New HTPC - Tips

HungryJoey · 30-12-2005 9:03pm #1

Hey guys, Decided I would build a Cheap HTPC for the living room. Going to be on my wireless network to watch Videos and in a month or two Ill throw in a TV card.

I am going to install MCE and Can get a Remote, So thats alright not included in my Budget. I already have bought the DVD - RW for it. And I have

So specs so far what I have picked are

AMD sempron 2800+ 1.6Ghz 256Kb L2 Cache Socket 754

Socket 754 Motherboard, Under the 80 Euro Mark. Not decided yet, I want some one to pick what motherboard might be the best, also I want a PCI express Board, I know strange for 754, But they do have them. ( Choose one from here = http://www.komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10125 )

1GB DDR 600 ( Too much speed for the sempron, I know.. But I already have it, Its Geil TCCD DDR 600, and Have no other use for it at this stage )

I have the Hard drive already, Ill pick one to go in it. Have a few lying around.

Case : Coolermaster Cavalier 4 HTPC ( ATX ) And 350Watt Coolermaster PSU, Which I presume would be quite adaquate for the setup as it doesnt require so much power, and I am going to stick to using it for time being.

GFX card : PCI express, As I Want this to be future proff, Well more then AGP will bring. Something around the X300SE Mark or 6200, I dont want ot spend any more then 60 for the GFX card.( Choose from here : http://www.komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10488 ) I am looking for DVI and VGA and TV output...Whats the best for my situation.. You's pick.

I was also wondering, the TV I have is a 32" Flat CRT Philips TV, It doesn't support HD TV, I know that, Its only for Movies aswel really and TV, So I dont need High definition really, I was just wondering.. What is the Best was to connect the PC to the TV ? So the GFX card needs to support TV out although Im sure it will.

Also, Is a sempron 2800+ Sufficent along with 1GB DDR to Run Windows Media Center Edition ? I have no experience with it and would like tips.

These are just the components I picked out as they are pretty much the cheapest and Stuck with my budget, But if anybody has any other recomendations or components to switch with, I would appreciate it alot.

Also, where is the cheapest Place to buy a TV card around here that is certified for MCE.

Thanks alot,

Hj

Standard Toaster · 30-12-2005 9:07pm

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200512.ars

I only read this yesterday. You might find some usful info.

Maybe someone else can suggest a TV Card. I'll get around to building something like this too when I move into new house.

HungryJoey · 30-12-2005 9:29pm

Cheers for that, Gave it a Read. Althoug I amn't looking to spend near 850 as they said for the Budget system. But I supose I already have my RAM, HDD and DVD-RW and keyboards and all that so it brings the price down.

Any recomendations on the Procesor and Motherboard ? Would be a great help

Also I found this http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=313272&view=detailed Would that Graphics card do the Job well ? And Is there a way of disabling the Turbo cache, I dont want it eating up and of my RAM.

Thanks,

Hj

SouperComputer · 31-12-2005 12:31am

TBH, if you are looking to build a good system cheaply, id pickup an S478 or A board\CPU Here and build from that.

HTPC's are not the CPU hungry machines they seem to be made out to be. The MPEG2 encoding is done on the fly on the card in hardware and uses SFA CPU power. Contrary to the linked article, time shifting and multiple recording uses very little I/O and CPU. The computer records an MPEG2 stream at about 1200Kb/s. This equates to roughly 0.15MB\s. The throughput of a modern HD easily exceeds 20MB\s, in fact most peak at around 50-60Mb\s, so no worries there!

There are two cases where CPU power is useful however:

1. Viewing HDTV content: Generally 2.8Ghz CPU and DX 9 128Mb graphics card needed for this
2. Transcoding your recorded TV shows to MPEG4 for storage (using crunchie for example.

Unless you plan doing either of the above, or of course gaming dont fret on the CPU, spend your money on a good CPU cooler, quiet fans, quality PSU etc etc

Im a little concerned about the RAM. Although it is generally backward\downwards compatible I would to some research to be sure that it works with the new prospective board. 512 is the minimum safe amount for MCE, 1Gb wont go to waste!

GFX card : PCI express, As I Want this to be future proff, Well more then AGP will bring. Something around the X300SE Mark or 6200, I dont want ot spend any more then 60 for the GFX card.( Choose from here : http://www.komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10488 ) I am looking for DVI and VGA and TV output...Whats the best for my situation.. You's pick.

Hmm, tricky one. Generally Nvidia are happier with widescreen res's and can be software hacked to suit if needed. On that basis, id go for the Nvidia. Thats said, any kind of SMA (shared memory architecture) is asking for trouble. Again, maybe pickup a used PCI-X card on boards.

I was also wondering, the TV I have is a 32" Flat CRT Philips TV, It doesn't support HD TV, I know that, Its only for Movies aswel really and TV, So I dont need High definition really, I was just wondering.. What is the Best was to connect the PC to the TV ? So the GFX card needs to support TV out although Im sure it will.

Svideo is the best way to go that your TV probably supports. RGB is ideal, but not all TV's support this. Be forwarned that the res on a TV is pi$$ poor and web browsing and general computing is a nono unless you get your mits on a more modern LCD\plasma. HDTV content will still play, and will look marginally better on the TV, provided that you have decent signal connections, ie RGB.

The best TV card to get would be the happauge PVR 500, which is a dual tuner card. IE record one station, watch another, watch two stations (Other viewed with an MCE extender) or record two stations simultaneously. Komplett have it, not sure if its in stock though.

HTH

HungryJoey · 31-12-2005 12:58am

Cheers for all of that, Really appreciate it.

As for what I will be doing, Genearally just watching Movies. Its going to be Wireless networked, Already have all that stuff, Network is already there just gotta' get the card. I will put a TV card in sooner or later, To watch your normal TV does it require a Decent CPU ? I wouldn't of thought it did, Not at HD levels, But standard Resoloution. And yes I know the Res is crap on Normal TV's, I Quite often hook 1 of my PC's to the TV to have a mess about, And I know its practically Un-readable.

I will go for a 6200 Then, 128MB GDDR, And has the posibility to use 128MB onboard additional RAM, Which I will not use.

I still need some help on the motherboard, I definetly Want PCI express, And if possibly a nForce 4 Chipset, But that is not totally relevant.

As for the Hard drive, unfortunetly, Looking around, The biggest Hard drive I have going spare Would be a 40GB IDE Drive, Would this do for just general Using, Not for mass storage or recording ?? But I plan on buying a 250GB for my A64 system, So I will put the 250 in the A64 along with the 80GB IDE in it, And use the 160GB Hitachi For the HTPC. So For a while, I might be skimping on resources like Hard drive space and a TV-Card.

Thanks again,

Hj

SouperComputer · 31-12-2005 1:09am

10-15GB is sufficient for MCE itself, and that's leaving a lot of room for Apps.

Recording wise you are looking at abbout 1.25GB per hour of TV. Of course if you have a network drive you can point MCE to it and add the content (photos/videos/music) to the Library. I used to record TV with an AMD K6 300Mhz and 64MB so a sempron should be OK!

One work of warning though, you cannot record TV to a network drive. This is a software limitation of MCE. You can change the directory\drive for recording, but it will not work with a network drive.

Mobo-wise, I have found MSI to make great, rock-solid boards at very good prices.

masteroftherealm · 31-12-2005 1:16am

HungryJoey wrote:

1GB DDR 600 ( Too much speed for the sempron, I know.. But I already have it, Its Geil TCCD DDR 600, and Have no other use for it at this stage

Hj

Ill swap with cash for a gig of std ram?

HungryJoey · 31-12-2005 1:22am

This Geil is an Engineering sample, Only 12 Modules Exist in the world ! Its not going out of my hands that easily unless i get offered something good. Im finished working with them, So they are going into a PC, They can reach 330Mhz 2.5-3-3-7 @ like 2.9 V Or something around that, Long time Since I messed with them. They are Special.

Yea I have found MSI to be great, But Saying that.. I am on my 2ND MSI K8n Neo, Although this one has been going good for over a year now. I was looking at this perticular one : http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=312970&cks=PRL Has built In X200 GFX, Although I dont know why I would want that. But I dont know, http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=303749&cks=PRL < that one look the best then. Its either 1 of them MSI's or this Gigabyte http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=315343&cks=PRL.

And yes, I presumed You couldnt record to a network drive, Im not too bothered about Recording at the moment, Until I get that new Hard drive. 160GB should be sufficent for a Fair bit of recording, And then Saving onto DVD etc..I Will probably do all the encoding for DVD format files on my A64 as it would be a fair bit faster.

Hj

SouperComputer · 31-12-2005 1:33am

RAT DVD is a format worth considering if you are ripping your collection as it retains the menus, features, extras etc etc. Very snazzy.

I recon go with this mobo, integrated graphics, if the onboard doesnt cut the mustard, then you can throw one in from the FS section!:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=312970&cks=PRL

It has a passive NB which is a benefit in a HTPC too and Svideo, looks good.

Software also worth looking into is MythTV, its a network based server\client system. A lot of work to get going the way you want it, but fully scaleable. Server is linux only. Frontend can be installed on windows and OS X. RAT DVD doesnt work with it though

.

HungryJoey · 31-12-2005 1:37am

Good motherboard, I originally though that, But that Onboard Video is dog slow though simply because its using RAM, And I dont want it eating into my 1GB RAM. I originally thought it was a great Idea, as it saves me having to fork out on a s**t 6200 anyway, But when I thought about it.. the Onboard is going to be worse and I may aswel get the 6200, That was it will cause less problems.

Hj

SouperComputer · 31-12-2005 1:50am

Personally I think it will be okay. Allocate 32Mb to it and you'll be fine you could well get away with less depending on your desktop res. Unless you plan gaming or again that dreaded HDTV support! MCE runs in 32bit mode, but other than that it uses little or no graphics power.

Ive had MCE working fine on savage S3 DDR cards, now that is a dog slow chip!

HungryJoey · 31-12-2005 1:52am

Yea, makes sense. Man I didn't know HDTV requires, well so much resources, Find it strange to understand why aswel, But I supose it is like playing games, The higher the Res, The more memory, or well.. More Graphics processing power is needed, Am I correct ?

SouperComputer · 31-12-2005 2:00am

HungryJoey wrote:

Yea, makes sense. Man I didn't know HDTV requires, well so much resources, Find it strange to understand why aswel, But I supose it is like playing games, The higher the Res, The more memory, or well.. More Graphics processing power is needed, Am I correct ?

Its a hard one to explain, but ill try.

Basically, 2Mb of video memory is enough to have a 1024x768 desktop @ 16Bpp colour. This will play movies/DVD's/DIVxetc without any problem.

However, all the eye candy with XP has meant that really 16MB is a figure worth aiming for, of course you can turn that off too.

The MCE application MUST run in 32Bit mode, for reasons beyond me TBH as TV is crap colour anyway! Part of if is to do with the interface itself, fades and animation of menus etc etc.

So basically, the onboard is okay for for MCE unless gaming or going HDTV. In any case, by the time HDTV becomes mainstream you will have the cash to get a better graphics card.

Although, I was able to play HDTV video with no dropped frames on a 1.8 P4 @ 2.7Ghz and 16Mb of Shared Graphics Memory on an S3 graphics card, so maybe all this BS about needing a 6600 is untrue.

HungryJoey · 31-12-2005 2:03am

Hmmm Sweet, Cheers for all the Info. Man. Really appreciate it. Looks like I am set to go and order then, I amn't ordering the case or motherboard for 2 weeks though. But I can wait

Any more tips keep them coming,

Thanks,

Hj

SouperComputer · 31-12-2005 2:04am

Any more tips keep them coming,

Yea, stay away from HTPC's they will consume you!

HungryJoey · 31-12-2005 2:07am

Hah, The list just goes on, Not to mention I have to get a Wireless keyboard and mouse !! Although I might just use a spare wired one I have and hide it behind the TV, Only take it out when I need it, although I should get away most of the time without it, Once I have the remote

Hj

MrPinK · 31-12-2005 2:34am

Another plus for integrated graphics is that it's one less noisey component. Noise is something you may want to consider when you're building a machine that's going in your living room. Having a gfx card fan blaring in the middle of a film can be quiet annoying. Some people go so far as to underclock their system to make it run quieter and cooler, but a good choice of case will probably suffice.

New HTPC - Tips

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