.asp?cid=6

[1st set only]

sounds good PLEASE make a photo log and post it here, im sure there will be many who would like to have something similar.
+t

[dnsacks]

For starters, I've considered the following...

Case: SilverStone LC10M/LC14M - http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc14m.htm
OS: Winows MCE
Motherboard: ?
Power Supply: ?
Memory: ? - 2x512
Processor: Intel P4 3.0 2MB
Internal Hard Drives: (2) - 1 for OS/Apps [WD SATA 10kRPM 74GB], 1 for DVR Storage [Hitachi SATA 7200RPM 400GB]
External Hard Drives: LaCie Big Disk Extreme (FireWire 800)
Sound Card: M/Audio Audiophile 2496 (PCI)
Video Card: ? - DVI > (TV) HDMI or Component > (TV) Component
HDTV Tuner Card: ATI
FireWire 800 Card:

Phoam -- If this setup is going to be with your stereo, my primary concern would be with keeping it quiet.  This can get fairly trick, especially with the newer/hotter pentium chips  (the newer prescott-based chips run hotter than the older northwood chips) -- unless other apps require a faster cpu, you might want to consider running a older northwood 2.8g as your cpu. Also, be sure to check out www.htpcnews.com, specifically ttp://www.htpcnews.com/main.php?id=htpcmidbuyersguide_1 for more info on cooling and configuration.

Motherboard -- can't be of much help here, as the above link stresses, stability is key, you should likely also spec a board with a pci-e (instead of the older agp) video interface and perhaps ddr-2 instead of the older ddr memory standard.

Power supply -- again, htpcnews is a great resource re quiet/fanless power supplies

Video Card -- do you plan on using the htpc for gaming?  If so, gear your video card selection to your gaming requirements, if not, look for fanless cards that will generate less heat/noise.

Hard drives -- again, low noise.  Seagates are (I believe) supposed to be the quietest.  Don't know much about the noise/heat put off by a wd 10k rpm hdd, but if research shows it to be loud/hot, you might want to re-evaluate using it.  Also, will you be networking this pc with others?  If so, maybe you should skip using the firewire external drive on this pc and place supplemental storage on a networked pc?

TV capture -- be sure all cards you're using are compatible with WIndoes MCE -- this app's pretty picky re hardware and does not like, for example, many of the ati all in wonder cards.

[The Kilted Taper]

I've been considering one.  I like these cases:

http://www.ahanix.com/ahanix_product_list.asp?cid=6

Do I dare ask the price on those, Nate?

[scervin]

I think you might want to go visit avsforum.com.  In the Video Processor and HTPC forum you will find a ton of info and I'm sure you can find what you are looking for.

sc

[ducati]

I've been considering one.  I like these cases:

http://www.ahanix.com/ahanix_product_list.asp?cid=6

Do I dare ask the price on those, Nate?

I see a few of them on Newegg for about 250 clams.  Not terrible, they look great!!

[Tim]

For starters, I've considered the following...

Case: SilverStone LC10M/LC14M - http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc14m.htm
OS: Winows MCE
Motherboard: ?
Power Supply: ?
Memory: ? - 2x512
Processor: Intel P4 3.0 2MB
Internal Hard Drives: (2) - 1 for OS/Apps [WD SATA 10kRPM 74GB], 1 for DVR Storage [Hitachi SATA 7200RPM 400GB]
External Hard Drives: LaCie Big Disk Extreme (FireWire 800)
Sound Card: M/Audio Audiophile 2496 (PCI)
Video Card: ? - DVI > (TV) HDMI or Component > (TV) Component
HDTV Tuner Card: ATI
FireWire 800 Card:

Phoam -- If this setup is going to be with your stereo, my primary concern would be with keeping it quiet. This can get fairly trick, especially with the newer/hotter pentium chips (the newer prescott-based chips run hotter than the older northwood chips) -- unless other apps require a faster cpu, you might want to consider running a older northwood 2.8g as your cpu. Also, be sure to check out www.htpcnews.com, specifically ttp://www.htpcnews.com/main.php?id=htpcmidbuyersguide_1 for more info on cooling and configuration.

Motherboard -- can't be of much help here, as the above link stresses, stability is key, you should likely also spec a board with a pci-e (instead of the older agp) video interface and perhaps ddr-2 instead of the older ddr memory standard.

Power supply -- again, htpcnews is a great resource re quiet/fanless power supplies

Video Card -- do you plan on using the htpc for gaming? If so, gear your video card selection to your gaming requirements, if not, look for fanless cards that will generate less heat/noise.

Hard drives -- again, low noise. Seagates are (I believe) supposed to be the quietest. Don't know much about the noise/heat put off by a wd 10k rpm hdd, but if research shows it to be loud/hot, you might want to re-evaluate using it. Also, will you be networking this pc with others? If so, maybe you should skip using the firewire external drive on this pc and place supplemental storage on a networked pc?

TV capture -- be sure all cards you're using are compatible with WIndoes MCE -- this app's pretty picky re hardware and does not like, for example, many of the ati all in wonder cards.

how do you know all of this? I learn something from you everyday

[mizary]

I've been itching to build a HTPC for a while now...

Here is a good article...
http://www.2cpu.com/articles/113_1.html

There are so many things to consider...  it's overwhelming...  

Right now I like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE capture card (~$150)
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/cPath/21/products_id/161

Dual tuners built in...  So you can watch one thing while recording another.

As for software...  At first MythTV was the most tempting...  but I've never built/maintained a linux box...  so I think it would be too much for me to learn all at once.  WinXP MCE is also tempting...  But there are some limitations and doesn't seem as flexible as my current favorite.  SageTV.

Other questions I am wrestling with is...  do I really need a dedicated PC for this?  Or can I get away with using one for everything.  But am I going to get annoyed when I am trying to burn a DVD and something starts recording and both get screwed up.  Perhaps there are ways to work around this, like making sure nothing is recording while working on the PC.  But it would obviously be nicer to have two machines.  However I have a laptop I use quite a bit now for everyday web surfing/email.  My desktop mainly gets used as a HTPC now anyways.  So I will at least try to stick with one box at first.  (another reason why I don't want to go linux)  And in a year or two I'll probably want to upgrade anyways(current box is a 1.4ghz athlon xp, 512mb)...  so that wil eventually become a dedicated htpc box.  Also the setup of my computer room/living room makes it easy to share a pc between the rooms.  My current video card will let me do one monitor/lcd and one tv out.  Although I'd like to get one that would do 2 monitors and a tv all at the same time...  I can't live w/o dual monitors.

As for remotes...  the firefly seems pretty sweet.  and afterall it's the main input device.  I want the best/most usable remote available.
http://www.snapstream.com/products/firefly/default.asp?a=98

noise
I hate noise.  But I live in the city.  So I can't escape it.  I'm not spending an extra $200-300 to have a totally silent pc.  As long as it's not LOUD. I'll be ok.  But my current box is pretty loud, so I'd probably upgrade the PS.  and maybe the chip fan - but I think it's the PS fan that's the loud one.  ANd lookie here...  here is a "silent" PS for under $50.  (ok it's probably not silent, but quiet is good enough for me.)

And if you people still want your fancy HTPC case....  here is a ncie selection
http://www.pcalchemy.com/index.php/cPath/23

And yeah...  if I had more $$$ I'd be all over it.

And there there is the little stuff like an IR blaster...
http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/cPath/44/products_id/87

$50!  What a rip off.  But there isn't much you can do if your STB (set top box- cable/sat box) doesn't have the serial cable option which allows the PC to change the channels and stuff.

Then after thinking about all of this I always think to myself...  The cable companies offer free (or fairly cheap) PVR's.. even HD pvr's.

If I had an HDTV I would say forget about it!  and get the cable companies HD PVR.  But I am going to try and wait another year or so before I go out and buy a HDTV.

whew...

If/when I do start building my HTPC I'll post here about my success/failure/insanity...

then there are sound card options...  and networks...  and about 20 things I haven't thoght about.

--mizary

[BobW]

Watch the chipset fans, whiny little buggers.  I removed mine and went to a large, qiet case fan.
Same for CPU coolers.  - swapped mine out for a funnel and a larger fan.

Panaflo case fans are very quiet.
Get quiet (under 23db) powersupply

There's a lot of interesting stuff out there.

Let us know what works and what doesn't.

[hyperplane]

i'm not sure if this will work with "TV capture" applications, but this WILL work...

get a video capture device - e.g. Canopus ADVC-100 (or Datavideo DAC-100) or the Canopus 1394 card, or ADVCio 300 or something like that... you can capture directly from cable box A/V outputs in *great* quality as DV .AVI files on your pc's hard disk. then easily edit out commericals, encode to MPEG-2 and boom, great quality DVDs.

there's a guide on videohelp.com about how to set up one of these capture devices like a TiVo unit - you just need a program like Scenalyzer Live, a Macro app, and Windows built-in Task manager, and you can set it up to do record at specific times. virtually a digital VCR, but much more versatile... you can do VHS/SVHS > DVD conversions with one of these cards as well (sweet stuff).

and i've been wanting to put together a HTPC for a while now myself, just don't have the loot toegther right now to do it... hopefully uncle sam will smile on me in a few days.

[mizary]

I formatted my desktop last night...

I think I am going to give the HTPC thing a go on my main pc.  If it becomes a problem down the road...  I'll buy a cheap ($300) box for day to day stuff.  It can't hurt to have an extra server anyways.  Plus I have the lappy for day to day surfing/email.

I guess first I have to get highspeed internet and cable tv. 

I'm debating getting super basic cable...  locals/pbs/public access or regular basic.  or "digital level" which would get me fox sports  and some other good channels which would be nice.

Rigth now timewarner (cincy) has a deal for super basic (they call it lifeline) cable and road runner for $30/mo for 6 months.  I figure a decent cable package with fox sports would add $30-40/mo to that...  not too bad I guess.  If I am going to go through the trouble of setting up this HTPC I might as well get some decent tv to watch on it.

My first step is getting inet and cable.  Then setting up a home network (which I've never done, but have plenty of help)

Then I plan on getting a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE and probably the firefly remote.

I have a 200GB drive which I'll probably use as the main video drive...  and keep my 120gb and a 40gb for everything else.

Then finally I'll give the trial of SageTV and if I love it - I'll buy that...  or I'll try out beyondTV.

This is my plan...

now will I really do it?

--mizary

[dnsacks]

mizary -- do you live in a major metropolitan area?  If so, you might want to check out whether you can pick up digital television (hdtv) stations over the air. Nice thing about digital tv is that if you can lock to the signal, you'll get a perfect picture -- either all or nothing, no fuzzy ghosting, etc.  If broadcast dtv is an option, you can merely install a hdtv tuner card in your htpc (not too expensive) and get NICE picture quality (and dts sound) for free.

I live in metro denver and understand that I can pick up all of our dtv channels (quite a few) with an external antenna hidden in our attic.  On my short list . . .