HTPC show and tell

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#117764 20-Mar-2008 13:43

After almost two months of waiting my case has finally arrived so I will take some pics as I move the hardware into its new home and post it up tonight or tomorrow

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

Nety

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#117855 21-Mar-2008 10:48

As promised photos at the end.

Nety: OK well I am about to setup a media centre. Some components I already have and some I have to get so here is the list.

Components I already have.

Gigabyte P4P800 Intel motherboard
P4 2.8 HT CPU
Nvidia GF 6800GT vidio card
2 X 512 Ram
120 Gig SATA HDD
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS (not sure I will use this as driver support is not good)
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
Liteon DVD burner

What I will buy
Zalman 460W ZM460B-APS Noiseless ATX power supply
Silverstone SST-LC16M ATX Home Theatre Case
AcoustiFan DustPROOF AFDP-8025B, Case Fan, 80mm X 2
Western Digital Caviar WD5000KS, 500GB, SATA-2 Hard Disk Drive
PC3200 512MB CL3, 1x512MB, DDR, DIMM, DDR400 X 2
Hauppauge WinTV HVR3000 TV Tuner X 2

At this stage it is semi proof of concept. If it gets wife approval and family approval then I will replace the motherboard, CPU and video card to allow us to watch HD-T.

Edit in Bold

The only thing that changed was the power supply which I went for the Corsair CMPSU-450VX.

Case open

Things are quite tight for all it is a full size case.

Case details

I replaced the CPU fan on the P4 with the larger but much quieter fan from the Core 2 that I purchased for my main PC. Had to hack the fan mount to get it on but it now runs cooler and as stated much more quitely. I also finished up turning the power supply over so that it was pulling air from inside the case as that corner was really not well ventilated otherwise. The case was really well thought out with things like the ablilty to mount the power supply either way up.

One negtive though.. why is it that eveyone seems hell bent on having the brightest LED's allowed without becoming a laser!.. Once again had to put layers of covering to subdue the LED's to a liveable level.

I have change the order of things since this photo but you get the idea. I have put the CD player on top of the PC which stops it from looking top heavy.

In place

And last up the overall. There are also four satilite speakers at the back for the full 7.1 sound (yeah I know is really at best 6.1).

The setup

My wife is really begining to like the media centre. She loves putting on some music and having the slide show running.

All in all coming together nicely.

Mattnzl

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Ultimate Geek

#117871 21-Mar-2008 11:43

Have to agree about the too bright LED's! Don't know if I'm just over sensitive to blue light or something, but I've put two layers of duct tape over my monitor & case (both blue) LED's and I still find them anoying

Vorbis

176 posts

Master Geek

#117919 21-Mar-2008 16:44

Ha, tight squeeze?. I just put together a HTPC using a Thermaltake Lanbox Lite case....cabling nightmare!! The case also suffers from overly-bright blue LED syndrome.

euanandrews

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#117938 21-Mar-2008 20:26

Nety: As promised photos at the end.

There have been some nice systems posted here, but I have yet to see 1 setup I like...
I am a fan of uncluttered simplicity, and everything matching/blending well together...

Your system looks the best so far in my mind....all components are matching black, tv blends nicley with black & silver combo...

The only thing I dont like (no offence intended) is your settup sitting on wood.

What is needed as the finishing touch (in my mind) is a black metal component stand, and to either hang the tv on the wall, or have a slim longish black metal tv cabinet...

Examples of what I am talking about:

A matching component stand example:

A basic tv and component stand example

A larger version:

A beautifull looking display stand:

Nety

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#118047 22-Mar-2008 15:28

TheBartender: There have been some nice systems posted here, but I have yet to see 1 setup I like...
I am a fan of uncluttered simplicity, and everything matching/blending well together...

Your system looks the best so far in my mind....all components are matching black, tv blends nicley with black & silver combo...

The only thing I dont like (no offence intended) is your settup sitting on wood.

What is needed as the finishing touch (in my mind) is a black metal component stand, and to either hang the tv on the wall, or have a slim longish black metal tv cabinet...

No offence taken.

For me unfortunately practicality's come in to play. Much as I would love to have a nice open cabinet for the HT/HF gear my wife's job is home care. The idea of having small fingers being able to poke and prod expensive electronics are not my idea of fun. So it all has to sit up high.

We also leave the coffee table in front of the TV so nobody gets any ideas of trying to climb the TV. You will have also noticed that the centre speaker is missing. Well it is not really it just sits behind the cabinet doors below the TV.

Personally I would still go with wood even if there were no kids but it would be a wooden rack with metal uprights. but that will have to wait for now.

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#118269 23-Mar-2008 20:34

Hi all,

I thought I would share my systems with you. I have been running an HTPC for about 3 years now.

My main system is as follows:

    AMD643000+ CPU (not O/Ced)
    Zalman 7000B-ALCu CPU cooler
    MSI K8N NEO4-F mobo 22/6/06 1D BIOS
    MSINX6600LE video card
    2X Hauppauge 150MCE tuner cards
    Winfast TV2000XP Deluxe tuner card (no drivers installed)
    1GB DDR400 Ram
    1X SATA 500GB HDD-3X partitions incl. 16GB boot
    1X SATA 110 HDD -single partition for TV records
    1X SATA 160GB HDD -2X partitions
    Silverstone SST-ST400 PSU (new)
    Benq DW1640 DVD-RW
    Asus E616 DVD Rom
    Silverstone LC14 HTPC case
    MCE Remote
    BTC 9019URF Cordless Keyboard/Joystick-Mouse Combo

Software:

    MCE2005 with all updates
    Nvidia Purevideo codecs
    Zoomplayer 5.** final for non-MCE media playback
    Winamp 5.52 for non-MCE music playback


Hi-Fi Components:

    Denon AVR1803 Receiver
    Polk Audio RT-16 mains speakers
    Polk Audio FX330i Sorrounds
    Infinity Centre Speaker

Displays:

    Main Display: -top of line 29" Sony CRT 4:3 TV

Secondary Display: -Infocus X1 4:3 Projector
2mX1.4m (approx.) 4:3 screen -made from rimu frame & blackout cloth

              Full Setup                      HTPC/Receiver                   Projector Screen

Mid last year I made the decision to build a secondary HTPC designed for bedroom use connected via wired ethernet network. I wanted to upgrade my main display to a high definition widescreen LCD TV, however I was unable to find a viable model that would operate 1:1 pixel mapping from any of the preferred digital connections. About the only model was the top of line larger screen Sony X series: about 5-6K at the time.

My Bedroom Specs are:

    Case: Silverstone TJ08B
     CPU: AMD Sempron3000
    Mobo: Asus M2NPV-VM(sAM2)
     RAM: 1GB DDRII667
     Video: Onboard Nvidia 6150
     HDDs: 1x40GB Maxtor IDE(2xPartitions)
     Display: Samsung 226BW Monitor
     OS: MCE2005 with remote using Mediaportal 0.2.3.0 frontend

My near-future upgrade will be to Freeview DVB-T. I am looking at the Dual Hybrid PCI-E S2 card from Aussie. http://digitalnow.com.au/dvbtcards.html
I have emailed them with queries, mainly regarding software compatibility.

I will include photos shortly.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector

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Mantis

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Master Geek

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#118947 27-Mar-2008 00:02

Hi here is my HTPC:

Thermaltake Tsunami case with 2 x 12cm fan
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra SLI motherboard
AMD 4200 X2 dual core 2.2GHz CPU
Zalman CNPS7000-Cu cooler
2GB DDR400 RAM
250GB + 500GB hard drives
Pioneer DVD burner
~~ATI Radeon X1800Xl~~ NVidia 8600GT silent video card
Hauppauge HVR-1300 for DVB-T and analogue
Hauppauge HVR-3000 for DVB-T and DVB-S
Hauppauge remote (non MCE)

Windows XP SP2
MediaPortal
TVServer
Monochrome skin
MP-TVSeries plugin

Philips 32" wide TV via component 480p
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 THX speakers

Also using a laptop running MediaPortal and TV Client with a Dell 20" monitor. Everything is working well including DVB-T.
Next step is to get a nice LCD TV and a quiet video card, the X1800 is really loud and it would be good to have hardware decoding
of the H264 DVB-T channels. That and a couple more TB of storage and I should be set.

dan

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#119087 27-Mar-2008 16:31

Looks like im one of the few guys left that Still runs Meedio for their front end, its a real shame Yahoo killed this company it was so far ahead of everything else at the time, and in some ways, still is.

Specs

HTPC Specs

Intel P4 3.00Ghz
2GB Apacer DDR2 800
Asus P5GC-MX Motherboard
Thermaltake Case
ATI Raedon HD 2600 Pro HDMI
400GB + 160GB + 120GB
Hauupage Nova T 500 DVB-T Dual Tuner
MCE Remote

SW

Meedio Front End
Zoom Player for all Playback
Dvbviewer for TV
HIP for Total Control over the MCE Remote
AnyDVD for Removing annoying region codes etc
Network Drive Manager for auto remap of network drive every 1 minute

HTPC

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#119380 28-Mar-2008 17:59

dan: Looks like im one of the few guys left that Still runs Meedio for their front end, its a real shame Yahoo killed this company it was so far ahead of everything else at the time, and in some ways, still is.

Specs

HTPC Specs

Intel P4 3.00Ghz
2GB Apacer DDR2 800
Asus P5GC-MX Motherboard
Thermaltake Case
ATI Raedon HD 2600 Pro HDMI
400GB + 160GB + 120GB
Hauupage Nova T 500 DVB-T Dual Tuner
MCE Remote

SW

Meedio Front End
Zoom Player for all Playback
Dvbviewer for TV
HIP for Total Control over the MCE Remote
AnyDVD for Removing annoying region codes etc
Network Drive Manager for auto remap of network drive every 1 minute

You're using Zoomplayer for your playback; is that through theMeedio Frontend? If so, I'm jealous. None of the other frontends will even consider integrating ZP as an option. I know, I have asked.

dan

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#119393 28-Mar-2008 18:44

yep though the front end, just added a plugin to meedio which lets me use zoom player as the default player instead of the built in ones.

Nety

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#121876 7-Apr-2008 19:02

Well have had to do a bit of a rethink on the hardware I used in the media centre.

I was having some issues with the mobo/CPU that I used. It just did not seem to be up to the task. Issues were

Micro pauses when two channels were being recorded or one recorded and another watched.
Cracks and pops from the soundblaster
Could not play 1080p videos. The frame rate was just watchable but the sound would drop right out then recover for a few second then drop again.
Generaly slow navigation.

So kids lost out and got a downgrade. Media centre got an upgrade.

Newer hardware is now
Asus A8N-SLI mobo
AMD X2 3800+ 939 CPU
2 Gig DDR 400 ram
Gigabyte 7800GT video card

The rest of the hardware has stayed the same.

I did have a bit of a "oh god" moment with the case and video card. The case had a warning when I got it that it could not fit video cards above a 6800 ultra I think it was. This is because the opical drive is in line with the video card so lenth is an issue.

I had thought that when I eventualy upgraded it I would just have to watch the lenth on the video card. Well the 7800GT would fit but not with the power connector in the end of the card. Well after some fairly nasty work on the plug I can just get it in. I just hope video cards do not get any longer or optical drives. If they do looks like a new case for me which would be a shame as I really like the case.

Anyway the short of it is that the newer hardware has resolved all my concerns

. No pops no stutter now problem running 1080p and now quite snappy.

gehenna

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#121886 7-Apr-2008 20:20

Here's a few shots of my recently revived rig - was out of action for several months with a dead motherboard.

TV is a Toshiba Regza 32" LCD. It will be going upstairs to the bedroom as soon as I can afford to get a 42" in the lounge :)
Xbox is connected via component at 1080i, HTPC connected via HDMI at 1080i.

Saturn STB, Xbox 360 Elite, HD-DVD player, and the HTPC rig - specs below.

The whole thing. Thought it was looking pretty good until the flash caught some fingerprints on the drawers :)

So, the HTPC is (posted elsewhere on GZ but here we go again):

Hardware:
CPU: Intel E4500 2.2Ghz C2D socket 775
Motherboard: Asus P5KC (seems VERY nice so far!)
GPU: XFX Fatal1ty 8600GT (Silent)
PSU: 560W Cooler Master Modular (Silent)
RAM: 2Gb DDR2 800Mhz single DIMM
Hard Disk: (all SATA) 1x 80Gb system drive (split in two for imaging), 2x 750Gb Western Digital (DVDs), 1x 250Gb for recorded tv and music. 1x 500Gb for videos
Case: Silverstone LC16
Tuners: Hauppauge PVR150 and HVR3000.

Software:
Vista Ultimate
PowerDVD 8 Ultra
Vista Codec Pack
Acronis True Image Home
MCE Standby Tool
G-force Visualisation

Thanks for letting me share :)

gehenna

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#122237 9-Apr-2008 06:47

I like your enterntainment unit phatbloke. Very nice.

phatbloke

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#122274 9-Apr-2008 10:58

Cheers it was actually quite reasonable from a place called canary furniture in Chch. THere was origionally a drawer in the middle bottom hole so I am still working on the company who makes them to get a proper shelf made to tidy it up as its a little messy close up.

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