Hey, I'm hoping to build out a home theater PC box from scratch and running MythTV on it. This will be the first time putting together a computer and I'm finding the process of selecting what to buy a bit overwhelming. I know I would like to assemble all the components in a tower (ATX sized). I would really appreciate any recommendations.

This is what I'd like for the Home Theater PC to do:

Watch HDTV (play, pause, rewind)
The tuner should have ATSC and QAM HD tuner
Have HD output (DVI or HDMI)
Record two HD shows at the same time and still allow me to watch live TV or a pre-recorded show
Have Digital audio out (optical or RCA/phono) for DTS, Dolby Digital, etc.
Play DVDs and upscale them and be able to RIP them
Play MP3s (is it possible to play MP3s downloaded from iTunes/DRM'd???)
Be able to setup RAID1 or be able to house 3 hard drives in the box
Gigabit network connection
My 'Nice to have' would be to have a tuner card that has CableCard in it so I can get all the channels from my digital cable provider (which is CableVision in Hoboken, New Jersey)


I would greatly appreciate it if someone could provide me with some information on what hardware to get to do this:
Which mother board?
Which AMD CPU to buy?
How much RAM?
Which tuner card(s)?
Which video card?
Which audio card?
Anything else that I may need to meet the requirements that I listed above.

Thanks in advance.

Get an S3 and a separate upconverting DVD player already :)

Seriously, though - I don't know of any CableCard-capable HD tuners. MS & a plethora of other SW folks & CE manufacturers have petitioned to simplify HD encryption and DRM-like schemes (and streamline approval of new implementaions etc), but Cable companies will stall. As always.

Dish & DTV aren't even an option - not only from the lack of interpoerability or PC usage standpoint, but also because their quality is inferior to cable and OTA.

You could possibly set up a decent dual ATSC-tuner (perhaps with QAM? There are a few such tuner cards) system, but it will starkly contrast the essentially angst-free nature of the S3 HD TiVo.

Good luck, though - I'm subscribed to this thread and will be eager to see what the true HTPC proponents suggest so I can learn a thing or ten.

This is what I'd like for the Home Theater PC to do:

Watch HDTV (play, pause, rewind)

Not a problem

The tuner should have ATSC and QAM HD tuner

You could save about $75 per tuner with ATSC only ($20 ea).

Have HD output (DVI or HDMI)
Record two HD shows at the same time and still allow me to watch live TV or a pre-recorded show

2 or 3 tuners depending on what you have.

Have Digital audio out (optical or RCA/phono) for DTS, Dolby Digital, etc.
Play DVDs and upscale them and be able to RIP them
Play MP3s (is it possible to play MP3s downloaded from iTunes/DRM'd???)
Be able to setup RAID1 or be able to house 3 hard drives in the box
Gigabit network connection
My 'Nice to have' would be to have a tuner card that has CableCard in it so I can get all the channels from my digital cable provider (which is CableVision in Hoboken, New Jersey)

No cablecards yet that I know of. The rest sounds reasonable. If you can get an STB with a firewire out, that should/might work. I don't use cable or sat tv.



I would greatly appreciate it if someone could provide me with some information on what hardware to get to do this:
Which mother board?

Wow. GA-M55Plus-S3

Which AMD CPU to buy?

AM2 X2 3800+ or as slow as a Sempron 3400+

How much RAM?

1 GB is plenty (2x512 ddr2 667)

Which tuner card(s)?

This is where it gets tough. if you can live without QAM, then Air2PC Rev.02 ATSC cards on ebay works well. I've got 5 in my systems. With QAM, I'll leave to someone else.

Which video card?

I use the onboard video, but you'll probably want an Nvidia 6200 PCIe or faster.

Which audio card?

I think the HD onboard sound might work for you.

Anything else that I may need to meet the requirements that I listed above.

Any time you start having to deal with sat or cable companies, there's going to be things you'll have to find out from them.

I agree with what wnewell said. for my mythboxes I use onboard audio for both (I passthrough output to my receiver through the optical out). I use onboard video (Nvidia) for one box, and a Geforce 6200 PCIe for my other box. The 6200 is plenty for HD.

I have 3 tuners for QAM, 1 for ATSC, and 1 for NTSC. I recommend Kworld ATSC 110 for QAM (they can also do ATSC and NTSC). If you just want ATSC you can't beat the Air2PCs off ebay. I've been able to get all of my Kworlds for $50 or less with rebates or finding them on ebay (specials at stores light newegg and buy.com run from time to time on this card). I also have an Avermedia A180 which I use for QAM -- it can also do ATSC, but not NTSC. There are plenty of other cards that can work (Dvicos, pchdtv) but they tend to be more expensive and aren't any better for me. I have a Dvico Fusion 5 lite in my dual boot machine only because at the time it was the only card that had QAM software support in windows, and although it tends to be a little pricier, it doesn't display any better picture or tune any better than my other cards...

If you decide to go with QAM (cable card won't be an option for mythtv) check to see what stations you can get in your area from your provider with QAM (You may have a TV that can tune QAM, or look for the appropriate forum here).

If you are building this for a living room make sure to consider noise in your build. I keep one of my backends in the garage (it's louder) and my quieter more compact frontend in my living room. Processors can get a little taxed when displaying HD, so quiet cooling will be helpful (fanless video card, quiet case and CPU fans-or even liquid cooling).

Thanks for all the suggestions!! This has been really helpful.

Though, I've got one additional question. I was looking for the GA-M55Plus-S3 mother board on TigerDirect and could only find the Gigabyte M55SLI-S4 NVIDIA Socket AM2 ATX Motherboard. The only difference between these boards that I immediately noticed is that the GA-M55Plus has 4 regular PCI slots while the board that I found on TigerDirect only has 2 regular PCI slots. Will this be an issue or do most new cards support PCI express?

Not that my knowledge is exhaustive, but I don't know of any mythtv supported PCIe tuner cards, so I think this may be an issue for now if you want more than two tuners.

Not that my knowledge is exhaustive, but I don't know of any mythtv supported PCIe tuner cards, so I think this may be an issue for now if you want more than two tuners.You got it pretty much right.

PCIe based DTV cards for the North American market are brand spanking new. At present, there is only two such devices available (the VBox e164 and the Dvico F5 Express), and at least one other soon to arrive (AverTV combo pcie). Neither of the two available cards are presently supported under Linux -- drivers for the PCIe A/V decoder/bridge chips have to be developed. Mike Krufky signaled just the other day that development for the Conexant decoder (http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2007-January/015137.html) (used in the Dvico) has commenced, but not to expect anything for several months. In the past, Micronas has turned down requests for the release of specs for its nGene bridge IC, so don't expect anything for the VBox any time soon. I can't remember for sure what the forthcoming Aver card is using (off hand I seem to recall Philips ... which would be a good thing, as Philips has been supportative of driver development...though I'm not sure what the status on the saa7162 driver is).

For markets that use DVB standards, as opposed to the N.A userspace, they might already have support for a PCIe card. I don't track those developments too cloesely.

Oh, that's odd cause wnewell suggested a PCIe video card...Nvidia 6200 PCIe

distinguish between: video card vs DTV card

CityK and I are referring to TV tuner cards, not video cards. There are plenty of supported PCIe video cards (I have a PCIe 6200). That's why I said it only be an issue if you want more than two tuners... (want to be able to record more than two shows at a time).

My appologies. You see how confused I am about building this machine! But I'm up for the challenge.

Now worries. It's fulfilling - I built my first two last year, and went through looking into all the things you are. Now, they are running pretty smoothly and it has been worth it for the accomplishment, knowledge, and knowing that my next computer I'll probably build myself. There's a lot to know, but if it interests you, it's a fun project.