Building my HTPC - Updated

[Rich in KCK]

Well last week I went on a shopping spree and bought a bunch of stuff to build myself an HTPC. I decided to cannibalize my main gaming rig for some parts and do a partial upgrade of the main gaming rig at the same time. I do plan on doing more to the main rig in the first half of 2005 that will leave me with 2 pretty good rigs for anyone that happens to stop by for some MP LAN action. The HTPC alone will be another pretty damn good rig as it will consist of most of the parts in my gaming rig as of now. Ok here goes the parts list starting with a pic of the HTPC case.



That's the case but I got the brushed black Aluminum one to match my Amp.

The parts that will be going in it.

Ahanix D5 aluminum HTPC case
AMD 1700+ (OC to a 2400+ in current system, don’t know if I will OC in HTPC)
Epox 8rda+ Nforce 2 Mobo (stolen from main rig)
Powercolor 9700pro with DVI to Component output adapter (stolen from main rig)
Chaintech 7.1 audio card (will use the Nforce soundstorm for movies and this for anything else.)
1 gig of pc2700 ram (stolen from main rig)
120 gig ATA drive (stolen from main rig)
NEC 16x dual layer DVD burner
Aeroflow 2 CPU cooler (I've used Aeroflow 1's in several cases for people with good results.)
Microsoft Wireless optical desktop 3.0 keyboard & mouse

This new keyboard is great; they've curved the keys into a more ergonomic configuration without splitting the keyboard in half. The wrist wrest thing is also a padded leather like substance. The mouse feels like it will suck though; it's much lighter than my MX700 and a little smaller.

I'm going to use XP pro in it but other than that I'm not really sure what I'm going to run software wise.

Ok, the gaming rig will now have this in it.

Koolance Full Water Cooled Tower
AMD 3200+ (I've had this sitting here since late August and haven't installed it yet for lack of a decent mobo and ram.)
Albatron KX18D PRO II mobo Ultra 400 mobo (The additional audio options were what sold me on this one and I had a great experience with a 4200TI Turbo card from them.) - New
1 Gig of pc3200 ram - New
MSI 9800pro card "The Green one" (Hard to find now but if you can find the green one it should show up as a 9800XT and if not it can be flashed to one. Supposed to be a hell of an overclocker as well with massive heatsink and fan on it.) - New
Samsung 160g SATA drive - New
Plextor 708a DVD burner

I water cool the CPU and hard drive, I have the parts to cool the video card but no way to monitor the temp on it so I've been reluctant to do it. It's cheaper to replace a CPU than a video card anyway for me.

Whew, I haven't been this excited about my PC's in quite awhile. Anyone who has a HTPC I could use some suggestions on what software to utilize. I'll be doing a lot more reading on the AVS forums as well.

Now I just need some time to put it all together, stupid overtime schedule.

[EvilHomer3k]

If you haven't purchased the OS, yet, you should look into getting Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition. It is a little more costly (about $50) but with the right graphics card, it can handle all the recording and playback features for you in a nice integrated package.

One thing to make sure you do is set the HD up to be quiet. I had an HTPC with two WD 80gb SE drives that whined terribly. The samsungs I have now are 100 times better. You may think about dropping that 160gb samsung in your htpc.

[Rich in KCK]

I'll take a listen to the HD's and compare them, thanks.

I think I will try to find some custom front ends for XPpro since I have 2 copies of it already.

I'm mainly interested in upconverting DVD's to 720p or 1080i on my HDTV. I forgot that I have a Leadtek capture card here that I took out on my last rebuild, I'll be putting that in the HTPC so I can transfer shows from my Directivo over to the burner.

[LawBeefaroni]

My HTPC has an AMD XP1800+ processor in it, IIRC, and I haven't needed to O/C it. I would lay off overclocking unless you need it. Heat and noise are a bigger issue for an HTPC. Stock cooling, or a quiet HSF/fan combo should work.

Get an HD catpure card. I would recommend the MyHD 120. The MyHD software lets you capture HDTV from the digital transport stream (full HD, 1080i, 5.1, mutiple channels on the same stream, around 8GB an hour) all the way down to custom MP4 or AVI resolutions if you're conserving space. I don't have cable or dish, so I don't know how it plays with those, but everything I've heard is positive.

Software:
PowerStrip is essential. Lets you tweak your display to get the best desktop/PC settings.

You can try out Media Portal. It's free and open source. I tried it but it was fairly redundant for my setup so I don't use it much. Nice program though.

I wouldn't get the MS Media Center OS. I don't know of anything it does that you can't do on regular XP. Maybe not out the box, but XP is solid. Why mess around with a specialty OS? Even if it's just XP with some additions, why shell out the $50?

[Rich in KCK]

Well I've finished the HTPC build after a few minor problems and one big one. Here was the final parts list that went in it and the rest of the system.

Ahanix D'Vine5 case with VFD
Albatron KX18D Pro II MOtherboard
AMD 1700+
AeroFlow II CPU Cooler
1 Gig of PC2700
160G Seagate SATA HD
ATI 9700pro w/component out DVI adapter
ATI HDTV Wonder PCI card
Chaintech 7.1 soundcard & the Nvidia onboard sound both output via optical outputs to the stereo system.
NEC 3500A DVDRW
Microsoft desktop 3.0 keyboard & mouse (the keyboard is awesome, mouse sucks)
Hitachi 50V500 50" RPLCD
Sony 5.1 500W stereo system along with some really crappy Sony speakers
HSU 200W subwoofer
Hughes dual tuner Directivo

I'm running XP Pro right now with Theater Tek & FFDshow for post processing of my DVD's. The CPU doesn't have enough power to really do everything I'd like to with FFDshow at the resolution I need it set to. I'll probably go with Winamp with the audio output via the Chaintech for music. The HDTV over the air reception via the ATI Wonder card does indeed look better than the standard Digital picture from Directv at least until Directv starts offering locals in HDTV. I ran the same show PIP side by side using the two different inputs to compare the picture quality. I still need a better antenna and upgrade the antenna wire to improve it more. I still have a lot of stuff to test like recording shows saved to the Directivo onto the HTPC via the HDTV Wonder card. And all of the PVR functions of the Wonder card as well. It does do a good job of time shifting live TV though.

The build itself was a nightmare for me. I somehow screwed up the motherboard intended for this project, the AGP slot refused to work no matter what video card I put in it. The change to the motherboard that was to go into my gaming rig also necessitated the use of the HD that was supposed to go into the gaming rig as well. Due to the placement of the drives in the case and the location of the IDE channels on the mobo there was no way to plug in more than one IDE channel so I had to go with the SATA outputs on the mobo. I also found out that I still needed a 3 1/2" drive to install XP onto a SATA drive so I had to scrounge up one of those. I tried for a few days to get Zoomplayer to work with FFDshow and it never would. I tried TheaterTek and it took care of the problems. The Wonder card was an impulse buy based on the price. It was a lot cheaper at the store where I was picking up some cables than I had seen it anywhere online. Maybe I should have gone with the one Law mentioned but I had forgot about his recommendation.

I'll try to get some pics done and maybe a few screenshots of PIP showing the difference of the HDTV vs. the directv along with the results of using FFDshow on a DVD.

[LawBeefaroni]

The HDTV over the air reception via the ATI Wonder card does indeed look better than the standard Digital picture from Directv at least until Directv starts offering locals in HDTV. I ran the same show PIP side by side using the two different inputs to compare the picture quality. I still need a better antenna and upgrade the antenna wire to improve it more.

An antenna/wire upgrade won't improve visual quality. Digital signals are digital, either you get a picture and sound or you don't. When you get it, it's as sharp as it will get. Improving your antenna might get you more stations and higher strength signals (meaning the won't cut out when a truck drives by or whatever). I'm pretty sure OTA signals are the highest bandwidth, higher than cable or DTV. Naturally they'll look better. The decoder makes a difference as well and your HTPC probably does a better job than the DTV box.

Just posting so you don't go out and buy a huge powered antenna and rewire everything for a clearer picture.

Interested in pictures. Also, how do you like that case, especially now that you've had to put parts in it?

[Rich in KCK]

Yeah I knew the picture wouldn't get better. What I meant by improving it more was I needed to get rid of the ocasional stutter when watching and I only get a partial signal from my 720p ABC feed. I need to rewire because the old antenna cable came through on a different wall and I had to cobble together a bunch of short patch cords using spliters to hook it up and see what it looked like.

The case worked well in the end but not without some sacrifices. I wanted an ATX case and that was one of the few I could find intended to blend in with your stereo equipment. The problem though in using an ATX board instead of a micro/flex board is that the rack that holds the drives is very close then. My Hard drive is about a 1/2" away from the mobo and the DVD drive over hangs the mobo. Like I said I was ok with my first mobo as the IDE channels were located near the bottom corner of it but the one I had to use in the end they were directly behind and under the two drives. Using the shortest rounded cables I had I literally could not plug both drives in, good thing the sata was an option for the HD. The black also shows an awful lot of fingerprints, more than regular stereo equipment does, I would go silver if I had to do it again. Oh, and the tiny screws that hold the case's top on really sucked, I basically destroyed one getting it out, they were just put in way too tight at the factory and were so small that it was hard to get a bite on them. I didn't put them back in yet, the Tivo unit has to sit directly on top of the case in order for it all to fit in the stand right now so it holds the top in place. Brings me to my final point on the case. It looks good from the front but it is very deep. It wouldn't fit on any of my shelves, the feet would fall off the back, I could have taken off the feet but that kinda ruins the aestetics of the case. So in the end it only fit on the botton of the stand which was considerably deeper than the 2 shelves in the unit.

I have two custom resolutions running now that fill up my screen.
The 720p resolution is 1216x672
The 1080i resolution is 1824x1020

The sreen is just barely shifted up and to the right, I can udjust the total size of the screen both horizontaly and vertically but I haven't figured out how to get it perfectly centered. I'm using the ATI Control Center to set the resolutions. I held off on the whole project because of the problem people had with my model TV and Powerstrip, when the DVI to Component adapter along with the 4.7 (I'm using the latest 4.11) drivers were introduced it made the setup quite painless.