Home Theatre PC websites
 

I'm looking at some Home Theatre PCs, both barebones systems and custom built. I've looked at AOpen EA65, MSI Mega 865, Ahanix Divine, Shuttle, Cooler Master ACT-620, Asus DigiMatrix, Soltek, etc.

The PC will be hooked up to my TV to watch DVDs, to watch TV shows, and to record TV shows (digitally). I can then throw out my DVD player and VHS player. The PC will also run a webserver and a database.

The EA65 and Mega 865 seem overkill since they are designed to also be used without running Windows but since I'm running it as a webserver, it will be running Windows 24/7 so I don't really want to pay for that feature. But I like the LCD displays such as the one that comes with the EA65, Mega 865, and Ahanix VFD.

I want a remote control. Should I get the one that comes with the PC or use the one that comes with the TV Tuner card?

What's a good website for Home Theatre PC forums and reviews? I'm looking at htpcnews.com

Sam, thats something I have been looking into myself. Well, I have been contemplating it, I know its possible to do but I havent taken the time to figure out.

I just know the newer shuttles look really nice, come with high end components and wouldnt detract from my entertainment center. I have heard that a linux box is a better solution then the windows setups... but that info came from a hardcore linux friend of mine...

I was also doing this for some time and finally took the plunge and built my own using a free package that you run under Linux called MythTV www.mythtv.org Now if your computer minded this is very simple


Check out some of pictures


http://hribnak.com/photos/MythTV/slides/P5170025.JPG

http://hribnak.com/photos/MythTV/slides/P5170026.JPG

Above is my actual PC with a Hauppauge 350 Tuner card (www.hauppauge.com), which I am using for video capture, and using its TV out port to hook into my TV.

The case works. I love it.. Now there are better ones out there but run about $300+ just for the case and no PS, this one was $160 with PS or so

There is also smaller cases that work good as well.

My backend server (where I record all shows, watch shows from etc) is a PIII 800 with 8 x 120 gig harddrives (in a Raid 5) I have about 500 gig alloted to my PVR setup. I can record over the network via NFS to this file server with no problems or hiccups. I even play stuff recorded to my main mythfrontend. Eventually I will have more MythFrontends (with capture cards) and they will all share the file server so you can be on any of them and still see all recorded shows. Also the more capture cards you have MythTV will know about them and schedual recordings so you can recard as many shows at once as you have capture cards, even do PIP.


I am getting a DVD burner for my main PC so I can record what I want to the DVD (as well as cut out all commercials) The MythTV also does commercial flagging ( now its not perfect) so when your watching you can adjust the start and end of a commercial and when you transcode, the commercials will be removed.


I could go on.. :)


I am using a PII333 as the PVR350 card does encoding and decoding of the Mpeg stream on the card. If you were to use a TV Out video card you would need a faster machine as decoding will be done via software and encoding will be done on the capture board you are using.


I love this free PVR Software, it has so much potential. If anyone in Calgary wants help setting one up I will do it for frags <grin>

If you have questions drop me a private here.


Jim[/url]

Thanks guys. Nice setup DiscusZ. So far, I haven't looked at the software end as I'm still looking at the aesthetics of the case and lcd panel.

The SilverStone LC03-VFD seems to get high reviews and comes in a car-shiney black.

http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=silverstone_lc03_1

http://htpcnews.com/images/silversto...fdon_small.jpg

The Gateway 901 is COOL!

http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=gateway901_7

http://htpcnews.com/images/gateway90...lows_small.jpg

The Divine Series is NEAT!
http://www.ahanix.com/ctg_htc.html

http://www.ahanix.com/items/dvine3/dvine3_01.jpg

http://www.ahanix.com/items/dvine5/dvine5_01.jpg


The only thing I didn't like was that these are 16" deep. I would prefer something closer to 12".

Maybe this is what I want.
http://www.standsunique.com/strata.html

http://www.standsunique.com/s7.jpg

Lots of research ahead.

Sam, this is similar to mine, with a bit less performance. Very small and quite.


http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...facture=SOLTEK

yeah, I love the size of those cubes. Does anyone know if I can add a programmable VFD to that? If so, that's the way I'm going to go.

Sweet. I think I'm good to go. thanks for the tip Robert. The black one with the mirror front panel with the VFD Add-On might look alright. This just might work! I do prefer the lower and wider stereo-look but those cases are just too deep (16") for me.


http://209.52.147.146/images/10281-l.gif

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...=11&id=869&pg=

http://www.matrixorbital.temp.wehost...02a-bk-600.jpg

I've decided that the above SFF PCs are still too large and will be going with the smaller mini-itx boards. Maybe I'll wait for a nano-itx based PC like this. Pretty neat for a Windows or Linux PC.

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/nanode/

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/nanode/...nanode-08L.jpg

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/nanode/...nanode-03L.jpg

double post :rolleyes:

Jim, I have a computer I could use to do this so aside from a TV card, what all do I need to do this? I mean do you just run a good sound card and put the outputs to the suround sound unit? and the vid card out to the TV? also is there any windows software that can do this also? I am not very good with linux, or is the linux pretty much plug and go :rolleyes:

Steve

Steve, I think the TV Tuner with remote control is all you need. It comes with the Windows software required to watch DVD's and download TV listsings from the Net and record TV programs like a VCR but with more features. While watching any TV show, you can pause, go to the bathroom, return and continue where you left off (I assume this is because the show is stored on the hard disk while you have paused it). You connect your TV straight to the TV tuner itself. As for audio, you'll get an audio cable that goes from the TV tuner to your soundcard. Buy a TV tuner that supports stereo. Some cheaper cards like the ATI TV Wonder VE only support mono audio.

The more I search the net, the more HTPC's I find. This is a real trend. Why pay $900 for a DVD recorder w/ HD from Futureshop (for example) when you can build a HTPC for less that does more)

Here are just a few more pics out of the hundreds of HTPC's out there. If we find that the VIA 1.2Ghz CPUs are too slow, there are now mini-itx sized P4 motherboards that we can use in the cases below instead. The pictures below are just fancy cases. Any old PIII (or better) PC can do the same thing.


http://www.mini-itx.com/link.asp?sit...tory0161fL.jpg

http://www.ahanix.com/items/micromini/micromini_01.jpg

http://www.epiacenter.com/bilder/new...wer_new5_s.jpg

http://hoojum.com/albums/oem/gallery_1.jpg

http://hoojum.com/jpgs/c3_3_800.jpg

Here is a quick look at the drivespace I have assigned to my PVR I built.

Mount total Used Avail
MythTV 506G 297G 209G 59% /mnt/store
Captured_Video 29G 18G 9.8G 65% /var/lib/mythvideo

I do all my recordings across to a file server. I use NFS. My PVR frontend does not hav emuch drive space..

Sam.. Have you done anything with this yet?

No, I haven't done anything yet. My first choice was to get the Cubit3 case straight from Hoojum and then buy the internals locally (since the case is not available anywhere else). However, the costs of just the case, powersupply, and shipping, is about $700 before tax. So then I have to add the motherboard, hard drive, RAM, etc and the cost would be over $1,200 for a Cubit3 which is basically a Celeron 1.2Ghz equivalent .

So then I looked at the Hush and that starts at $1,000 for the basic system as well.

Since a basic P4 2.4Ghz complete systems (wo monitor) can be had for <$400, I'm not keen on getting these fancy mini-itx systems. I would rather buy the internals and get a cheap case.

Check this out. Its a mini-itx PC in a breadbox. :biggrin: Now, that's a CHEAP case. Total price of the system: $284US.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/module...rtid=42&page=1

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/...dbox/final.jpg

Some other neat systems:


Cookie Box

http://www.epiacenter.com/images/pro...uit_tin/17.jpg

Toaster PC

http://www.epiacenter.com/images/pro...c/Image018.jpg

Hummer PC

http://www.epiacenter.com/bilder/projects/h2-itx/34.gif

SamW, you gone anywhere with this yet? the reason I ask is I just picked up a PIII450 for 20 bucks and was thinking of turning it into one of these if it is powerfull enuf.

Steve

Hi Steve.

Wow, good deal for your PIII.

I have finalized the spec of my HTPC. But money is tight right now. :) I'm just waiting for my next paycheque or 2. :)

I'm still going with the Mini-Itx hardware. I'm going to be getting the EPIA MII-12000 (Equivalent to Celeron 1.2Ghz). The only place in Canada that sells it right now that I can find is at Koonline. http://www.koonline.net/detail.aspx?ID=213

For some reason, this MB/CPU is hard to find in N. America. They are easy to get in Europe however.

The case I'm going to get is the Silverstone LC-06 or 05. This is my 2nd choice behind the Hoojum cube but its half the price. It should look good in the living room. http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc06.htm

what are you using for a tv decoder card? I am looking at the hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350 myself but I am undecided on sound as of yet.. I have a dolby digital 6.1 system so I gues thats what I need in a card also.

Steve

I don't know exactly yet but I know that you can't really go wrong with Hauppauge nor Leadtek

http://www.videohelp.com/capturecard...&Search=Search

Most people tend to hate the ATI cards.

The EPIA MII has built in MPEG2 hardware so I'm guessing that I don't need to buy a TV card with that feature.

ya the hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 is a real popular one but it only had a Mpeg2 encoader, the hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350 has both the Mpeg 2 encoder, and decoder plus it has built in fm radio. from what I have read so far these two seam to be the two most recomended ones.

Steve

Steve, the PIII should work well.

I just turned my old Dell Dimension 4100 into one using the Hauppauge WindTV-PVR-250 card. I upgraded the RAM to 512MB and put another fan in there for cooling. So far so good.

I still need to upgrade the hard-drive as the one I have in there is only 30GB. Decided to go for an external hard drive instead as the old Dell only has a CDburner and no DVD burner (my new computers have DVD burners). Planning to build one and am waiting for the drive and HD enclosure to arrive.

what video card are you using with the 250?

Steve

NVIDIA GeForce FX5200

hmm ok, I wish there was a good page for how to build one instead of haveing to filtering through little tidbits of info here and there.

with your video card and tv tuner, the 250 only has hardware encoding, where the 350 has hardware encoding and decoding, how do you handle your decoding?

Steve

This may be useful
http://www.tv-cards.com

London Drugs has the 250 on sale this week at $149 (reg $199). Steve, do you think your CPU isn't fast enough to decode MPEG2? Basically, you only need to decode when you watch DVD's. I think my Celeron 300A was fast enough to decode DVD's without hardware acceleration.

well the min requirments for the 250 and 350 look like a 700Mhz cpu, I have decided to go with the 350 I think, but I will try it on the 450 and see how it works I guess.

Steve

Here's a website called Building Your Own Personal Video Recorder

http://www.byopvr.com/

They just had a review for your card. Apparently the 350 doesn't decoded DVDs even though it has an MPEG decoder onboard. Strange.

My EPIA MII 12000 arrived last week. So, this week, I'm ordering the Silverstone LC02 (Right, I changed my mind on the case yet once again).

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc02.htm
http://www.pcunleash.com/bbs/view.ph...emReview&no=14

I also bought the Hauppauge PVR-250.

I'm almost there. Slowly, but I'm getting there.

What software you going with Sam? I have upgraded and now I am running Myth-0.16 lots of good changes, and a new Theme. I have dumped Winblows for my desktop machine and now I am running FC 2 on my desktop (rock solid and faster than my windows evert could be) I also run a Myth Frontend o nthere as wbell, I have streamed LIVE TV from my Main MythBox to my Desktop flawlessly, I have even watched my recorded shows.

Oh and The guys at myth (well MythWeb) added some of my code on the web part and now shows total recorded time for all shows you have recorded.. Very cool :)

I just wished my tuner card I have in my Desktop was compatible. once I can afford it I will get another PVR-350 card, or wait for the nbew Dual Tuner 350 card to come out :)


Jim

Man I thought I was a bit of a geek... I have no clue what you guys are talking about except when you bring Windows and NVidia into the picture. :confused:

Nice to hear that your code has been incorporated into the MythTV software.

No idea on the software that I will end up using yet. I figure I'll just use the software that comes with the PVR card. Then, maybe I'll look into something else like SageTV. But I still need to figure out what these 3rd party PVR software has that my bundled software doesn't have.

Here's a neat poll:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=321916

I've got all the parts now. So, I will be putting the pieces together. Except, I tested the new Hynix DDR400 512MB RAM on my ASUS board with the SPD Timing set (3-3-3-8) and it crashes the OS constantly. The only way to get my RAM to work is to manually set my DRAM timing to 3-4-4-8 which is fine but I'm going to return the RAM and get something else like Kingston which should have SPD Timing that works.

Oh, by the way, does anyone know where to get a wireless folding keyboard?

Hmmm, I nearly installed mythtv the other day. Then I found out my card isnt supported (stupid ati all in wonder card!). So, I've sold that and am waiting on a hauppage card to come in the mail.

Guess I'm going ot have to do some reading on the forums linked here and see whats the best software available.

http://www.hyperdream.com/~samw/htpc...g_6764_std.jpg


Too much space inside the case.

http://www.hyperdream.com/~samw/htpc...g_6767_std.jpg

never mind the space in the case what are you doing drinking vanilla coke :eek: ? :mrgreen:

Steve

wow, looks like you can cram a full micro atx in there ;)

TeeVee -> next time youtr going to pass through Calgary let me know I will show you the setup

Stircrazy. I had a PVR 350 running with no problems on a PII 333 with no issues, its now in a Dual Celeron 450 and using it with my MythTV Frontend

SamW -> What did that all set you back? I am going to have to buy a new system soon. rather than using old piece meal setups :)


J

Jim, it was reasonable but not the best bang for the buck that's for sure. The EPIA MII was $290 and the Silverstone LC02 was $170. Then of course, you need to add the PVR card, RAM, HD, DVD drive, KB, mouse, etc. Its a bit pricey for a Celeron 1.2Ghz equivalent since a Celeron 2.4Ghz generic system nowadays can be had for $345. The selling point of the board, I guess, other than the small size, is that it uses about 10 watts of power. :lol:

http://www.hyperdream.com/~samw/htpc...g_6757_std.jpg

not bad price for the case.. thats the EXACT one i was going to get.. but when I priced it out some time ago (6 months or more) that case was closer top $250

where did you order the case from? I might have to get one now :) and sue my current Overture case on another TV (basement TV maybe)

What software are you going to run? Beyond TV? Mythtv? something else?

If you go the Myth route I will gladly help (from remote)


Jim

Jim, the cheapest place I've found for Computer Parts is Newtech/Worldwide Computers. They've renamed to Discount Computers. The other 3 local places I found that carried this case were selling it for $190-$240. They are in Vancouver though. They aren't a mail order place even though they are called "WorldWide". :lol:

I'm still just going to go with the bundled PVR software and see how I like it.

Sam have you ever heard of Generic Computer on Broadway? That's where I get my stuff, I've been told they're among the cheapest in the city.