Building media server/media center

Lord Derpington

Hey guys,

just looking for some advise, im going to gradually build a media center for use below a tv main uses are;

browsing web (wireless keyboard with trackpad)
watching digital versions of tv shows and moves
setting up time shift to use in conjunction with dvb-t
if possible use it as a satellite receiver box also allowing recording and time shift.

oh and of course a server for the storage of digital media

ambitious i know...

because its going to be a slow build im not overly concerned about the price but at the same time would like to keep it below €1k.

media drive is not really necessary because it will be hooked into a home cinema for surround sound so discs are not needed really but i suppose for a few quid.... why not.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has actually used a pc as a satellite box before could you give me the in's and outs (i know the satellite forum would probably be much better suited to that question)

the only thing i would maybe ask is low power consumption (it will be on constantly) and obv large amount of storage.

I have OS already so thats not worrys.


Any advice greatly appreciated

nvus

have you looked here? http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

these guys seem to be more specific on HTPC & Media Centre type things where we're more the full ATX box kinda guys n galls

Lord Derpington

nvus wrote: »

have you looked here? http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

these guys seem to be more specific on HTPC & Media Centre type things where we're more the full ATX box kinda guys n galls

Thanks i have, got some good ideas from the forum aswell but im not too pushed about it looking like a HTPC and just want a impressive rig.
Thats what you guys do best

lmimmfn

i cant answer the question on using it as a PVR and dvb-t, however i have built a media centre and last year moved it into a HTPC case. Its absolutely fantastic.

I have mine setup with a wireless keyboard and mouse, and use XBMC and streaming shows from the web. I only have a 1TB drive on it, BUT i share drives on my gaming rig which has over 7TB of storage. I also use the media centre as a secondary gaming rig( to play it as a console with a 360 pad ). The build i have for my media centre is a E7200 dual core OC'd to 3.2Ghz lol, 4 gig ram, cheapo Asus P5K Pro mobo and 8800GT gfx card.

The reason i bring this up is my next step is to build an extremely low power server for the house, something which runs off about 100W( preferably about 60W ) but has about 10TB of storage space on it. Most of the power consumption would come from the harddrives, but to use those Eco Green low RPM drives.

So maybe like me you should consider splitting it in 2, i.e. have a server capable of streaming movies, storing everything, downloading and is as low powered as possible, then have a seperate relatively cheap media centre.
What i am thinking is buying some cheapo XBOX 360 arcade's for the 2 bedrooms or getting 1 or 2 of these - http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/20816-ac-ryan-rolls-out-its-playonhd-essential-media-player so that the bedrooms can also stream movies/play movies off shared drives on the low powered server.

nvus

Reviewed by benchmarkreviews in below link
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=620&Itemid=69


ASRock Youtube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDGUmawdCPc

They sell for about 9K €:eek:

slave1

Here's my build if it helps, ticks many of your boxes except TV recording which is simply a card and W7MC....I just cut and pasted the rest of this post from another website forum so hope it works!!

All the boxes for the new gear

Silverstone case, I've seen a few of these on the forums so quite popular, very happy with it, very good build and sturdy

ASUS P5QL/EPU, Sockel 775 Intel P43, ATX motherboard, got this guy as I prefer Intel and it has 6 Sata connections and as I'm storage hungry needed as many as possible, it also has SPDIF out which replaces my previous dedicated sound card requirements

Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU, an efficient unit with plenty of output connectors to fuel the hard drives and optical unit

Six Samsung EcoGreen F2 1,5TB, SATA II hard drives, have been using Sammys for quite a while now so just needed to purchase two more and gut other PC's I have to fill up with six of these babies

For memory I went with two sets of 2GB DDR2 Corsair Value CL 5, PC6400/800, I think 4 gig is plenty for a HTPC

For the CPU went with Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6500 Box 2048Kb, LGA775, 64bit, again did not see a point of a quad core for what will never be a gaming machine

OS is a student W7 Pro 64, great value at €45

As you can see from the shortcuts I sourced most from www.hardwareversand.de who have great prices (lower VAT also) and a flat €30 shipping fee, just make sure you order from items in stock. As I'm in the Euo zone, saves me the grief of ever changing €/£ FX rates too.
I already had a GT8600 512k which I simply re-used along with an LG BR/HDDVD combo drive, the only elements of my previous HTPC to make the cut along with a RAID card from another PC for extra SATA connectivity.



Here's the empty box with optical and hard drive bays removed for ease of motherboard etc insertion, best to build in as logical an order as your case IMHO. It may look like it has loads of room but pretty soon fills up!!


Hard drive bays filled which gives me 9TBs for movies and TV, with an average BR rip at around 9gig you'd be amazed and how quick these get populated, nothing more frustrating that having to move files from location to location when space starts becoming an issue so I'm making sure I'm okay for a few years with 9TB



Bit of a jump here, bays refitted, PSU fitted, graphics card (passive cooling/no fan) in as well as RAID card as the MB only had 6 connections and I needed 7 (6 hard drives and the BR/HDDVD drive), you might notice some molex to sata power adapters too.



And here's what I thought would be the final version with everything connected up and RAM in, cables as tidy as I could get them. I didn't change any of the fans they seem quiet enough for my purposes and no issue with install OS and trialling. The biggest headache was putting a 64 OS upgrade onto a 32 system which after much trial and error turns out you can't do without a fresh install contrary to MS instructions...



Anyhow, when I had it all hooked up etc my biggest backbreak was configuring the on-board sound to output via SPDIF which I eventually snagged however the likes of MPC and WMP can't seem to control this element of .mkv too well for my Onkyo which migrated me to XBMC (another post). Next pain was switching on an amp and TV/projector and waiting for the HTPC to boot up............

So, over to OC and picked up a OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive with 5.25" to 2.5" adapter so it could fit into the spare optical bay



Here's the drive fitted under the top optical bay, works fine, had to do a complete re-install of OS/drivers etc but boot time is now about 20 secs for windows so happier camper



And the finished article, actually looks better in reality, forgot to clean up all the grubby hand marks from all the tinkering and very heavy now.

[/QUOTE]

Solitaire

That EA650D is probably crying. Its going to be horribly inefficient given that on average you'll be drawing all of ~65W from it... 10% of its capacity

Don't get me wrong, six HDDs will produce a humoungous current spike when they all spin up from idle simultaneously, but that kind of momentary usage is measured from the unit's max, and even being pessimistic I don't see half a dozen Sammy F2s pulling more than 20A when spinning up together! That unit has how much 12V capacity? 45A?

ninja 12

greenfly wrote: »

Hey guys,

just looking for some advise, im going to gradually build a media center for use below a tv main uses are;

browsing web (wireless keyboard with trackpad)
watching digital versions of tv shows and moves
setting up time shift to use in conjunction with dvb-t
if possible use it as a satellite receiver box also allowing recording and time shift.

oh and of course a server for the storage of digital media

because its going to be a slow build im not overly concerned about the price but at the same time would like to keep it below €1k.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has actually used a pc as a satellite box before could you give me the in's and outs (i know the satellite forum would probably be much better suited to that question)

the only thing i would maybe ask is low power consumption (it will be on constantly) and obv large amount of storage.

What you're looking to do is easy enough .

I ditched Sky over a year ago and use my htpc for recording tv programs .
I have a feed from my sky dish hooked into a Compro S350 DVB-S card , and use MediaPortal , with full 7 day EPG . Timeshift works perfectly as well .
I have a DVB-T dongle on it's way to me in the post at the moment , so I can try out the Saoirview service .

Windows Media Centre will do the job as well .

Re. low power consumption , any of the AMD "e" dual core (AMD Athlon II X2 240e ,AMD Athlon II X2 245e etc.) cpu's will do the job perfectly .
An AMD 785G boards integrated graphics will be more than enough for 1080p playback , but is not powerful enough for gaming .

I also use mine for browsing the web and gaming .

Hope this helps .

slave1

Don't want to hijack...

That EA650D is probably crying. Its going to be horribly inefficient given that on average you'll be drawing all of ~65W from it... 10% of its capacity

Don't get me wrong, six HDDs will produce a humoungous current spike when they all spin up from idle simultaneously, but that kind of momentary usage is measured from the unit's max, and even being pessimistic I don't see half a dozen Sammy F2s pulling more than 20A when spinning up together! That unit has how much 12V capacity? 45A?

Yep, had a new main PC build in mind when I got this PSU so wanted flexibility, had 4 decent PCs in the house so slowly moving them on - want to get down to two - and will probably take this PSU for new main build shortly and replace with sommit. Issue was difficulty finding a PSU with leads to power 7 hard drives and an optical unit and - should it arise in the future - a powered graphics card. Gladly take advice on that PSU...

ninja 12

slave1 wrote: »

Don't want to hijack...

Issue was difficulty finding a PSU with leads to power 7 hard drives and an optical unit and - should it arise in the future - a powered graphics card. Gladly take advice on that PSU...

I've got two Corsair HX Series modular PSU's . A HX 620 and a HX 450 .

They have more than enough cables . I think my HX620 came with 8 sata connectors , as well as two PCI-E cables .

The newer version (HX650) comes with 9 sata cables .

The new AX series come with even more cables .

I don't have any molex connectors plugged in , so can add plenty more sata connectors if needed .

More cables can be requested at no charge from Corsair .

They are very quiet as well.

Hope this helps .

BigEejit

I use one of these: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Power+Supplies/650W+or+less/FSP+Zen+400W+SILENT+Fanless+85%2B+Ultra+High+Efficiency+Power+Supply+?productId=40166&source=googleps
But I am pretty sure it does not have 8 sata power cables.

My htpc has a fanless Asus 5770 1GB graphics card for a little gaming on the tv (tbh I only do this rarely). I use a Asus M4A785D-M Pro mobo with a AMD Athlon x4 610e cpu (45W tdp!) and 4GB ram and a second hand SLC SSD (ebay £70 for 60GB ) for the OS. I have two 1TB seagates suspended in the disk section of my Antec Fusion Remote case.

I tried to make this thing completely fanless but everything got hot, still working but very hot. I first tried putting some small fans inside the case blowing on the hottest parts, but it didnt work out satisfactorily. So I cut two holes in the top of the case and put in two 140mm 600rpm fractal 9db fans (http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/fractaldesignfans/fd-fan-140) blowing directly on the components that generate heat. So one fan blows on the scythe shuriken cpu cooler (its own fan taken off), northbridge and ram. The other fan blows half on the very large heatsink on the graphics card and the other half is on the psu.

I have fan filters on these two inlet fans and it keeps the case (mostly) dust free. The case is in a shelf under the telly and you dont notice the black fans and fan filters sticking out of the top of a black case in a dark space .

Lord Derpington

Thanks guys, some great suggestions here!
Right now just need to get my budget properly sorted and get on a shopping list ;D

@Slave1
Thats a beauty, really ticking most/all of the boxes of what i want to try and do!

Lord Derpington

just re-reading this all again.
I think the suggestions here should work great!
Also, Ninja_12 MediaPortal looks brilliant! I was reading on here before that black gold is the card to go for would that be a better choice if im hoping for hd out?


The only reason i am saying this is because my idea was to have hd out to the tv and surround sound to the cinema system this.
Or because the home cinema has 2xHD in and i have one of these i could set it all up (xbox etc) to come through the home cinema at hd and back to the tv.

Sorry if this is all a bit up in the air, ive never made anything like this before but it is something that has always interested me.

I greatly appreciate the help


edit: i know im kind of taking the piss now but is it possible to get a remote working with this aswell as the keyboard?
more for pause, play, next kind of purpose than anything else

ninja 12

greenfly wrote: »

just re-reading this all again.
I think the suggestions here should work great!
Also, Ninja_12 MediaPortal looks brilliant!

I was reading on here before that black gold is the card to go for would that be a better choice if im hoping for hd out?

Sorry if this is all a bit up in the air, ive never made anything like this before but it is something that has always interested me.

I greatly appreciate the help


edit: i know im kind of taking the piss now but is it possible to get a remote working with this aswell as the keyboard?
more for pause, play, next kind of purpose than anything else

Re. Black Gold , they seem to be popular , but I have no personal experience with them .

Re. MediaPortal & remote ,

I use the StreamedMP skin , with the Moving pictures plugin for all of my movies and the MyTV Series plugin for my tv series episodes .
It looks brilliant and has full screen artwork for movies , music and tv series .

My case has an lcd display with an integrated remote sensor and I use a Harmony One (set up as a MCE remote) to navigate my music , movies etc .
This works perfectly .

I also have a wireless keyboard and mouse for web browsing , configuring MediaPortal , playing games etc .

Here is a link to my build thread on another forum - Ninja 12's Silverstone CW02 HTPC (I hope it's allowed to link to it )


Hope this helps . Any other questions , just ask .

ninja 12

slave1 wrote: »

Here's my build

Nice build , the LC17 is a popular case .
Silverstone's build quality is excellent .

slave1

thanks, yeah nothing worse that having a case with those lethal sharp edges around the inside also, well worth the ton for that case, very solid