To HTPC or not HTPC? That is the question.

Dingatron

I've just got my hands on a nice small form factor pc that may be good enough for a HTPC project. A few issues though which I'd like some advice on please? I plan to connect it into my existing TV (not plasma) and looking to take a feed from my Sky box (depending on answers here) and I want to hopefully use it as possibly a DVR, view jpegs, play mp3's, divx etc. and also maybe for light internet browsing/email, although I belive that quality on a regular television may not be sufficant to view fonts etc? The OS I would like to use is Fedora 6 and Myth TV.

Anyway I've a few hardware issues.

1. The box has no room for adding any pci slots so I can't add an internal TV card. This only leaves me with the integrated Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (64 MB). I presume you can you get a VGA => scart connector ? What is usb tv/video capture support like under fedora?
2. Is a Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.4 and 256MB ram ok for what I'm intending to do. I can add another 256MB if need be.
3. I want the ability to throttle the CPU and redudce the fan speed. Is there software in fedora that will support my chipset? Intel Brookdale-G i845GE
4. I will need to put a usb wireless dongle (54mbs) in for internet access. This ok? It is supported in fedora.

Ok that'll do for a start I suppose.

SouperComputer

1. The box has no room for adding any pci slots so I can't add an internal TV card. This only leaves me with the integrated Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (64 MB). I presume you can you get a VGA => scart connector ?

Yup, you can get them alright. Ebay would proably be your best shot. Or better still, buy a new (or used!) TV with VGA

What is usb tv/video capture support like under fedora?

The Hauppage WinTV-PVR USB 2.0 should work with fedora/myth. Have a look at the respective Wikis for more info.

2. Is a Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.4 and 256MB ram ok for what I'm intending to do. I can add another 256MB if need be

256 would be cutting it tight, espcially with fedora. If yoiu have 512, go for it.

3. I want the ability to throttle the CPU and redudce the fan speed. Is there software in fedora that will support my chipset? Intel Brookdale-G i845GE

Not sure on that one, ive always tried to build quiet systems by default.

4. I will need to put a usb wireless dongle (54mbs) in for internet access. This ok? It is supported in fedora.

Depends on the chipset. If its not supported by the kernel, you can use ndiswrapper to get it to work.

It is possible to view text on the TV, but I wouldnt do it for long periods, its very hard on the eyes!

Dingatron

Thanks for the reply SouperComputer.

Yup, you can get them alright. Ebay would proably be your best shot. Or better still, buy a new (or used!) TV with VGA

Would I lose any quality using a converter? I assume not. My TV is a Panasonic 32" Widescreen 50 hertz Pure flat screen.

256 would be cutting it tight, espcially with fedora. If yoiu have 512, go for it.

Running 768MB PC3200 now.

Depends on the chipset. If its not supported by the kernel, you can use ndiswrapper to get it to work.

This has what I've been playing around with all Sunday. :mad: Fedora and MythTv were handy enough to set-up but can I get my NetGear WG111v2 working using ndiswrapper! Installed driver and all looked fine. Try to change the ESSID or anything and it crashes Fedora. Probably not for here anyway, I'll throw a post up in the Unix forum.

SouperComputer

Would I lose any quality using a converter? I assume not. My TV is a Panasonic 32" Widescreen 50 hertz Pure flat screen.

Yes you will loose quality, depending on the format you convert it to. If your TV supports RGB over SCART, that would be the best way to go. Then there's Svideo. Svideo wont be too bad for TV/DVD content, but browsing wont be so good, the res of SVideo is pretty low.

Do you have component in on the TV? That would yield excellent results. The converter will cost around 100 yoyos though.

leahcim

I have my HTPC (media portal) setup using my philips 32" 50 Hz crt tv.

I set the pc resolution to 640x480. The connection from my sky box to PC and from my pc to tv are both svideo.

The crt screen is fine for navigating the htpc menus, looking at the epg, watching tv and playing movies etc. You can configure media portals (I assume it is the same with Myth TV) font sizes if necessary.

Surfing the web is possible, but trying to read fuzzy fonts can get a little frustrating especially for sites where the sizes of the fonts are hard coded and not set to increase depending on the browsers settings. I only use my HTPC web browser for only short periods at a time to check my webmail or wikipedia etc.

Dingatron

The box I'm using is pretty bespoke so I'm stuck with an integrated vga card. Got a vga => svideo adapter on ebay so I'll mess around with the 640x480 resolution. Going to have a look at the noise issue tonight also(wife permitting). Can't replace the CPU fan easily as its a non standard one so I'm thinking of under clocking it a bit 2.4 down to 2Ghz and playing around with the lm-sensors and hopefully I'll find a Linux program that can control the cpu fan speeds? €150 is a bit more than I'm willing to spend on a usb pvr at the minute so the set-up will begin with Divx, mp3s and slide show pictures as well as enabling some of the other MythTV modules such as mame, RSS newsfeed, weather etc. Won't be internet browsing much, the odd email etc. If I can get that lot working I'll be happy enough as a first attempt.

SouperComputer

To be honest, if you are looking to reduce heat, you really need to reduce the voltage going to the CPU. Dont know if you boards has any provision for it though.

Dingatron

I'll have to check the bios settings. The board chipset is an Intel Brookdale-G i845GE with an Award bios. Hopefully there's volt settings I can change. I thought that it would be enough to lower the muti or fsb thus reducing the heat generated to the cpu. And then lower the cpu fan speed to reduce the noise of the fan.