Home theater PC - what do I need to know?

[kenratboy]

As I was messing around on Newegg's site, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I should build a HTPC. This is for a few reasons:

-I am a computer nerd, I have built a half dozen computers from parts and they are all fine.

-I like the idea of having a QUIET, dedicated unit for home theater (my current computer sounds like a leaf blower, needs the cooling)

-I am going to build a 2nd computer to use as a backup for my primary, so why not combine them? Just use a big 5400 RPM (quiet, cool, and durable) hard drive.

-I would like to have a central place for all my MP3's and other media seperate from my main PC.

What should I do?

I am looking at some of the small systems like this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=56-101-420&depa=1

Questions:

-It has a optical output, is that going to do what I need? I use the coax out on my current computer for MP3's and it is great, but would I need a seperate sound card to output a digital signal?

-What would be a good video card? I would assume there are some video cards with DVI that have been very sucessful in this application. I drool to think about sending a perfect 1280X720 signal or whatever to a display

-What else?

Thanks!

Might be a fun and useful project

[Griffinator]

What you should know?

1) Get a good HD tuner card. I use a Fusion card - works great. You'll save yourself the monthly charge from the cable company because this thing can decode both cable and over-the-air HD signals.

2) Stock it with plenty of RAM. I have 768 megs in my system, along with a 128MB Radeon 9200-based video card, and I still have to close everything else when I'm viewing HD.

3) A really good soundcard. You'll have to route the digital audio from the tuner card to the audio card externally. None of these HD cards employ internal DACs, and even if they did, you wouldn't want them to. Furthermore, you want top-notch processing to route to your receiver for DVDs as well.

4) If you intend to stash CD's and DVD's on the system, you should seriously consider going SATA RAID for storage. Yes, you'll need a bit more fan action, but you'll be glad you did when you don't have dropouts in mid-stream for lack of HD bandwidth.

5) Don't do anything else with this computer. Don't use it for internet surfing, office work, finances, anything else. This gives you the ability to rip out all the extraneous, unnecessary crap from the OS you use and dedicate all available resources to your entertainment.

[KungFuNat]

the small form factor PCs are a little too small for my tastes. i use a silverstone full-ATX desktop case. you can fit both a full atx psu and motherboard in this particular case, and silverstone has a few models with this size. i run 2 HDs pluss i have like 3 pci cards in the system. if you want do do PVR(tivo) functions with SD then the hauppauge pvr-250 and software like snapstream(what i use) and sageTV are the best out there. I dont know much about HD pvr so others will have to comment on that. if you just want to use it for a DVD and music system, then all you need is a good video card and sound card.

the nvidia geforce 6xxx series are currently taking the top spots for this duty, it has full HD resolutions selectable from the driver for outputting to a TV. this makes it much easier to get your output set up. plus the video quality is supposed to be tops right now. your sound card needs only to output via a digital connection, either coax or optical will do this just fine. there are some issues using a standard digital output from a computer for playback of music, but for DVDs it will be just fine.

only other thing you need is some good dvd-software. i use powerdvd and it works fine for my needs.

[kenratboy]

Cool!

So far I have learned:

-Get a bigger computer to start, as you will need some serious power to pull it off.

Hmmm, how to do this fairly cost effectivly.

My main concern is for noise.

My current computer is fairly loud, and that sucks, so to keep noise down:

-I know they now have fanless PSU's, those look cool.

-I know Newegg has lots of VERY quiet fans (new rifle bearing ones are like 20 dB.!)

-I think 5400 RPM HD's would keep the noise down.

-I will NOT need a honkin' video card for this system, and most of these are very quiet.

-I will NOT need a honkin' CPU (cartainly will NOT be slow), and there are some very quiet fans available (I'll try the stock cooler first)

What would be a good case? Can you recommend one?

Thanks!!!

[KungFuNat]

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc01.htm

i use the all silver case, looks fantastic and has doors to hide your drives.

i use an enermax PSU with a fan control dial on the back. enermax makes the best PSUs in my experience, and they are quiet if you turn the fan down. both silenX and thermaltake make silent PSUs that run at like 14db. also, silenX makes a series of 14db fans. basically all you will hear is the air moving through the case.

i would reccomend a 7200rpm drive especially if your running HD out of the thing. the seagate drives are very quiet and reliable

i would personally go intel because the p4s excell at video and sound encoding/decoding. you can get a 3ghz chip cheap these days. the zalman alcu series heatsinks are also nearly silent.

i would go with a geforce 6600, they can be found for $150 and do extremely well with video.

[kenratboy]

Cool, thanks for the info, this is REALLY helping.

What about sound? Because this one uses a normal ATX MB, I can easily get a MB with a real digital output - this is important because I want to do this as cheap as possible (by cheap, I mean simple, not crappie components)

[Griffinator]

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On 1/11/2005 11:01:47 PM kenratboy wrote:

Cool!

So far I have learned:

-Get a bigger computer to start, as you will need some serious power to pull it off.

Hmmm, how to do this fairly cost effectivly.

My main concern is for noise.

My current computer is fairly loud, and that sucks, so to keep noise down:

-I know they now have fanless PSU's, those look cool.

-I know Newegg has lots of VERY quiet fans (new rifle bearing ones are like 20 dB.!)

-I think 5400 RPM HD's would keep the noise down.

-I will NOT need a honkin' video card for this system, and most of these are very quiet.

-I will NOT need a honkin' CPU (cartainly will NOT be slow), and there are some very quiet fans available (I'll try the stock cooler first)

What would be a good case? Can you recommend one?

Thanks!!!

----------------

In response...

1) 7200RPM drives are not any louder than 5400's. I have 4 7200RPM drives in my tower, and not only do I not need a mountain of fans to keep them cool, but I get much better performance out of them. Faster access = less "grinding" = more quiet...

2) Yes, I would look into super-quiet fans.

3) Yes, you need a honkin' video card for this system. You apparently didn't read the part about my "Radeon 9200" - two steps down from the current top-of-the-line, and it's barely keeping up.

4) You need at least 2Ghz to make this go. That may not be "honkin" to you, but it is to me, considering that my system is a 1.6Ghz Athlon XP.

5) I strongly recommend Antec. Great cases, great power supplies, great warranty (3 years parts and labor) and great performance.

[meuge]

You need - Aluminum ATX desktop case; AthlonXP 2000+/P4 2GHz or higher; 512MB RAM or higher - 1GB recommended; at least 200GB of storage space; sound card w. digital out (Chaintech AV710); good TV Tuner Card, video card w. DVI out; DVD-burner.

You will likely need to dedicate a lot of effort to adequate, but silent cooling, and the only hard drives you should consider are the new Samsung drives.

[kenratboy]

Oh, I am having a hell of a time finding quiet PSU's. I probably need only 300-350 watts, as there will be almost NOTHING in this box. I know there are fanless PSU's, but $150+ is too much, and I would like to have a (quiet!) fan. Any brands or specific recomendations?

[meuge]

Get Antec -> if that's not quiet enough for you, it's a very simple procedure to replace the fans inside the power supply with low-speed Panaflo fans (about $5-10 each), which are the best fans available. I did it to 3 different PSUs and it works wonders for noise.

If you have a decent chunk of change you can spend, you can build this system around the Pentium M, which is a notebook chip, but there are desktop motherboards that take it. This CPU has about 1.6-1.8X performance per clock ratio vs. the P4, and it only consumes a few watts of power. Slap one of the giant $50 all-copper coolers on it, and you don't need a CPU fan at all.

For the video card, get one that's compatible with one of the iterations of the VGA Silencer from Arctic Cooling.

[KungFuNat]

if you want to keep prices down the antec overture case comes with a PSU, is a full-atx case and is about half the price of the case/psu combo i reccomended. antec makes great stuff. for sound, the chaintech card is good, but i dont believe it outputs ASIO via the digital output. if you want the highest possible sound quality, you need something that supports ASIO over SPDIF like the m-audio audiophile. but thats really a whole different bag of worms, and is not necessary.

some other reasources you can check out are:

www.htpcnews.com

www.avsforum.com

[kenratboy]

Danm, too much to think about

Case - I'm good.

Motherboard - no problem (looking at anything namebrand with a optical or coaxial digital out, a full sized one, not the mini)

CPU - whatever runs cool and gives me the preformance I need (isn't a P4 better for this application because of its higher clock speed?)

HD - You said the Samsung because it is quiet. I also heard Seagate's are very quiet, true?

RAM - I'm fine on that, will start with 1, 512 stick and upgrade when needed (need to keep costs down to start)

Problems:

Power supply - I really want something quiet. Do I need more than 300 watts?

Video card - do any stand out for this application, in terms of video quality?

Do I need a TV tuner card if I just want to play MP3's and movies? Obviously I can add it later.

What I need to decide is what platform (AMD, Intel, and then what processor will be fine at a GOOD VALUE (cheap!)) - and also what video card.

If I could keep it around $500 (yeah, it will go over, but I am NOT going for $1000), that would be great.

[nicholtl]

Sorry I can't help you here, Ken. If it had to do with Macs, I'd be all over it like a 2 cent *****.

[j-malotky]

Don't plan on using your motherboards built in soundcard or SPDIF. Since your DVD software will rely heavily on the hardware drivers for passing or processing the data.

Since I have a Lexicon processor, I am doing SPDIF passthru and purchased a MAudio Delta Audiophile 2496 instead of a 5.1 or 7.1 card. This way, I plan to do CD processing as well with a quality 2CH output.

Even with the Maudio card, I had audio timing issues when I used the drivers provided on the CD. I downloaded the latest drivers and they worked well. Remember that this is simply SPDIF passthrough!!!! I could NOT imagine the results using a mid quality on board sound driver.

Also on the same note, do NOT get a motherboard with a built in Video card.

Also, hardware is the easy part. The software and how it all snaps together will take some time.

A HTPC build will take some time, but well worth the efort.

JM

[j-malotky]

Also, CPU bus etc.

Most if not all DVD players spool the streams to the hard drive and process off the HD out to the vid and soundcard.

Becuase of this, use a high speed SATA hard drive.

Probably the buss speed is more important that CPU power. You don't need the latest bleading edge CPU. But definetely Use a fast buss like a 800 FSB MB and fast RAM that your budget allows. Then get a price point prosessor like a 3G Prescott Hyper thread, and use your savings to get a nice sound card or remote control hardware.

JM

[j-malotky]

Fan noise....

What I did was put my PC behind my wall in the storage room. I then ran the IDE cable and DVD rom into my rack. This way all the fan noise is in my storage room.

I would not use a 300-350 watt power supply with the new CPU's. Get at least a 400 watt for reliability.

Becuase of this, I am using RF remotes and keyboards so the signal gets thru the wall. Same price as IR.

JM

[Underhanded Penguin]

3) Yes, you need a honkin' video card for this system. You apparently didn't read the part about my "Radeon 9200" - two steps down from the current top-of-the-line, and it's barely keeping up.

Where do you get that the Radeon 9200 is 2 steps down from the current top of the line? There is the 9600pro, 9600xt, 9800pro, 9800xt, x600, x700, x800pro, x800pt, and more in between those that are all higher than the 9200 in performance. I guess my point is, you do need a good quality video card, but nothing top of the line as those are built more for 3d performance, which you would not be using in a HTPC.

[Griffinator]

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On 1/12/2005 10:57:45 AM Underhanded Penguin wrote:

Where do you get that the Radeon 9200 is 2 steps down from the current top of the line? There is the 9600pro, 9600xt, 9800pro, 9800xt, x600, x700, x800pro, x800pt, and more in between those that are all higher than the 9200 in performance. I guess my point is, you do need a good quality video card, but nothing top of the line as those are built more for 3d performance, which you would not be using in a HTPC.

----------------

I suppose I missed the new x-series, so you're right on that point. All the extensions on those cards have nothing to do with the core processor on the card, which is what I base my definition of "the line". When I bought this monster 6 months ago the 9xxx series were all there was - I always buy parts like this two gens back from whatever the latest and greatest is - saves me a helluva lot of money without major sacrifice.

The reason a near-top-of-the-line card is necessary is so it will handle the frame rate and pixel count that HD signals will demand from the system. It's a simple matter of rendering. I can't get the HD content to display with any stability unless I shut down all the background services including my firewall, my EMU PatchMix services, and my RAID administrator. Only then can I get stable rendering from HD inputs.

[KungFuNat]

if you render with VRM9 which is a way for the video card to render via portions of the 3d hardware, then you absolutely do need something with a bit of horsepower. especially with HD or DVDs upscaled to HD resolution..

with an HTPC, more power=good.

i still stand by my reccomendation. the nvidia geforce 6600 is currently the best option out there from a price/performance perspective.

if you absolutely must go the cheap route, a geforce fx 5200 or 5700 will do nicely.

[j-malotky]

Vid cards is where I spent most of my time researching, here is what I learned:

First off, I am running an XGA projector and using my PC to scale the image, so I really did not need a 2xxxx by whatever resolution bleading edge vid card for this system. I also wanted to save some cash to use elsewhere.

I ended up buying the Radion 9550. I wanted the 9600 SE, but it was sold out at the time and I did not want to wait. The 9550 is $99 and the 9600 SE was just under $120.

The new bleading edge cards are all PCI express buss not AGP. If you get a newer card you will need to make sure your mother board is a PCI express. Or if you get a budget card, you will have to find a AGP motherboard. The new PCI cards are very expensive.

Chip Brands:

Nvidia chipsets are probably the most powerfull driverset / chips on the market. They have a good powerfull toolbox, but--- but, they do not work well with software that mods the video. If you plan to run a basic package like WinDVD or PowerDVD, the Nvidia card is a great choice.

The ATI radion is not as powerfull as the Nvidia, in drivers and hardware marrige, but it plays nicely with any software that mods the video.

In all my gaming PC's I use Nvidia and I really wanted to use Nvidia for this project, but went with the ATI as I know this will be an ongoing tweekeing project

JM