I am about to pull the trigger on the following components and was curious if I am making any major mistakes.
I thinks it's a good system.

zdjelar

Start with either the MicroATX Low-End Intel/NVIDIA or AMD/AMD system in my recommendations. This can do what you are thinking of. You can change components (case etc.) according to your needs.

How much would this sort of this with high end vid card (HDMI) and audio run? i'm assuming that just about any motherboad will have adequate gigabit LAN? What did you think of the SSD idea?

I'm hopelessly new at this while being extremely seasoned in regular pc builds...i'm just finding it very difficult to consider all of the constraints of a HTPC vs. PC build.

One of the main differences between HTPC builds and regular ones is noise. In a living room you suddenly become MUCH more conscious of fan/PSU noise, hard drive audibility etc. What seems quiet as a regular PC is often unacceptably noisy in a living room - particularly if you are reading a book or magazine with no TV/Radio on (or listening to classical music or a drama with quiet bits)

Also - ask yourself how much CPU power you really need - particularly if you can find a graphics card with good performance that runs cool and quietly (or silent). A noisy Quad core may be far more annoying than a whisper quiet Core Duo.

When setting it up - think of it as a bit of consumer electronics - not a PC. Don't install anything more than you need to run on it - the less you install - the less that can go wrong and the easier support and troubleshooting will be!

Also - if you want to play lots of music and DVD/BD/HD-DVD ISOs - ask yourself if you want to store them in the HTPC or access them via a Gigabit network? (Bung them onto a hidden server elsewhere in the house?)

One of the main differences between HTPC builds and regular ones is noise. In a living room you suddenly become MUCH more conscious of fan/PSU noise, hard drive audibility etc. What seems quiet as a regular PC is often unacceptably noisy in a living room - particularly if you are reading a book or magazine with no TV/Radio on (or listening to classical music or a drama with quiet bits)

Also - ask yourself how much CPU power you really need - particularly if you can find a graphics card with good performance that runs cool and quietly (or silent). A noisy Quad core may be far more annoying than a whisper quiet Core Duo.

When setting it up - think of it as a bit of consumer electronics - not a PC. Don't install anything more than you need to run on it - the less you install - the less that can go wrong and the easier support and troubleshooting will be!

Also - if you want to play lots of music and DVD/BD/HD-DVD ISOs - ask yourself if you want to store them in the HTPC or access them via a Gigabit network? (Bung them onto a hidden server elsewhere in the house?)

YES! Exactly! Great points, and that's exactly the kind of thinking i'm having a hard time thinking that way after being concerned with completely different priorities. I would never have thought of the difference in noise between quad and dual core, only performance difference...however, my stuff is already stored in another room and streamed over ethernet so at least i'm good there, lol.

What are your thoughts on a SSD HD in a microATX system?

How much would this sort of this with high end vid card (HDMI) and audio run? i'm assuming that just about any motherboad will have adequate gigabit LAN? What did you think of the SSD idea?

I'm hopelessly new at this while being extremely seasoned in regular pc builds...i'm just finding it very difficult to consider all of the constraints of a HTPC vs. PC build.
Both GeForce 9400 and Radeon HD 4550 support HDMI audio (look at the feature chart at page 85). Or use HD 4670 for better PQ (PowerColor AX4670 512MD3-P is the quietest card). All of my recommendations support Gb LAN. HDD is cheap and quiet enough (at least WD6400AAKS, the recommended one, is).

Both GeForce 9400 and Radeon HD 4550 support HDMI audio (look at the feature chart at page 85). Or use HD 4670 for better PQ (PowerColor AX4670 512MD3-P is the quietest card). All of my recommendations support Gb LAN. HDD is cheap and quiet enough (at least WD6400AAKS, the recommended one, is).

What about my ghetto RDP/tablet PC idea for wireless control?

What about my ghetto RDP/tablet PC idea for wireless control?
Perhaps I don't get your idea. What do you want to control wirelessly?

BTW HD 3200 supports only 16 bit, 48kHz (DVD Quality). You can't select 44kHz in the Advanced tab.

So you connect the HDMI port of the mb to your a HDMI IN of your TV. You can hear PC audio (stereo LPCM), but if you play DVD movies in VMC, you can't hear audio, right? Does your TV accept Dolby Digital? Try to send stereo LPCM through HDMI. Use PowerDVD or Media Player Classic HomeCinema (MPC-HC; free).

ding ding! we have a winner...MPC-HC!

Perhaps I don't get your idea. What do you want to control wirelessly?

I want to run the MediaLounge/xbmc interface, however, i want to be able to control it from the couch (or my wife from the kitchen) via some sort of touch screen interface. Something like the Origen T12 but trying to save some money.

Anyone care to comment on my setup? I'm trying to finalize everything in the next couple days and have everything ordered by the end of next week... I want to build it during my Christmas Break from college.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!!
Also I am looking for a TV tuner still... I want some sort of DVR capabilities if possible.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8150/mediapcyl9.png

Thanks Everyone!!

Edit: I want to make sure everything will be fine for BluRay playback as well. I can also stretch the budget a little higher if you guys recommending any aspect of the computer.

I want to run the MediaLounge/xbmc interface, however, i want to be able to control it from the couch (or my wife from the kitchen) via some sort of touch screen interface. Something like the Origen T12 but trying to save some money.
This one (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/373&cl=us,en)? I haven't used it though.

Anyone care to comment on my setup?
TV tuner can handle only OTA and basic cable channels. AVerTV Combo PCIe or HDHomeRun. Hauppauge HD PVR model 1212 to capture premium contents from a STB (via analog).

I'm actually building this for a buddy, he only has basic cable at his apartment so that is fine...

I'll look into both of those cards.

I'm considering the mid-range intel/intel system.

But the Antec Fusion Black 430 Desktop mATX Case comes with a 430 Watt power supply, so I probably do not need to buy the corsair PSU, right?

Also I am going to skip the video card. And is this aftermarket cpu cooler really that much better? I'm only interested in it if its more quieter than stock.

Thanks for the help

I'm considering the mid-range intel/intel system.

But the Antec Fusion Black 430 Desktop mATX Case comes with a 430 Watt power supply, so I probably do not need to buy the corsair PSU, right?

Also I am going to skip the video card. And is this aftermarket cpu cooler really that much better? I'm only interested in it if its more quieter than stock.
Yes, you don't have to buy a PSU. You can cool down CPU without fan. (But then watch the temperature of NB!)

thanks for the quick reply!

Ah so going with the aftermarket cooler I can unplug the cpu fan, interesting.

I dont suppose anyone knows if the corsair psu is quieter than the stock case one, probably is. . .

thanks for the quick reply!

Ah so going with the aftermarket cooler I can unplug the cpu fan, interesting.

I dont suppose anyone knows if the corsair psu is quieter than the stock case one, probably is. . .
Check SPCR (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article751-page5.html):

90W (typical power consumption at playback)

- VX450W: 21 dBA
- EarthWatts 430: 22 dBA

I think I'm going to go with the AverMedia Tuner, mainly because it is internal.
Also, do you think I have enough RAM?
And is the dual core processor enough or should I upgrade to a quad core?

-Mike

I think I'm going to go with the AverMedia Tuner, mainly because it is internal.
Also, do you think I have enough RAM?
And is the dual core processor enough or should I upgrade to a quad core?
Yep, 4GB is enough for daily use, and you can't use over 4GB with Vista 32-bit anyway.

Dual-core vs quad-core depends on the tasks you run. Quad-core is much faster in encoding, video editing, OCR etc.

Hi there every one I am just about to buy a new HD 4670 Graphics Card for my front room HTPC and have a choice between a Force3D HD 4670 512MB or a Sapphire HD4670 512MB does anyone now witch card will be the quietest and best buy

Thanks everyone

Juls

Hi there every one I am just about to buy a new HD 4670 Graphics Card for my front room HTPC and have a choice between a Force3D HD 4670 512MB or a Sapphire HD4670 512MB does anyone now witch card will be the quietest and best buy
At least the Sapphire card is not so quiet.

At least the Sapphire card is not so quiet.

Thanks so go for the Force3D HD 4670 512MB

Thanks

Juls

Hello,

I'm new to HTPC setup, so I used the great guides found here and ended up with this list (here in Holland, I could not find all recommended items):

CPU: Pentium Dual Core E5200
CPU Cooler: Scythe SHURIKEN SCSK-1000
Motherboard: MSI P7NGM-Digital
Memory: GeiL 4 GB DDR2-800 Kit
HDD: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB 32MB
Case: Antec NSK2480 Desktop inc. 380W


I should say that it will be used for HD playback (on a Sony Bravia W4000) and storage.

Also, what about the noise with this setup? how should I cool it?

about the mobo, it seems that manufacturers are releasing more 9300/9400-based ones. Should I consider another one than the MSI?

Any comment/advice is greatly appreciated.

thanks
vini

I used the great guides found here and ended up with this list (here in Holland, I could not find all recommended items):

CPU: Pentium Dual Core E5200
CPU Cooler: Scythe SHURIKEN SCSK-1000
Motherboard: MSI P7NGM-Digital
Memory: GeiL 4 GB DDR2-800 Kit
HDD: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB 32MB
Case: Antec NSK2480 Desktop inc. 380W

I should say that it will be used for HD playback (on a Sony Bravia W4000) and storage.

Also, what about the noise with this setup? how should I cool it?

about the mobo, it seems that manufacturers are releasing more 9300/9400-based ones. Should I consider another one than the MSI?
I recommend you to try the stock cooler first. That's not bad (E5200 runs very cool). The MSI board should be good.

thanks for reply. I will then try stock cooler first. Is included PSU enough?

I will then place my order, very excited...:)

Hello all.

I admit I have not read all 160 pages of this excellent thread, I have just read the first 15 pages and from pages 85 to 100 and now my head hurts!

My PC building skills are about 10 years out of date so no use what so ever! But I would like to build my own HTPC.

But where to start?
Probably with which form factor? then which HTPC case?

ATX or mATX ?

My media content will be stored on a WHS so I don't need massive disk drive space on the Media Center PC.
I will be running VMC / Windows 7 MC. I'd like to playback all the usual suspects, ripped DVDs, DIVX/XVID, H.264, MKV, Blu-ray disks / ISO rips. I won't be gaming on this machine, I will have one or two TV Tuners, I don't currently have an AVR so can hopefully pick up an entry level HDMI one, and I will be using this HTPC with my Samsung 37" LCD HDTV. Anything I've missed?

I'd like the PC to be low power consumption and fairly quiet but with enough horse power to do everything without delays or stuttering. I like the sound of the GPU doing HA to take the load of the CPU.

Which HTPC case?

Antec, Lian Li, Origen AE, Thermaltake, SilverStone, Zalman

I'd like a mid range case to suit which ever form factor I go with. desktop HTPC style for in the living room. Recommendations?

Thanks

P.S. renethx your knowledge on all of this stuff is quite amazing having read some of your posts, keep up the good work and everyone else who contributes.

cw-kid

The Windows Media Center Blog (http://windowsmediacenter.blogspot.com)

cw-kid

I recommend you to start with the microATX or ATX mid-range Intel/Intel (or AMD/AMD) systems at page 85. They have enough horse power to do every ordinary HTPC task. The graphics card occupies two slots. So the number of availabe PCIe x1 slots are limited to 1 in the microATX system. Antec Fusion Remote (Max) is one of the easiest cases to work with. Zalman HD160 Plus is pricey, but very good.

cw-kid

I recommend you to start with the microATX or ATX mid-range Intel/Intel (or AMD/AMD) systems at page 85. They have enough horse power to do every ordinary HTPC task. The graphics card occupies two slots. So the number of availabe PCIe x1 slots are limited to 1 in the microATX system. Antec Fusion Remote (Max) is one of the easiest cases to work with. Zalman HD160 Plus is pricey, but very good.

The microATX tend to run cooler and quieter from what I've read, I think I would prefer the mATX but the iGPU's won't do hardware acceleration for the decoding so a faster processor is required is that correct?

I take it then your mid range mATX have a PCIe graphics card over using the onboard iGPU. Why do they take up two slots? Are they the fanless slient ones?

So I would connect to the AVR or HDTV with HDMI for Video and use S/PDIF for the audio is that correct? Would HDMI with S/PDIF pass through be possible as I was thinking of using a HDMI balun to connect to the TV as the PC won't be sat close by.

I read that the AMD CPU's seem to be better for the HTPC over Intel is that still the case?

And why not an Nvidia chipset?

Many Thanks.

I take it then your mid range mATX have a PCIe graphics card over using the onboard iGPU. Why do they take up two slots? Are they the fanless slient ones?

So I would connect to the AVR or HDTV with HDMI for Video and use S/PDIF for the audio is that correct? Would HDMI with S/PDIF pass through be possible as I was thinking of using a HDMI balun to connect to the TV as the PC won't be sat close by.

I read that the AMD CPU's seem to be better for the HTPC over Intel is that still the case?

And why not an Nvidia chipset?
No, every current GPU (including IGPU) has a built-in HD video decoder so that you don't need a powerful CPU.

Many graphics cards occupy 2 slots because of a larger cooler. That's a current trend.

No, HDMI carries both video and audio. You don't need S/PDIF (inferior to HDMI audio) if you use an AVR supporting HDMI.

That's wrong. Right now Intel desktop CPU is better for almost every purpose.

No, every current GPU (including IGPU) has a built-in HD video decoder so that you don't need a powerful CPU.

Many graphics cards occupy 2 slots because of a larger cooler. That's a current trend.

No, HDMI carries both video and audio. You don't need S/PDIF (inferior to HDMI audio) if you use an AVR supporting HDMI.

That's wrong. Right now Intel desktop CPU is better for almost every purpose.

Where I am now, it seems the best I can get and afford is either an
Intel E5200, or an Athlon X2 5600+ (the "old" one with 2MB cache, 2.8Ghz).

Is that enough (I'm also adding the HD4670 card), and which would you recommend and why?

Does anyone know if my cooler: Arctic Cooler 64 PRO would fit in the Antec Fusion Remote Black Micro ATX Media Center case?

These are the dimension for the cooler:
Fan Dimensions 107.0 x 43.5 x 96.0mm
Heatsink Dimensions 104.0 x 58.0 x 126.5mm

I would prefer to get the Antec Micro Fusion instead of the Antec Fusion Max to save on about $40 from my PC build.

Just note that working 24p in one environment does not mecessarily mean that in others. In fact quite a few people reported (micro-)sutter and/or audio drift and many people reported excellent 24p.

The difference of SD post-processing between 4550 and 4670 is not significant (unless you connect two displays). But to be sure you'd better choose 4670. PowerColor model is the quietest 4670 card.

First off, THANK YOU for all your contributions to the HTPC community. This is one of the most informative and responsive threads I've seen ANYWHERE in the HTPC world!

I'm curious about your thoughts on one other possibility. Will the 9600GT give me the reliable 24p refresh rate performance of the 8xxx/9xxx IGP's AND the post-processing goodness of the >= Radeon 4550? Your previous screenshots compared post-processing and noise reduction of the 9300IGP, 9500GT, HD4xxx and FFDSHOW. Would the 64 stream processors in the 9600GT bring it's post-processing ability into the realm of the HD4550 with its 80 stream processors???

If so, I actually don't need HDMI audio since my receiver doesn't support this. I plan to get 7.1ch via the analog outs of my X-FI elite pro (sounds excellent, IMO) into the 8ch inputs of my HK-AVR 525.

Ultimately,

1. flawless and reliable 24p AND
2. robust deinterlacing, post processing and SD noise reduction

are my over-riding objectives. It's encouraging that 24p on the HD4xxx's works in your environment, but it seems like it's not the same "given" as the nVidia solutions. HDMI LCPM would be a nice "extra" in that I'd have some future proofing in case I ever upgrade the AVR, but I don't anticipate doing this any time soon.

I understand that the 9500/9600GT's will increase my power requirements over the IGP or HD4670 options.

Do you think the variability of 24p on the HD4xxx's is hardware or driver/software related or both? If this can be made more reliable in the drivers and/or playback software, then ATI would truly have an excellent SD and HD HTPC card in their 46xx series!

Thanks once again!

renethx - I think I'm getting close to what I want for my next HTPC. I'm leaning towards your AMD/AMD solution for the low end, but I have a couple of questions.

The case (the NSK 1480) only has room for one hard drive. I've heard that having the Operating System and storage on the same hard drive isn't the way to go, and you could have problems with this. Is this an urban myth, or is there any validity to this?

It seems like most video cards can handle HD video, but they sometimes stumble on SD video. I'm concerned about getting a card that can handle both well. Through these threads, it seems you go back and forth between recommending the 4550 and the 4670. If price is not a factor, which card would be the better for SD (and HD) video?

Thanks so much for your help.

Also - if you want to play lots of music and DVD/BD/HD-DVD ISOs - ask yourself if you want to store them in the HTPC or access them via a Gigabit network? (Bung them onto a hidden server elsewhere in the house?)
Does Gigabit network fast enough for recording HDTV and playback of HD content? I'm thinking about to put a PC on my upstair living room so that I can watch HD in a bigger screen, and having the main computer for storage downstair. Recently I installed a Gigabit wireless router downstair and tried to transfer file between two computers downstair (via cat6 cables), and it's only about 21MB/s (about double when compare with the same test I did with an old 100base-T router). I'm expecting the speed will be even lower when I hookup the PC upstair, due to the distence and an extra Gigabit Switch. Will that be ok?

Where I am now, it seems the best I can get and afford is either an
Intel E5200, or an Athlon X2 5600+ (the "old" one with 2MB cache, 2.8Ghz).

Is that enough (I'm also adding the HD4670 card), and which would you recommend and why?
Yes (check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15194709#post15194709)). I prefer E5200 because it runs cooler (but mb is considerably pricier than an AMD chipset mb).

I'm curious about your thoughts on one other possibility. Will the 9600GT give me the reliable 24p refresh rate performance of the 8xxx/9xxx IGP's AND the post-processing goodness of the >= Radeon 4550? Your previous screenshots compared post-processing and noise reduction of the 9300IGP, 9500GT, HD4xxx and FFDSHOW. Would the 64 stream processors in the 9600GT bring it's post-processing ability into the realm of the HD4550 with its 80 stream processors???

If so, I actually don't need HDMI audio since my receiver doesn't support this. I plan to get 7.1ch via the analog outs of my X-FI elite pro (sounds excellent, IMO) into the 8ch inputs of my HK-AVR 525.

Ultimately,

1. flawless and reliable 24p AND
2. robust deinterlacing, post processing and SD noise reduction

are my over-riding objectives. It's encouraging that 24p on the HD4xxx's works in your environment, but it seems like it's not the same "given" as the nVidia solutions. HDMI LCPM would be a nice "extra" in that I'd have some future proofing in case I ever upgrade the AVR, but I don't anticipate doing this any time soon.

I understand that the 9500/9600GT's will increase my power requirements over the IGP or HD4670 options.

Do you think the variability of 24p on the HD4xxx's is hardware or driver/software related or both? If this can be made more reliable in the drivers and/or playback software, then ATI would truly have an excellent SD and HD HTPC card in their 46xx series!
Mid-range GeForce cards should have enough horse power for good post-processing, but it seems that somehow its driver does not draw full potential of the card. I can't comment on 24p issue.

The case (the NSK 1480) only has room for one hard drive. I've heard that having the Operating System and storage on the same hard drive isn't the way to go, and you could have problems with this. Is this an urban myth, or is there any validity to this?

It seems like most video cards can handle HD video, but they sometimes stumble on SD video. I'm concerned about getting a card that can handle both well. Through these threads, it seems you go back and forth between recommending the 4550 and the 4670. If price is not a factor, which card would be the better for SD (and HD) video?
Just creat a 100GB partition for OS and another for data in one HDD. There will be no problem. BTW NSK1480 supports two HDDs (see this picture (http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=425070&sid=c306a4c7aa055dbdbda8d39f378e721b)).

If price is not a factor, choose HD 4670. (But is there a low-profile HD 4670 card for NSK1480?)

renethx,

I plan to build a cheap HTPC for just HD/SD playback (during Xmas days)

As I will run it for 24x7 for torrent, I am more concerned about power usage.

Here is my plan:

AMD x2 5050e
GA-MA78GM-S2HP
WD 640GB HD (use WD 500GB already have)

DVD Writer (already have)
8GB RAM (already have)
Vista 64bit Ultimate OS (already have, got a couple from attending MS events) (or should I go for 32bit OS or Ubuntu, then I only need 4GB)
AverMedia A180 PCI (already have)
Antec P150 or P180 case (already have) with 430W PSU

Will this good enough for the following:

watch HDTV on comcast (any software recommended, I have stutter problem watching HDTV using Beyond TV)
watch downloaded movie .mkv (like BDRip, DVDRip)
play APE music using foobar2000 (SPDIF to Denon 3805)
will the system be quiet enough?

Later if I get a BD player, will this be good enough to play BD movie? How about 24p?

I don't need this for encoding. I have 2 other Q6600 system for encoding and gaming.

Thanks much.

As I will run it for 24x7 for torrent, I am more concerned about power usage.

Here is my plan:

AMD x2 5050e
GA-MA78GM-S2HP
WD 640GB HD (use WD 500GB already have)

DVD Writer (already have)
8GB RAM (already have)
Vista 64bit Ultimate OS (already have, got a couple from attending MS events) (or should I go for 32bit OS or Ubuntu, then I only need 4GB)
AverMedia A180 PCI (already have)
Antec P150 or P180 case (already have) with 430W PSU

Will this good enough for the following:

watch HDTV on comcast (any software recommended, I have stutter problem watching HDTV using Beyond TV)
watch downloaded movie .mkv (like BDRip, DVDRip)
play APE music using foobar2000 (SPDIF to Denon 3805)
will the system be quiet enough?

Later if I get a BD player, will this be good enough to play BD movie? How about 24p?
Playing back progressive contents (1080p/720p) should be fine. But there are a couple of problems: weak HD deinterlacing, weak SD post-processing, (potentially) audio drift at 24Hz. Adding HD 4550 is a solution (+5W~+10W). The system will be quiet (unless you configure fan speeds incorrectly).

Playing back progressive contents (1080p/720p) should be fine. But there are a couple of problems: weak HD deinterlacing, weak SD post-processing, (potentially) audio drift at 24Hz. Adding HD 4550 is a solution (+5W~+10W). The system will be quiet (unless you configure fan speeds incorrectly).

Thanks for the reply.

If I change CPU/MB to

Intel E5200 or E7300 (stock cooler)
P5Q-EM

Will it be ok for HD deinterlacing, SD post-processing and no audio drift WITHOUT a dedicated GPU?

I have a spare 8600 GTS and a 8600GT, will it be ok for this HTPC (either AMD or Intel config) in terms of deinterlacing/post-processing/24p playback (without a GPU)?

Will the Intel system still be energy efficient and quiet (no GPU)? How about its over-clockability?

Btw, do I have to get thermal paste separately in case I buy a boxed CPU?

Thanks again.

Question regarding the OS....

Being that Vista is much more resource demanding, has more issues with apps and drivers, etc.... Why is it recommended over "good old" Windows XP ?

What is the best version to install, and why? :rolleyes:

I think I am going to have to go with ATX over mATX. I want to use a Blackgold TV Tuner which is PCIe and also an additional PCIe multi channel sound card to drive a multi zone audio setup, plus the GPU.

I don't think any of these mATX boards from the mid-range have enough slots.

ASUS P5Q-EM
GA-E7AUM-DS2H
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2HP
ASUS M3N78-EM

Why do the manufacturers still have so many regular PCI slots?

I guess I could use the onboard iGPU instead of a GPU what downside would that bring ?

Thanks again.

Looks like I'm going to get with the setup I posted on p.159...
Do you think a Raid setup would be better? I plan to store many movies on this pc.
Also, I've heard of people have MKV playback problems, this rig shouldn't have any trouble with that correct?

Thanks for everything!

-Mike

I am not sure if you guys can do anything for me but I will just spill some ideas on this page and you guys can tell me what you think…

I currently have about 2000 some DVD's that I would like to put on a server so this is no small feat. I have decided that the investment of 2000 DVD’s warrants a server/HTPC. That would put me at, at least 10TBs min with 14 1.5TB drives at $129 on new egg or amazon something like 14 drives to start would be $1820. That would give me the ability to start with twice my needed spaces as I will no longer will be getting DVDs but BDs. I am willing to take the risk at letting a drive fail as I have all of the DVD's so a Windows Home Server ($99) I think would be the way to go. From there I have no idea what to do except that I have been planning on room in my rack for two 4U 4-space rack-mount cases. One for the server and one for the HTPC, that is in-less that could be one computer in the same somehow? I have never built a computer. I know I have the physical skills as I am an aircraft mechanic and love the wiring etc. But I just don’t think that I could do a project like this on my own. One last thing, I foolishly started this rack-mount system of mine with silver components etc, if there is anyway possible silver would continue this theme. I might be forced to sliver paint though. The NORCO RPC-4020 while not silver would be maybe a good choice for a case. It has 20 bays and with 14 full to start I could still grow it larger. As large as 30TB with the current drive but WHS doesn’t care what drive I use so maybe someday the drive will be even larger! So $1820 drives + $290 case + $99 operating system has me well over 2K and that is just part of the parts in the list. I of course would like the HTPC / Home Server to be able to play BD and be full HD and have a HDMI output. I guess what would be nice would be to find a build list somewhere that someone has already built and tested and work from there. Has anyone seen a build list that is close to what I am talking about? My questions is there any way to keep this below $2500 if not that is ok too I just am not made of money and as I just found out we will be having a baby in 9 months which puts me in an interesting place. I have to get my one last toy soon and that I can’t be really stupid with my money either. Thought or ideas?

Also, what type of software would you guys recommend for recording TV shows?
I was looking into Nero LiquidTV/Tivo as well as BeyondTV...

-Mike

I think I may have jumped the gun and purchased a poor choice for my system's hard drive. Since I will be archiving much of my DVD collection on to my HTPC I purchased basically the largest drive I could find: the Seagate Baracuda 1.5TB. After reading some reviews online I see that this drive didn't fair too well when running applications and OS startup times which are important to me but I'm having a hard time understanding based on the data they offer (MB/sec) how this will impact me in the real world.

Ultimately, my question is: Is the Seagate Baracuda 1.5TB drive a decent hard drive to consider for the OS Drive? I'm sure it is fine for simply archiving data but now I'm second guessing myself for purchasing this drive as the OS drive. It is easy for me to purchase another 7,200 RPM drive now and use it as the OS Drive if there is a significant difference. Any guidance is appreciated.

I think I may have jumped the gun and purchased a poor choice for my system's hard drive. Since I will be archiving much of my DVD collection on to my HTPC I purchased basically the largest drive I could find: the Seagate Baracuda 1.5TB. After reading some reviews online I see that this drive didn't fair too well when running applications and OS startup times which are important to me but I'm having a hard time understanding based on the data they offer (MB/sec) how this will impact me in the real world.

Ultimately, my question is: Is the Seagate Baracuda 1.5TB drive a decent hard drive to consider for the OS Drive? I'm sure it is fine for simply archiving data but now I'm second guessing myself for purchasing this drive as the OS drive. It is easy for me to purchase another 7,200 RPM drive now and use it as the OS Drive if there is a significant difference. Any guidance is appreciated.

I have not purchased this drive, but have avoided it, as I have seen nearly 1 out of every 4 reviews be negative. I would not recommend this drive for either OS or storage until Seagate can work out the kinks (I know they just had a firmware update, but I would wait to be on the safe side). There is nothing worse then having a HDD crash, regardless of what you are using it for.

I know there are recommendation on page 85 for various keyboards but what do people really use? Is it possible to run without a keyboard and mouse e.g. if you use the VMC all the time?
Thanks.

I know there are recommendation on page 85 for various keyboards but what do people really use? Is it possible to run without a keyboard and mouse e.g. if you use the VMC all the time?
Thanks.

I believe you will need a keyboard/mouse if you need to go into BIOS (I have one laying around that I use during an HTPC build). Otherwise, you don't need a mouse/keyboard if you are solely using VMC. There are many options out there (gyration, harmony remote, MCE remote, etc..). I currently using the Logitech diNovo mini

I know there are recommendation on page 85 for various keyboards but what do people really use? Is it possible to run without a keyboard and mouse e.g. if you use the VMC all the time?
Thanks.

I have seen Media Center PC's that are locked down so tight that only the ehshell.exe is used so the user only gets Media Center. No desktop, no icons, no start menu no anything, so they only use the remote control.

If I was buying a new MCE keyboard I would go for a Vidabox one.

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/extra/archive/2008/09/02/unboxing-of-a-vidabox-premium-wireless-keyboard.aspx

If it's a properly setup dedicated Media Center then you shouldn't use your keyboard and mouse that often.

Does anyone know if my cooler: Arctic Cooler 64 PRO would fit in the Antec Fusion Remote Black Micro ATX Media Center case?

These are the dimension for the cooler:
Fan Dimensions 107.0 x 43.5 x 96.0mm
Heatsink Dimensions 104.0 x 58.0 x 126.5mm

I would prefer to get the Antec Micro Fusion instead of the Antec Fusion Max to save on about $40 from my PC build.

Nevermind, after looking on the web I found that my cooler won't fit on the standard Antec Fusion Remote but would fit on the Fusion Max. I may just stick with the Fusion and try and mod my cooler to fit. I just need to shave off about 1.5cm from the Arctic Cooler to get it to fit or i could just run it with the top off.

I have the Vidabox keyboard, and I really like it on those occasions when I need a keyboard. Otherwise, I'm using my Harmony 680? remote (can't remember the exact number). I love the Harmony remote, as well, since it starts up everything (TV, HTPC, Receiver), controls them all, and puts them to sleep when done.

Thanks everyone for the replies about keyboards. That vidabox keyboard looks good.

Thanks for the reply.

If I change CPU/MB to

Intel E5200 or E7300 (stock cooler)
P5Q-EM

Will it be ok for HD deinterlacing, SD post-processing and no audio drift WITHOUT a dedicated GPU?

I have a spare 8600 GTS and a 8600GT, will it be ok for this HTPC (either AMD or Intel config) in terms of deinterlacing/post-processing/24p playback (without a GPU)?

Will the Intel system still be energy efficient and quiet (no GPU)? How about its over-clockability?

Btw, do I have to get thermal paste separately in case I buy a boxed CPU?
G45 is good and energy efficient. OC of P5Q-EM is not bad. A better (imo) choice is GeForce 9300/9400. If you own a 8600 GT, then you may use it with an AMD system (much cheaper) with AMD 780G or GeForce 8200/8300 chipset (supporting multichannel LPCM) and a 45W processor. In general a good discrete card like 8600 GT is better in post-processing than IGP.

Being that Vista is much more resource demanding, has more issues with apps and drivers, etc.... Why is it recommended over "good old" Windows XP ?

What is the best version to install, and why? :rolleyes:
Perhaps because I myself don't see more issues than XP, and apparently manufacturers place priority on Vista drivers.

Vista Home Premium (or Ultimate if you want the features it provides), perhaps 32-bit if you use Windows Media Center.

I think I am going to have to go with ATX over mATX. I want to use a Blackgold TV Tuner which is PCIe and also an additional PCIe multi channel sound card to drive a multi zone audio setup, plus the GPU.

I don't think any of these mATX boards from the mid-range have enough slots.

ASUS P5Q-EM
GA-E7AUM-DS2H
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2HP
ASUS M3N78-EM

Why do the manufacturers still have so many regular PCI slots?

I guess I could use the onboard iGPU instead of a GPU what downside would that bring ?
If you are going to use lots of expansion cards, mATX is not a good choice. In general downside of IGP is weak post-processing.

Looks like I'm going to get with the setup I posted on p.159...
Do you think a Raid setup would be better? I plan to store many movies on this pc.
Also, I've heard of people have MKV playback problems, this rig shouldn't have any trouble with that correct?
If you go with RAID, use RAID 5. (Remember that it's not a backup.) Playing back MKV is no problem at all.

G45 is good and energy efficient. OC of P5Q-EM is not bad. A better (imo) choice is GeForce 9300/9400. If you own a 8600 GT, then you may use it with an AMD system (much cheaper) with AMD 780G or GeForce 8200/8300 chipset (supporting multichannel LPCM) and a 45W processor. In general a good discrete card like 8600 GT is better in post-processing than IGP.

Thanks much, you really did a magnificent job to put together a guide like this.

Based on my requirement:

watch HDTV on comcast (any software recommended, I have stutter problem watching HDTV using Beyond TV)
watch downloaded movie .mkv (like BDRip, DVDRip)
play APE music using foobar2000 (SPDIF to Denon 3805)
energy efficient and quiet

The parts I have now:

Logitech keyboard/mouse/remote (1000 and 880)
IDE DVD Writer (already have)
16GB DDR2 RAM (already have)
Vista 64bit Ultimate OS (already have, got a couple from attending MS events) (or should I go for 32bit OS or Ubuntu, then I only need 4GB)
AverMedia A180 PCI (already have)
Antec P150 or P180 case (already have) with 430W PSU
WDC 500GB SATA (already have)
PNY GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS (both of them are 256MB)

So, generally I have 2 options:

1. Intel E5200, ASUS P5Q-EM (about $220)
2. AMD 5050e, GA-MA78GM-S2HP (as I understand correctly, this one has to be paired with a video card) (about $140, plus a video card or use 8600 we have now)

Which one would you recommend? Will the intel option be better in the long term? Should I be better off getting a HTPC case, like silverStone LC13B, like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163117?

Any recommendation on HDTV software? (recording/playback, I have problem with Beyond TV and it doesnot support QAM on Comcast cable).

Perhaps because I myself don't see more issues than XP, and apparently manufacturers place priority on Vista drivers.

Vista Home Premium (or Ultimate if you want the features it provides), perhaps 32-bit if you use Windows Media Center.


Ok, let's say there are no issues, or at least they're the same than in XP... Now, there's no denying it's much more resource demanding. So why would I choose that, that stresses my PC more and leaves less resources for the task I really want to use, than chossing a less demangins OS? Is there any gain/feature/whatever that Vista can give mw that XP doesn't? Cause otherwise, it sounds pretty pointless as of today at least...

Ok, let's say there are no issues, or at least they're the same than in XP... Now, there's no denying it's much more resource demanding. So why would I choose that, that stresses my PC more and leaves less resources for the task I really want to use, than chossing a less demangins OS? Is there any gain/feature/whatever that Vista can give mw that XP doesn't? Cause otherwise, it sounds pretty pointless as of today at least...
Perhaps you are talking about memory (what else?). 2GB is enough for Vista HTPC and cheap. Basically if you feel XP is better, you should use it, nobody would object to it. :)

The mid-range ATX Intel system has a motherboard that does not have a HDMI output. Is there one that does have a HDMI output?
Thanks.

The mid-range ATX Intel system has a motherboard that does not have a HDMI output. Is there one that does have a HDMI output?
Thanks.
These two (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=280&Description=&Type=&N=2010200280&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&OEMMark=0&PropertyCodeValue=717%3A45252&PropertyCodeValue=717%3A45592&PropertyCodeValue=717%3A42785&PropertyCodeValue=757%3A7618) are the only ATX motherboards for Intel with HDMI out. Supermicro uses DDR3 memory and you can't use any other graphics card with onboard HDMI. With EVGA, you can use another NVIDIA card simultaneously with onboard HDMI.

Anyone use the Antec Veris fusion case? I jsut set up using the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP mobo, and when I turned it on there was a burning smell :eek:I think I narrowed it down to the internal USB adapter for the display, as when I touched this wire it was very hot, and the only hot thing in the case (it is made of thick rubber too which would explain the burning rubber smell). Wonder if anyone else ran into issues with this?

These two (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=280&Description=&Type=&N=2010200280&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&OEMMark=0&PropertyCodeValue=717%3A45252&PropertyCodeValue=717%3A45592&PropertyCodeValue=717%3A42785&PropertyCodeValue=757%3A7618) are the only ATX motherboards for Intel with HDMI out. Supermicro uses DDR3 memory and you can't use any other graphics card with onboard HDMI. With EVGA, you can use another NVIDIA card simultaneously with onboard HDMI.
OK Thanks. I think I will go for your AMD version instead.

renethx, the card I bought, a sapphire hd4670, has dual dvi outputs, and the dvi-hdmi adapter. If I got a 2nd adapter, is it possible to use one of these to get the image and the other the audio? (even though both carry both things). I ask due to the need ocasionally to send the image to a projector and the sound to a receiver.

Thanks!

So, generally I have 2 options:

1. Intel E5200, ASUS P5Q-EM (about $220)
2. AMD 5050e, GA-MA78GM-S2HP (as I understand correctly, this one has to be paired with a video card) (about $140, plus a video card or use 8600 we have now)

Which one would you recommend? Will the intel option be better in the long term? Should I be better off getting a HTPC case, like silverStone LC13B, like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163117?

Any recommendation on HDTV software? (recording/playback, I have problem with Beyond TV and it doesnot support QAM on Comcast cable).
In the long term either system is OK. The power consumption of the total system (CPU, mb, 2 stick of DDR2-800, HDD, Earthwatts 380) at idle and mkv playback is:

- E5200+G45: 53W, 70W
- E5200+GeForce 9400: 52W, 68W
- 4850e+780G+HD 4550: 57W, 72W
- 4850e+780G+GF8600 GT: 67W, 79W

HD 4550 is the best in PQ.

Which case is better depends on your usage. If you want to place it on a rack along with other AV devices, a HTPC case is the only choice. Otherwise P150 is fine.

renethx, the card I bought, a sapphire hd4670, has dual dvi outputs, and the dvi-hdmi adapter. If I got a 2nd adapter, is it possible to use one of these to get the image and the other the audio? (even though both carry both things). I ask due to the need ocasionally to send the image to a projector and the sound to a receiver.
Assuming "a 2nd adapter" means another DVI-to-HDMI adapter, Yes. Choose the extended desktop mode with the receiver as the secondary display (at whatever resolution), and use only the primary display for your work; the second DVI port will send audio and video (the second half of the desktop which you won't use).

You will have to excuse my lack of knowledge what's Post Processing ? And how does it affect things?

Here are some more cool keyboards btw:
http://www.perixx.com/en/products/kb/wirless/wireless.htm

You will have to excuse my lack of knowledge what's Post Processing ? And how does it affect things?
This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14964995#post14964995).

This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14964995#post14964995).

Thanks for the link, so would you generally recommend going with a GPU card over onboard iGPU where possible ?

This card HIS H467QT512P is from the mid range Intel/Intel specs, I see its got a fan how quiet are they? Do most GPU cards still have a fan? And can you get them with out a fan?

Also it appears to have DVI ports and not HDMI but they are basically the same thing.

Many Thanks.

Anyone use the Antec Veris fusion case? I jsut set up using the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP mobo, and when I turned it on there was a burning smell :eek:I think I narrowed it down to the internal USB adapter for the display, as when I touched this wire it was very hot, and the only hot thing in the case (it is made of thick rubber too which would explain the burning rubber smell). Wonder if anyone else ran into issues with this?

i just built mine with this case...no problem. you could try to remove the pigtail, and plug in the VFD/LCD USB to an external port (might need an extension). that would isolate the problem to the pigtail wiring...more likely it's the VFD, i would guess.

maybe check for pinched/shorted wires from the front panel too.

and make sure you install the iMON s/w first, before plugging in the USB (not likely a cause of your problem, but my VFD would not work until i did this).

This card HIS H467QT512P is from the mid range Intel/Intel specs, I see its got a fan how quiet are they? Do most GPU cards still have a fan? And can you get them with out a fan?

Also it appears to have DVI ports and not HDMI but they are basically the same thing.
Yep, I prefer a discrete card to IGP. HIS is very quiet and heat is exhausted outside the case from the second slot (good for extensive use in gaming). PowerColor AX4670 512MD3-P is the quietest card. Most GPU have a fan just because it emits a considerable amount of heat (for example 60W at 3D peak with HD 4670). Basically DVI and HDMI are electronically identical.

Yep, I prefer a discrete card to IGP. HIS is very quiet and heat is exhausted outside the case from the second slot (good for extensive use in gaming). PowerColor AX4670 512MD3-P is the quietest card. Most GPU have a fan just because it emits a considerable amount of heat (for example 60W at 3D peak with HD 4670). Basically DVI and HDMI are electronically identical.

And do you normally recommend ATI chipset GPU cards over Nvidia ?

Any benefit of one over the other for HTPC ?
Like wise with Nvidia motherboard verus Intel chipsets?

Thanks again.

And do you normally recommend ATI chipset GPU cards over Nvidia ?

Any benefit of one over the other for HTPC ?
Like wise with Nvidia motherboard verus Intel chipsets?
Yes, I recommend ATI just because NVIDIA lacks the support for multichannel LPCM. HD 4550 is the minimum in proper post-processing. HD 4670 has more horse power. As for IGP, NVIDIA is the best because of decent post-processing, multichannel LPCM, perfect 24p, good 3D performance. G45 is good but unfortunately inferior to NVIDIA.

If you go with RAID, use RAID 5. (Remember that it's not a backup.) Playing back MKV is no problem at all.

Aside from thecus (btw, would you recommend it?), are there inexpensive NAS to build a raid 5 system? Thx

Assuming "a 2nd adapter" means another DVI-to-HDMI adapter, Yes. Choose the extended desktop mode with the receiver as the secondary display (at whatever resolution), and use only the primary display for your work; the second DVI port will send audio and video (the second half of the desktop which you won't use).

Yes, that's what I meant with "adapter"..... :D

Is that the better option to choose instead of duplicating the desktop? (in case one screwa up and drags stuff to the other half / or apps open up by themselves on that half..) :eek:

Aside from thecus (btw, would you recommend it?), are there inexpensive NAS to build a raid 5 system? Thx

Yes, build yourself a linux box.... :rolleyes:

Yes, build yourself a linux box.... :rolleyes:

Or look at unRAID (which AIUI is a special Linux distro for RAID-that-isn't-RAID. It uses Parity (so redundancy for a single drive failure) but not striping (so multiple drive failures are less catastrophic as files on other disks are intact not split across multiple drives) and has cache facilities to avoid the speed hit in some cases. It doesn't have the performance benefits of striping though.

Neat solution for moderate HTPC server installs - very easy to manage, very easy to build (in my experience - less than 90 mins from opening the boxes of case and motherboard to storing content)

In the long term either system is OK. The power consumption of the total system (CPU, mb, 2 stick of DDR2-800, HDD, Earthwatts 380) at idle and mkv playback is:

- G45: 53W, 70W
- GeForce 9400: 52W, 68W
- 780G+HD 4550: 57W, 72W
- 780G+GF8600 GT: 67W, 79W

HD 4550 is the best in PQ.

Which case is better depends on your usage. If you want to place it on a rack along with other AV devices, a HTPC case is the only choice. Otherwise P150 is fine.

Do you mean HD 4550 is better in PQ even compared to its big brother like 46xx, 47xx and 48xx?

Currently, I am thinking of the following

E8500 (Scythe NINJA MINI SCMNJ-1000)
ASUS P5Q-EM Intel G45 (or should I be better go for P45 platform, see my requirement on video card below)
Graphics Card: HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670 or other 4670 cards (depends on the price/review on newegg)

I know it's more expensive but I think this should let me to run it for 2 years from now. I assume it should be good for

all playback I want
good on encoding
ok for gaming just in case

Is my assumption correct? Is HD4670 PQ better than HD4550?

Btw, how do you get the power consumption? Is there a link/formula?

I do have a HDTV Ready DLP TV (without build-in tuner).

Is there a best way to connect to its component input (via this PC or a standalone setbox)? Is there a video card can do 3 outputs at the same time.

regular RGB to a PC monitor out (to setup OS, do routine maintenance work)
DVI/HDMI to my HD projector (it takes HDMI)
DVI/Component to my HD-ready TV (it takes component only and upto 1080i)

I found another alternative is Samsung HDTV receiver ($160 at amazon). But I don't want to spend too much on this aged TV (even it can take 1080i).

Thanks.

Yes, that's what I meant with "adapter"..... :D

Is that the better option to choose instead of duplicating the desktop? (in case one screwa up and drags stuff to the other half / or apps open up by themselves on that half..) :eek:
The clone mode may be possible. Anyway you have to send video signal to the second video output. Blank video is not allowed in HDMI.

Or look at unRAID (which AIUI is a special Linux distro for RAID-that-isn't-RAID. It uses Parity (so redundancy for a single drive failure) but not striping (so multiple drive failures are less catastrophic as files on other disks are intact not split across multiple drives) and has cache facilities to avoid the speed hit in some cases. It doesn't have the performance benefits of striping though.

Neat solution for moderate HTPC server installs - very easy to manage, very easy to build (in my experience - less than 90 mins from opening the boxes of case and motherboard to storing content)

The idea of striping + parity, is that upon a disk fail, you don't loose ANY data... With this solution you mention, a single drive failure makes you loose (at first glance) all data you had on it, whereas in the "traditional" one you don't loose anything. Multiple drive failures are much rarer than single, since the odds are multiplied. Also, I'm not familiar with the conecpt you're mentioning, so sorry If I talk dumb here, but what exactly is the point of parity if you can't recover the data upon a drive fail? :confused:

The clone mode may be possible. Anyway you have to send video signal to the second video output. Blank video is not allowed in HDMI.

Got it. I have no problem in sending video there too, it's just that it ocurred to me that extending the desktop to the second "monitor", I might screw something up if it opens in that part of the screen that's going to the receiver actually and obviously can't be seen... :D

Currently, I am thinking of the following

E8500 (Scythe NINJA MINI SCMNJ-1000)
ASUS P5Q-EM Intel G45 (or should I be better go for P45 platform, see my requirement on video card below)
Graphics Card: HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670 or other 4670 cards (depends on the price/review on newegg)

Is there a best way to connect to its component input (via this PC or a standalone setbox)? Is there a video card can do 3 outputs at the same time.

regular RGB to a PC monitor out (to setup OS, do routine maintenance work)
DVI/HDMI to my HD projector (it takes HDMI)
DVI/Component to my HD-ready TV (it takes component only and upto 1080i)

I found another alternative is Samsung HDTV receiver ($160 at amazon). But I don't want to spend too much on this aged TV (even it can take 1080i).
I used Kill-A-Watts. So the values are very crude, but still useful to compare system power consumption. 4670 is better than 4550. The above combination is very good, but supports only two displays. If you want to use three displays, a possible system is either:

- E8500
- GA-E7AUM-DS2H
- GeForce 9500 GT + GeForce 9400 (onboard)

or

- Phenom X3/X4
- GA-GM78GM-S2HP
- Radeon HD 4670 + HD 3200 (onboard).

In either system you will get multichannel LPCM (if it is your concern). The latter is better in PQ (at least in my test), but consumes more power (+10W or more at idle; Phenom is power hungry; of course you can use a 45W dual-core to reduce power consumption). BTW Phenom II 45nm processor will be released on January 8, 2009 that is much better in both performance and power consumption.

Got it. I have no problem in sending video there too, it's just that it ocurred to me that extending the desktop to the second "monitor", I might screw something up if it opens in that part of the screen that's going to the receiver actually and obviously can't be seen... :D
Yeah, I sometimes see this problem (use Alt+Space+M or a hotkey to move to the primary display). Maybe you can configure CCC (or UltraMon?) so that every application opens in the primary screen.

The idea of striping + parity, is that upon a disk fail, you don't loose ANY data... With this solution you mention, a single drive failure makes you loose (at first glance) all data you had on it, whereas in the "traditional" one you don't loose anything. Multiple drive failures are much rarer than single, since the odds are multiplied. Also, I'm not familiar with the conecpt you're mentioning, so sorry If I talk dumb here, but what exactly is the point of parity if you can't recover the data upon a drive fail? :confused:
unRAID can recover from a single drive failure. That's the whole point of the parity drive. Striping in RAID5 is just for speed and so that load is distributed among all drives in the array.

Yes, build yourself a linux box.... :rolleyes:

Ok, but it's not free, you have to buy a raid card if you don't trust sw raid management.

Or look at unRAID

I think it's less reliable than hw raid.

Renethx

A little plug (http://iandixon.co.uk/cs/blogs/stuart/archive/2008/12/12/guide-to-building-a-hd-htpc.aspx) for this thread over on www.thedigitallifestyle.com where I blog.

The idea of striping + parity, is that upon a disk fail, you don't loose ANY data... With this solution you mention, a single drive failure makes you loose (at first glance) all data you had on it, whereas in the "traditional" one you don't loose anything. Multiple drive failures are much rarer than single, since the odds are multiplied. Also, I'm not familiar with the conecpt you're mentioning, so sorry If I talk dumb here, but what exactly is the point of parity if you can't recover the data upon a drive fail? :confused:

We're at crossed purposes.

AIUI RAID 5 uses striping and parity. One drive failure loses no data, two drive failures loses everything potentially.

UnRaid uses parity but no striping. One drive failure loses no data (as it can be rebuilt using parity drive), two drive failures loses only the data on the drives lost (or less if one of them is the parity drive) - any data on the remaining drives is intact.

For me, and for many HTPC users, this is a good solution. We have all our source media still so can re-rip if needed, but we don't have a lot of time. The more of our data that survives the better!

I think it's less reliable than hw raid.

I tend to disagree - as the files remain contiguous and intact - so catastrophic failures are less catastrophic. Sure hw RAID is faster but I'm not convinced it is as robust.

Two drives failing in a RAID 5 array loses everything AIUI, Two drives failing in an unRAID array loses one or two drives worth of data (depends whether you lose a parity and data drive or two data drives) but nothing is lost on the other drives.

I'm not suggesting unRAID is a replacement for RAID - just a different solution that has advantages in some applications.

unRAID can recover from a single drive failure. That's the whole point of the parity drive. Striping in RAID5 is just for speed and so that load is distributed among all drives in the array.

Yes, yes, I know what all that is for. It's just that by his comment, it sounded as if he was saying "well, you just loose the data in one drive, but it doesn't affect ALL files", as if you couldn't recover the failed drive. If you can it sounds great ;)

Ok, but it's not free, you have to buy a raid card if you don't trust sw raid management.



I think it's less reliable than hw raid.


He never said he wanted a FREE solution, just cheap... Linux is as cheap as you can get. cheap box (enough for a file server), free os.

Your second line contradicts the first.. yeah sure, it's less reliable, but it's free/cheap.... :rolleyes:

We're at crossed purposes.

AIUI RAID 5 uses striping and parity. One drive failure loses no data, two drive failures loses everything potentially.

UnRaid uses parity but no striping. One drive failure loses no data (as it can be rebuilt using parity drive), two drive failures loses only the data on the drives lost (or less if one of them is the parity drive) - any data on the remaining drives is intact.

For me, and for many HTPC users, this is a good solution. We have all our source media still so can re-rip if needed, but we don't have a lot of time. The more of our data that survives the better!

Now it's clear. Doesn't sound like a bad alternative at all. I guess you'd have to consdier if the convenience of not having to re-rip however much stuff you have is worth the loss in performance/speed (plus, the fact that under a single drive loss, this is supposed to have an auto rebuild process, so why would you have to re-rip anything in the first place? being this way, I'd just use striped)

Or look at unRAID (which AIUI is a special Linux distro for RAID-that-isn't-RAID. It uses Parity (so redundancy for a single drive failure) but not striping (so multiple drive failures are less catastrophic as files on other disks are intact not split across multiple drives) and has cache facilities to avoid the speed hit in some cases. It doesn't have the performance benefits of striping though.

Neat solution for moderate HTPC server installs - very easy to manage, very easy to build (in my experience - less than 90 mins from opening the boxes of case and motherboard to storing content)

I'm a big fan of unRAID. For me, it offers a lot for not much money:

1. It's cheap - it's possible to put together a complete unRAID system for less money than you'd spend for some RAID5 hardware cards by themselves (minus drives, of course).
2. It scales big - supports 17 drives (1 parity, 15 data, 1 cache). My big unRAID box is on its way to 22.5TB of data storage space. And, you can mix and match drives of different sizes and types (IDE and SATA).
3. It's easy - I spent less time setting up unRAID than I did any other system I've ever built. When my unRAID system's old motherboard died, I was able to build a completely different system and just plug the unRAID data drives directly into it.
4. Hardware requirements are minimal.

I have an unRAID system in which I've started replacing the 500GB drives with 1.5TB drives. It's as simple as pulling the old drive, inserting a new one and telling unRAID to rebuild the data. Because of the magic of parity, one drive protects all the other data drives in the system.

unRAID is definitely slower than a lot of RAID5 systems, but the cache drive makes up for much of that speed difference, so that the perception of a slow system when you're copying material to the server is lessened dramatically. What you give up in speed with unRAID you gain in cost effective storage that's great at handling HD video across a gigabit Ethernet network.

And it couldn't be simpler. Once I had the box up and running, my network recognized it immediately and all the drives (and shares) were available to Windows Explorer. You manage unRAID through your browser (IE or Firefox or whatever) and you can do file transfers through Explorer. You don't need a monitor connected to unRAID at all - unless you like staring at a Linux command prompt. :)

I'm not into Linux at all. Fortunately, I don't have to be with unRAID.

I'm a big fan of unRAID. For me, it offers a lot for not much money:

1. It's cheap - it's possible to put together a complete unRAID system for less money than you'd spend for some RAID5 hardware cards by themselves (minus drives, of course).
2. It scales big - supports 17 drives (1 parity, 15 data, 1 cache). My big unRAID box is on its way to 22.5TB of data storage space. And, you can mix and match drives of different sizes and types (IDE and SATA).
3. It's easy - I spent less time setting up unRAID than I did any other system I've ever built. When my unRAID system's old motherboard died, I was able to build a completely different system and just plug the unRAID data drives directly into it.
4. Hardware requirements are minimal.

I have an unRAID system in which I've started replacing the 500GB drives with 1.5TB drives. It's as simple as pulling the old drive, inserting a new one and telling unRAID to rebuild the data. Because of the magic of parity, one drive protects all the other data drives in the system.

unRAID is definitely slower than a lot of RAID5 systems, but the cache drive makes up for much of that speed difference, so that the perception of a slow system when you're copying material to the server is lessened dramatically. What you give up in speed with unRAID you gain in cost effective storage that's great at handling HD video across a gigabit Ethernet network.

And it couldn't be simpler. Once I had the box up and running, my network recognized it immediately and all the drives (and shares) were available to Windows Explorer. You manage unRAID through your browser (IE or Firefox or whatever) and you can do file transfers through Explorer. You don't need a monitor connected to unRAID at all - unless you like staring at a Linux command prompt. :)

I'm not into Linux at all. Fortunately, I don't have to be with unRAID.

Sound excellent. although I still don't get the advantage/gain in not using striping. Does unRAID let you use it in striped mode as well, or is that not an option? :confused:

So I have narrowed down my choices for a case between the Silverstone LC17, Silverstone LC20 and Antec Fusion Max. All of these 3 are pretty much the same dimensions and will fit my ATX mobo. Anyone have any suggestions on these 3 and how usefull is the LCD/VFD display? Is that more for a WOW factor or does it have some usefulness. Also what are peoples thoughts on the nMediaPC 2000B?

Unless ATI has changed things with the 4000 series cards, you need to use an actual ATI DVI-HDMI connector when driving an HDTV through its HDMI input. If you don't, the video card will not drive the TV correctly, sending RGB 0-255 to the HDTV instead of YCbCr (16-235).

What you will notice with your setup is the image is overly contrast. Dark scenes will be extremely dark (or black), and bright scenes will be overly bright (even clipping at full brightness/full color saturation).

The issue is all HDTVs (by default) are designed to operate using the BT.709 colorspace (grey scale range of 16-235) when displaying HD content and all PC monitors are designed to operate using the sRGB colorspace (grey scale range of 0-255). ATI cards use the sRGB (PC) colorspace for output when the ATI HDMI "dongle" is not used.

To fix the problem you can do one of the following:

Install the HDMI dongle and purchase/install an HDMI cable.
If your HDTV has this option, go into the setup menu and tell it to operate in sRGB mode by enabling (something like) "full range RGB", "RGB 0-255", "PC mode", "sRGB", etc.
In the ATI Advanced Control Panel, increase the overall (non-AVIVO) brightness to +31 and decrease the overall contrast to 73%. This will essentially compress the 0-255 brightness range into the required 16-235 range. Unfortunately some software (such as PowerDVD Ultra running in Vista) overrides this and you will also need to fine tune that software's brightness and contrast settings (for PDVD Ultra 7.3 with Vista, setting a brightness of +19 and contrast of -5 works).
In the ATI Advanced Control Panel, increase the AVIVO brightness to +16 and decrease the AVIVO contrast to 86%. Note this causes video rendered by hardware acceleration (DXVA) to remain with a 16-235 range but it does not correct photographs, desktop, games or PC applications. The (minor, IMO) advantage to using this method is BTB and WTW is retained (no other method, not even #1 retains BTB and WTW information).


Another point to consider with ATI cards is by default they expect all SD video to use the sRGB (PC or Internet standard) colorspace (HD is correctly assumed to be BT.709). SD video as far as TV, DVD, TV Tuner cards, etc. actually uses the BT.601 colorspace (essentially a 16-235 grey level range).

My personal preference is still ATI for an HTPC, but you need to tell the video card that your SD video is in the BT.601 colorspace by adding the registry entry "UseBT601CSC" and setting it to "1". Do a search here for more information. A tool called "DXVAChecker" makes the job easy for setting this registry entry (right click on Video Acceleration Settings). The latest version can be downloaded from http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/dxvac/DXVAChecker_1.9.0.0.zip.

Note that while us HTPC enthusiasts consider this to be a bug (I do), ATI doesn't seem to. I suspect since "standard" PC video (game video captures or PC video samples, etc.) uses the sRGB colorspace and since the majority of ATI owners use their cards for video games and PC applications that defaulting to sRGB makes sense to them for SD video. Unfortunately this means that absolutely ALL ATI video card owners who want to play SD TV or DVD on their PC need to add this registry entry if they want it to look "right".

I'm new to the Radeon club - just switched from Nvidia 8600 gts (where I had a 0-255, 16-235 switch in the driver settings) to a Saphire hd 8550. My HDTV is an older Toshiba 42" that definitely does not have settings to allow for 0-255. Bottom line, I'm very confused by all these posts about using the "registry tweak" and then see this post of yours. Do I need to do BOTH the registry tweak of "UseBT601CSC" = "1" AND one of your 4 options -- or will the registry tweak alone work? I'm doing BD playback (pdvd), HD atsc playback (Hauppauge wintv) and viewing photos.

I tend to disagree - as the files remain contiguous and intact - so catastrophic failures are less catastrophic. Sure hw RAID is faster but I'm not convinced it is as robust.

Two drives failing in a RAID 5 array loses everything AIUI, Two drives failing in an unRAID array loses one or two drives worth of data (depends whether you lose a parity and data drive or two data drives) but nothing is lost on the other drives.

I'm not suggesting unRAID is a replacement for RAID - just a different solution that has advantages in some applications.

Sound excellent. although I still don't get the advantage/gain in not using striping. Does unRAID let you use it in striped mode as well, or is that not an option? :confused:

The advantage is that when you lose two drives in your array, you only lose the data on those two drives. With striping, if you lose two drives, you lose all the data on the whole array.

Striping means a single file could be spread across multiple drives (and therefore unrecoverable if two drives fail) and therefore can give you better read performance.
No striping means a single file is only ever located on one drive, so when two drives fail in your array you don't have to worry about the data on the disks that are still alive.

Why is everyone so keen or RAID 5... why not do RAID 10.

The only disadvantage i see is that you cant build the array with only 3 drives like you can with a R5.

Performance will be increased, and you can loose 2 drives as long as there not in the same stripe. (which is unlikely).

IIRC the latest onboard Raid chipsets will support RAID 10.. at least the Intel ones do.

Ive just had better luck and faster performance with R10 compared to R5 i guess.

The advantage is that when you lose two drives in your array, you only lose the data on those two drives. With striping, if you lose two drives, you lose all the data on the whole array.

Striping means a single file could be spread across multiple drives (and therefore unrecoverable if two drives fail) and therefore can give you better read performance.
No striping means a single file is only ever located on one drive, so when two drives fail in your array you don't have to worry about the data on the disks that are still alive.

Yeah... I'm kinda aware of what striping is.... Now do you know the odds of 2 drives failing at the same time...?

Why is everyone so keen or RAID 5... why not do RAID 10.
Umm, because the cost of doing RAID10 for 10TB+ worth of data is somewhat expensive?

For starters, thanks renethx for the special attention you've given everybody. I really appreciate all the detailed information you've posted.

So, I've been looking over the forums trying to learn more about the difference between IGP and discrete cards specifically the differences in PQ and post-processing. I've noticed many have gone with the 9300/9400 series for 1080p 24p playback, but I'm curious how that would compare to a discrete card and how both handle SD as well.

From what I've been able to gather, it seems that a discrete card can handle more post-processing and does SD better while still handling 1080p quite well. If this is the case (and I haven't misread something) I believe I'm looking for an ATX board and a discrete card that can handle both SD and HD playback (1080p 24p if possible) with pretty good PQ with post-processing. At what point is post-processing negligible with which cards? I'd like to get the card that has the best PQ and best post-processing without going to the extreme where quality is negligible (hope that makes sense). From what I've read, an ATI card would best fit my needs (correct me if I'm wrong), but which one? I do not game so I don't need a card that can handle that.



Also, I've had to worry about thermals before, but I suppose an exhaust setup would make a discrete card more thermally efficient than an IGP setup?

I don't have AMD/Intel preference. Can someone recommend an ATX board, CPU, and card that is the best for this?

Sound excellent. although I still don't get the advantage/gain in not using striping. Does unRAID let you use it in striped mode as well, or is that not an option? :confused:

I used to stripe hard drives in RAID0 for my data storage, then map my systems' drives onto each other. Advantage: wicked fast transfers and instant access. Disadvantage: totally unprotected data. RAID0 striping allows you full use of all the storage space the drives have to offer (they have to be the same size), and fast read and write times. RAID5 (built on drives of the same capacity) can give you very fast writes and it uses parity to protect your data. Your total usable space is: storage space of the total number of drives -1. Lose one drive and the array can rebuild itself. Lose 2 and the array is toast.

unRAID uses one parity drive to protect the entire array. Your total usable space is: storage space of the total number of drives -1 (the parity drive must equal the size of the largest data drive). Lose the parity drive or any one of the data drives and the array can rebuild itself. Lose 2 drives at once and you lose the data on those 2 drives, but not the entire array. Add a new drive and rebuild parity and the remaining drives' data is OK. Disadvantage: the speed of writes is only as fast as the speed of the individual drive being written to, minus a little for parity.

The way the cache drive works is to act as a buffer between your regular computers and the array. When you write to an unRAID array that has a cache drive, the system writes to the corresponding folder on the cache drive and unRAID writes the data to the array at some pre-specified time (during the wee hours for me). That way, the drive can write at full speed (whatever the network allows).

The only thing that bothers me a little about unRAID is the speed of accessing the server's directories. That can be slow for a 16 drive system like mine. The drives (which stay asleep most of the time to save energy) are "awakened" by unRAID for directory searches and the delay is something I wasn't used to. The electricity savings and the cheapness of unRAID makes up for any small inconveniences like that for me. I wager many people would feel the same.

Sorry to be so long winded here, but I used to get bleary eyed reading about storage options. I know that unRAID was a real breath of fresh air when I started checking out how much it was going to cost me to put together RAID5 protected storage for my data. unRAID is not meant for fast writes or multiple simultaneous database accesses. It's meant to be an inexpensive storage option that's really easy to set up and use. I think it succeeds very well, especially for home theater.

BTW, the implementation of RAID5 on some motherboards is wicked, wicked slow (although RAID0 is usually very fast). I tried RAID5 with some SATA drives on an old Asus A8N32 and it was all but unusable.

I'm new to the Radeon club - just switched from Nvidia 8600 gts (where I had a 0-255, 16-235 switch in the driver settings) to a Saphire hd 8550. My HDTV is an older Toshiba 42" that definitely does not have settings to allow for 0-255. Bottom line, I'm very confused by all these posts about using the "registry tweak" and then see this post of yours. Do I need to do BOTH the registry tweak of "UseBT601CSC" = "1" AND one of your 4 options -- or will the registry tweak alone work? I'm doing BD playback (pdvd), HD atsc playback (Hauppauge wintv) and viewing photos.
You will definitely need the "UseBT601CSC" = "1" registry tweak. Does your HDTV support HDMI? If yes, CCC 8.11/8.12 will show only the color spaces your display supports. Otherwise (so you connect via DVI?), I don't know ...

So, I've been looking over the forums trying to learn more about the difference between IGP and discrete cards specifically the differences in PQ and post-processing. I've noticed many have gone with the 9300/9400 series for 1080p 24p playback, but I'm curious how that would compare to a discrete card and how both handle SD as well.

From what I've been able to gather, it seems that a discrete card can handle more post-processing and does SD better while still handling 1080p quite well. If this is the case (and I haven't misread something) I believe I'm looking for an ATX board and a discrete card that can handle both SD and HD playback (1080p 24p if possible) with pretty good PQ with post-processing. At what point is post-processing negligible with which cards? I'd like to get the card that has the best PQ and best post-processing without going to the extreme where quality is negligible (hope that makes sense). From what I've read, an ATI card would best fit my needs (correct me if I'm wrong), but which one? I do not game so I don't need a card that can handle that.


Also, I've had to worry about thermals before, but I suppose an exhaust setup would make a discrete card more thermally efficient than an IGP setup?

I don't have AMD/Intel preference. Can someone recommend an ATX board, CPU, and card that is the best for this?
Check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15126202#post15126202). Clearly a good discrete card such as HD 4670 (now shown but basically identical with HD 4850) has more post-processing power than IGPs. HD 4550 is equally good, but with a caveat (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14993273&highlight=#post14993273). Start with my recommendation of ATX low-end or mid-range Intel/Intel or AMD/AMD system.

Yeah... I'm kinda aware of what striping is.... Now do you know the odds of 2 drives failing at the same time...?

Much higher than you might expect if you buy the drives at the same time... I know quite a few people who've lost everything on a RAID 5 installation because of it.

So I have narrowed down my choices for a case between the Silverstone LC17, Silverstone LC20 and Antec Fusion Max. All of these 3 are pretty much the same dimensions and will fit my ATX mobo. Anyone have any suggestions on these 3 and how usefull is the LCD/VFD display? Is that more for a WOW factor or does it have some usefulness. Also what are peoples thoughts on the nMediaPC 2000B?

I think the Silverstones look nicer than the Antec Fusion Max.

Seems the LC20M is the one that comes with a remote and VFD/IR.

Are the VFD/IR really any good? Apart from the inbuilt IR which I can see being useful, what information can you display on the VFD other than now playing information?

I think I like the Silverstone LC17 good prices as well. I could probably use a standard MCE IR USB reciever and a magic eye thing to extend the range as the HTPC would be in a rack not near the TV. Or an RF Remote Control instead.

Hi, I've had an asus m2n-mx motherboard and amd athlon 64 x2 4600+ sitting in their boxes for over a year now doing nothing. I'm wondering if its good enough to throw in the bedroom for an htpc that would play music, dvds, mkvs (1080p), and SD tv from a media server? It would only be hooked up to the tv for audio so hi def or surround audio wouldn't be needed.

If it would work what would you suggest for:
video card
OS
and how much ram??

TIA

hi can you recommend any other hard drives besides the WD6400AAKS? This one is tough to find for me.

Hi, I've had an asus m2n-mx motherboard and amd athlon 64 x2 4600+ sitting in their boxes for over a year now doing nothing. I'm wondering if its good enough to throw in the bedroom for an htpc that would play music, dvds, mkvs (1080p), and SD tv from a media server? It would only be hooked up to the tv for audio so hi def or surround audio wouldn't be needed.

If it would work what would you suggest for:
video card
OS
and how much ram??
Should be fine, without a discrete graphics card. Vista 32-bit, 2GB memory.

hi can you recommend any other hard drives besides the WD6400AAKS? This one is tough to find for me.
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000333AS 1TB
- SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB
- Western Digital WD1001FALS 1TB

Are the VFD/IR really any good? Apart from the inbuilt IR which I can see being useful, what information can you display on the VFD other than now playing information?


I have built HTPCs based on both the Antec Veris Fusion 430 Silver UK V2 - with VFD/IR and a Silverstone Grandia GD02 without VFD/IR.

The VFD is quite a neat thing to have (it is slightly flaky but shows things like channel number and show being watched in Media Center, time and date etc. It can also show news headlines, PC system info) - but I don't really miss it on the Silverstone.

The IR receiver on the Fusion is an OEM Sound Graph iMon and is flawed for Media Center use. It doesn't properly emulate the triple-tap SMS style alphabet entry (you just get repeated numbers) and neither does it work with the coloured buttons present on European remotes (which we use for Teletext and now MHEG Digital Text in TV Pack)

I have Microsoft USB IR receivers on both my Fusion and Silverstone cases as a result.

I have built HTPCs based on both the Antec Veris Fusion 430 Silver UK V2 - with VFD/IR and a Silverstone Grandia GD02 without VFD/IR.

The VFD is quite a neat thing to have (it is slightly flaky but shows things like channel number and show being watched in Media Center, time and date etc. It can also show news headlines, PC system info) - but I don't really miss it on the Silverstone.

The IR receiver on the Fusion is an OEM Sound Graph iMon and is flawed for Media Center use. It doesn't properly emulate the triple-tap SMS style alphabet entry (you just get repeated numbers) and neither does it work with the coloured buttons present on European remotes (which we use for Teletext and now MHEG Digital Text in TV Pack)

I have Microsoft USB IR receivers on both my Fusion and Silverstone cases as a result.

i'm just setting up my first HTPC (Antec Fusion) and just use Antec's remote to power up from the couch. and using an MS wireless keyboard and mouse for now. once set up, i might just choke it down to a Media Player (MPC-HC for now) only and utilize the supplied RM200 remote more.

Sneals is right on the VFD: check the options in the iMON s/w to display what you want. i just have the time/date displaying...i know what system i have (lol, i would hope!), and the headline scrolling feature is too limited (speed, # of characters) to be of much use. for me anyway.

I have built HTPCs based on both the Antec Veris Fusion 430 Silver UK V2 - with VFD/IR and a Silverstone Grandia GD02 without VFD/IR.

The VFD is quite a neat thing to have (it is slightly flaky but shows things like channel number and show being watched in Media Center, time and date etc. It can also show news headlines, PC system info) - but I don't really miss it on the Silverstone.

The IR receiver on the Fusion is an OEM Sound Graph iMon and is flawed for Media Center use. It doesn't properly emulate the triple-tap SMS style alphabet entry (you just get repeated numbers) and neither does it work with the coloured buttons present on European remotes (which we use for Teletext and now MHEG Digital Text in TV Pack)

I have Microsoft USB IR receivers on both my Fusion and Silverstone cases as a result.

Thank you both for your replies. I think what I might do is buy a SilverStone LC20 case and add in an VFD/IR later if I want too. I'm thinking in the meantime I might be able to get the Microsoft MCE IR reciever in the case and behind the plastic window to use the MCE remote with it. Might that work ?

I am in the UK so those issues you mentioned would affect me as well.

Edit: Seems like a couple of guys here (http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/build-your-own-media-center-pc/18875-fitting-microsoft-receiver-into-silverstone-lc20-case.html) have done this already!



Cheers

I'm in the process of building my first HTPC, these are the components I've picked using the guides on both page 1 and page 85.

* CPU: Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.50GHz Socket 775, €75.
* CPU Cooler: Scythe SHURIKEN SCSK-1000, €24.
* Motherboard: abit I-N73HD nForce 630i chipset microATX, €52.
* Memory: Kingston ValueRAM DIMM 2GB PC2-6400U CL5, €18.
* Graphics Card: GeForce 7100 (integrated in the motherboard chipset), €0.
* HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB, 32MB Cache, SATA II, €67.
* PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA 380 (included in the case), €0
* Case: Antec New Solution NSK2480, €89.
* IR: i-Tec IRDA Infrarot Adapter, USB 2.0, €8
* WLAN: ABIT AirPace Wi-Fi, 54Mbps, PCIe x1 €8
* Total Cost: € 341


I intend to use it with xbmc (no hardware acceleration, no support for more than 2 cores), for mkv (1080p) and xvid playback. I of course want the system to be cool and quiet, a low power consumption would be nice as well but is no must-have.

My alternative would be the same system with different Motherboard/CPU:

* CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5050e, 2x 2.60GHz, €60.
* Motherboard: MSI K9N2GM-FIH, GeForce 8200, €67.

Will these configurations be sufficient? Which one of the two configs is superior? Any changes you may wanna suggest?

Thanks.

I'm in the process of building my first HTPC, these are the components I've picked using the guides on both page 1 and page 85.

* CPU: Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.50GHz Socket 775, €75.
* CPU Cooler: Scythe SHURIKEN SCSK-1000, €24.
* Motherboard: abit I-N73HD nForce 630i chipset microATX, €52.
* Memory: Kingston ValueRAM DIMM 2GB PC2-6400U CL5, €18.
* Graphics Card: GeForce 7100 (integrated in the motherboard chipset), €0.
* HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB, 32MB Cache, SATA II, €67.
* PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA 380 (included in the case), €0
* Case: Antec New Solution NSK2480, €89.
* IR: i-Tec IRDA Infrarot Adapter, USB 2.0, €8
* WLAN: ABIT AirPace Wi-Fi, 54Mbps, PCIe x1 €8
* Total Cost: € 341


I intend to use it with xbmc (no hardware acceleration, no support for more than 2 cores), for mkv (1080p) and xvid playback. I of course want the system to be cool and quiet, a low power consumption would be nice as well but is no must-have.

My alternative would be the same system with different Motherboard/CPU:

* CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5050e, 2x 2.60GHz, €60.
* Motherboard: MSI K9N2GM-FIH, GeForce 8200, €67.

Will these configurations be sufficient? Which one of the two configs is superior? Any changes you may wanna suggest?
I don't recommend the first system because of single channel memory controller that is not enough for good video playback with IGP (see this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13207153#post13207153)). The second system is better, but you'd better go with Phenom for reliable video playback.

I don't recommend the first system because of single channel memory controller that is not enough for good video playback with IGP (see this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13207153#post13207153)).

Is this a problem with the motherboard? Could this be fixed by using a different motherboard or buying a HD4550?


The second system is better, but you'd better go with Phenom for reliable video playback.

I know that it's more powerful, but I'm on a pretty tight budget. Is the 5050e overall to slow for unaccelerated 1080p content? I don't intend to play any blu-rays with this system.

Do you know which cpu would be the better choice overall?

I don't recommend the first system because of single channel memory controller that is not enough for good video playback with IGP (see this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13207153#post13207153)). I believe that what renethx recommends is you to get a dual channel kit of memory sticks. your current proposal is a single channel stick of 2GB, go for 2x1GB or maybe better 2x2GB (depending on your budget, of course), but maybe better to get a 2x1GB good brand of mem than cheap 2x2GB kit...

Oh ok, thanks. English isn't my first language so I wasn't really sure what he meant. If that's the case I'll just take a 2x1gb kit, no problem.

Oh ok, thanks. English isn't my first language so I wasn't really sure what he meant. here same, english is not my 1st language, it's what I understood, let's wait and see what Renethx will reply.
May I ask you where you are? I saw that your list is in euros, so like me, you must be in europe?:)

I am, in austria to be more specific. How about you do you live in france by any chance?

I am, in austria to be more specific. How about you do you live in france by any chance? no, I'm french but in holland...:p

Is this a problem with the motherboard? Could this be fixed by using a different motherboard or buying a HD4550?
It's a chipset problem that does not support dual channel memory. But let me check the playback performance again. Drivers and codecs are rapidly changing and CPU usage may have been improved. I will report back soon.

renethx,

You helped me a while back when I re-built my HTPC and it still works great. I had another PC crash a while back and am thinking of rebuilding it. My question is will it be better to start from scratch or try to use the current MB? It is a Asus A8N-LA Socket 939 MB.

Is this a problem with the motherboard? Could this be fixed by using a different motherboard or buying a HD4550?

I know that it's more powerful, but I'm on a pretty tight budget. Is the 5050e overall to slow for unaccelerated 1080p content? I don't intend to play any blu-rays with this system.

Do you know which cpu would be the better choice overall?
I tested the first system. I saw lots of stuttering at 1080p mkv playback. CPU usage is not that high (< 70%), but perhaps memory performance is too poor (playback is much smoother with a processor with larger L2 cache such as E8400). This system is recommended only when you use a discrete graphics card. You should go with X2 5050e + K9N2GM-FIH (or an AMD 780G chipset mb).

renethx,

You helped me a while back when I re-built my HTPC and it still works great. I had another PC crash a while back and am thinking of rebuilding it. My question is will it be better to start from scratch or try to use the current MB? It is a Asus A8N-LA Socket 939 MB.
Which CPU are you going to use? What size of memory? If it's single-core, you'd better consider a new system.

Which CPU are you going to use? What size of memory? If it's single-core, you'd better consider a new system.

Here are the spec's for the PC? I would like to savage the memory card readers if possible. If I start over what MB would you recommend. I also would prefer to have an Intel system.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c00609389

Much higher than you might expect if you buy the drives at the same time... I know quite a few people who've lost everything on a RAID 5 installation because of it.

Ia ctually has nothing to do with when ou BUY the drives, but rather when they were MADE.... and still, even so, it's not that high for a home user...

I tested the first system. I saw lots of stuttering at 1080p mkv playback. CPU usage is not that high (< 70%), but perhaps memory performance is too poor (playback is much smoother with a processor with larger L2 cache such as E8400). This system is recommended only when you use a discrete graphics card. You should go with X2 5050e + K9N2GM-FIH (or an AMD 780G chipset mb).

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate the effort you put into helping beginners like myself.

I have to ask though, could it be a motherboard issue? Because on paper the e5200 seems to be faster than the 5050e. It has a bigger L2-Cache (5050e is only 2x512) and it's a bit pricier. Then there's also this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14623631

where the e5200 earns a lot of praise, barely any slower than the e7200.

Something like the E8400 is out of my price range unfortunately.

Is the e5200, when paired with the right motherboard/ram/cpu, faster than the 5050e?

Ia ctually has nothing to do with when ou BUY the drives, but rather when they were MADE.... and still, even so, it's not that high for a home user...

Yep - absolutely no guarantee drives you buy were made at the same time. However I do know of people who have lost RAID 5 arrays due to simultaneous failures. As I don't need the performance gain resulting from striping I am happier with a system where each drive still works fine standalone (which is the case with unRAID)

Are MB's the same size (footprint)?

Thank you both for your replies. I think what I might do is buy a SilverStone LC20 case and add in an VFD/IR later if I want too. I'm thinking in the meantime I might be able to get the Microsoft MCE IR reciever in the case and behind the plastic window to use the MCE remote with it. Might that work ?

I am in the UK so those issues you mentioned would affect me as well.

Edit: Seems like a couple of guys here (http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/build-your-own-media-center-pc/18875-fitting-microsoft-receiver-into-silverstone-lc20-case.html) have done this already!



Cheers

Thanks al for the replies and answers. I may go with the Silverstone LC17 or LC20. Just have to wait on a good deal or free shipping.

I should have probably listened to the early reviews regarding the Seagate 1.5TB hard drive because the one I bought for my system was DOA. The BIOS doesn't see it and Seagate support (really good by the way) agreed it was DOA.

So this had me thinking a bit more about my design and thought for the OS drive I should simply go with the WD 640gig drive but for the data drives I thought perhaps a USB 2.0 external hard drive might be nice (1TB perhaps). My only concern is around archiving my Blu Ray movies to this drive. Can anyone confirm whether backing up or playback of Blu Ray movies to and from a USB 2.0 external hard drive is an issue?

Thanks for any guidance.

I should have probably listened to the early reviews regarding the Seagate 1.5TB hard drive because the one I bought for my system was DOA. The BIOS doesn't see it and Seagate support (really good by the way) agreed it was DOA.

So this had me thinking a bit more about my design and thought for the OS drive I should simply go with the WD 640gig drive but for the data drives I thought perhaps a USB 2.0 external hard drive might be nice (1TB perhaps). My only concern is around archiving my Blu Ray movies to this drive. Can anyone confirm whether backing up or playback of Blu Ray movies to and from a USB 2.0 external hard drive is an issue?

Thanks for any guidance.

An external USB drive shouldn't present a problem for archiving, but a Seagate 1.5TB internal drive will be faster and cheaper. I have 5 of the Seagate 1.5TB drives in an unRAID box and they're great. They were on sale recently for $120 at Newegg. There have been reports of problems with the drive (freezing for a few seconds), but so far mine have been flawless.

I'm ready to build myself a new computer, my current one I built 5 years ago just died. My office area is near my home theater. But I didn't run HDMI to the projector just component.
What options do I have? I'd like to keep this system below $800. Are their options to build a system with component out I could run to my receiver to use vista media center? or should I just steam to my xbox360?

Here are the spec's for the PC? I would like to savage the memory card readers if possible. If I start over what MB would you recommend. I also would prefer to have an Intel system.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c00609389
CPU (2.2GHz, single-core) and memory (2 x 256MB) are too weak. You'd better build a new system. Look at the mATX low-end Intel/NVIDIA system at page 85 (the same form factor as A8N-LA).

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate the effort you put into helping beginners like myself.

I have to ask though, could it be a motherboard issue? Because on paper the e5200 seems to be faster than the 5050e. It has a bigger L2-Cache (5050e is only 2x512) and it's a bit pricier. Then there's also this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14623631

where the e5200 earns a lot of praise, barely any slower than the e7200.

Something like the E8400 is out of my price range unfortunately.

Is the e5200, when paired with the right motherboard/ram/cpu, faster than the 5050e?
It's a limitation of motherboard chipset GeForce 7100 (single-channel memory controller). If you are going to play HD contents with IGP, dual-channel memory controller is a must. Or at least L2 cache of the CPU (a memory space attached to CPU) must be large enough (so E8400 with 6MB L2 is relatively good with GeForce 7100). Go with a newer IGP such as GeForce 8200/8300, AMD 780G/790GX, Intel G45 or GeForce 9300/9400. Or use a cheap mb with a discrete graphics card.

E5200 vs 5050e: CPU architecutures are different so that you can't draw a conclusion by comparing, e.g. the size of L2 cache. Basically they are very close in performance. E5200 runs cooler at load.

I'm ready to build myself a new computer, my current one I built 5 years ago just died. My office area is near my home theater. But I didn't run HDMI to the projector just component.
What options do I have? I'd like to keep this system below $800. Are their options to build a system with component out I could run to my receiver to use vista media center? or should I just steam to my xbox360?
You need to go with a discrete graphic solution for component video (none of the current IGP support component video). Look at the mATX low-end AMD/AMD system at page 85.

I am building a new HTPC but I also want to be able to edit HD video on it and I don't want a slouch system. So far I have purchased:

Case: Antec Fusion Max Black
PSU: Enermax MODU82+ 625W
Motherboard: ASUS P6T
Processor: Intel Core i7 920
Boot/OS Drive: Seagate Savvio 15k 74GB SAS drive
Memory: Patriot DDR3 1600 - 6Gb
Video card: Gigabyte HD4550 (I don't play video games)

Not purchased yet:

Software:

OS: Vista 64bit either Home Premium or Ultimate (any real reason to buy Ultimate?)
AnyDVD (to rip movies my movie collection to my network)

TV Tuner: ?
I currently have Directv and local over the air high def.

TV: Panasonic 50" 1080p plasma
AVR: Denon 3808CI
Other: PS3 and Toshiba XA2 HD-dvd

Suggestions appreciated

CPU (2.2GHz, single-core) and memory (2 x 512MB) are too weak. You'd better build a new system. Look at the mATX low-end Intel/NVIDIA system at page 85 (the same form factor as A8N-LA).

So the A8N-LA motherboard is a mATX type? So I assume my case is limited to only that size?

Not purchased yet:

Software:

OS: Vista 64bit either Home Premium or Ultimate (any real reason to buy Ultimate?)
AnyDVD (to rip movies my movie collection to my network)

TV Tuner: ?
I currently have Directv and local over the air high def.

TV: Panasonic 50" 1080p plasma
AVR: Denon 3808CI
Other: PS3 and Toshiba XA2 HD-dvd
Ultimate offers: complete PC backup, fax and scan, remote access and BitLocker data encryption. Personally I find only the first feature is useful, but Arcrois True Image is a cheaper, better (?) solution for this purpose.

- DirecTV: Nextcom R5000-HD or Hauppauge HD PVR model 1212
- OTA: AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe or Silicondust HDHomeRun

So the A8N-LA motherboard is a mATX type? So I assume my case is limited to only that size?
Yes.

I am building a new HTPC but I also want to be able to edit HD video on it and I don't want a slouch system. So far I have purchased:

Case: Antec Fusion Max Black
PSU: Enermax MODU82+ 625W
Motherboard: ASUS P6T
Processor: Intel Core i7 920
Boot/OS Drive: Seagate Savvio 15k 74GB SAS drive
Memory: Patriot DDR3 1600 - 6Gb
Video card: Gigabyte HD4550 (I don't play video games)

Not purchased yet:

Software:

OS: Vista 64bit either Home Premium or Ultimate (any real reason to buy Ultimate?)
AnyDVD (to rip movies my movie collection to my network)

TV Tuner: ?
I currently have Directv and local over the air high def.

TV: Panasonic 50" 1080p plasma
AVR: Denon 3808CI
Other: PS3 and Toshiba XA2 HD-dvd

Suggestions appreciated

Not a big issue, but Ultimate does allow software striping of hard drives - dynamic disks. That's sometimes handy for HD editing, depending on your hardware and editor of choice. Of course, you can always use the RAID available on most motherboards to set up RAID0 striping in BIOS before you even get to Windows. Leaving dynamic disk support out of Home Premium is a totally arbitrary restriction, as far as I'm concerned.

# CPU: Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz Socket 775, $133.
# CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90, $35 (after rebate).
# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 chipset ATX, $137.
# Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $34.
# Graphics Card: HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670, $80 (after rebate).
# HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA, $77.
# PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $52 (after rebate).

I've been looking for these parts in the UK, I can't find the Zerotherm BTF90 cooler on any of the websites I looked at can you recommend another one I might be able to source in the UK?

I can't find the A-Data RAM chips either, presume I can purchase any DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit ?

I only found the HIS Radeon HD 4670 on one website could I use a Radeon HD 4670 made by another company, I presume all the cards are the same ?

Thanks.

# CPU: Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz Socket 775, $133.
# CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90, $35 (after rebate).
# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 chipset ATX, $137.
# Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $34.
# Graphics Card: HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670, $80 (after rebate).
# HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA, $77.
# PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $52 (after rebate).

I've been looking for these parts in the UK, I can't find the Zerotherm BTF90 cooler on any of the websites I looked at can you recommend another one I might be able to source in the UK?

I can't find the A-Data RAM chips either, presume I can purchase any DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit ?

I only found the HIS Radeon HD 4670 on one website could I use a Radeon HD 4670 made by another company, I presume all the cards are the same ?

Thanks.
Cooler: Basically the stock cooler is good enough. Zalman CNPS9500 LED or Xigmatek HDT-SD964 (a 5mm taller than BTF90)

Memory: any brand is fine as long as it works.

Graphics: The performance is identical between the brands. The difference is GPU cooler, accessories and warranty. PowerColor is the quietest and HIS is very quiet.

Also if I was to go for the low-end system:

# CPU: Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.50GHz Socket 775, $84.
# CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90, $35 (after rebate).
# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 chipset ATX, $90.
# Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $34.
# Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 GDDR3 512MB, $60.
# HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA, $77.
# PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $52 (after rebate).

rather than the mid-range one:

# CPU: Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz Socket 775, $133.
# CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90, $35 (after rebate).
# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 chipset ATX, $137.
# Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $34.
# Graphics Card: HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670, $80 (after rebate).
# HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA, $77.
# PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $52 (after rebate).

Would it still do a decent job? What are the main differences between the two systems ? Difference between P43 / P45 motherboard chipsets, GPU etc ?

Many thanks

Would it still do a decent job? What are the main differences between the two systems ? Difference between P43 / P45 motherboard chipsets, GPU etc ?
GPU: 4670 has a more horse power, in particular in the dual display mode (check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14993273#post14993273)) and 3D.
CPU: slightly better.
MB: supports dual PCIe x8 (good for a RAID controller card), RAID 0/1/10/5, Dolby Home Theater (for S/PDIF gamers).

The low-end system is good with a single display. If you connect two displays, go for the low-end AMD/AMD (you can use the onboard video too).

Hey everybody. Whay do you think of this card from Powercolor?

http://www.powercolor.com/eng/products_features.asp?ProductID=4614

I've found it for $72. It looks to be cooled passivly which I like. Anybody know of a better place than newegg to find it cheap?

I'm planning to use it for watching Bluray, DVD, and shows recorded in SD from a sat. receiver.

Thanks

It's a limitation of motherboard chipset GeForce 7100 (single-channel memory controller). If you are going to play HD contents with IGP, dual-channel memory controller is a must. Or at least L2 cache of the CPU (a memory space attached to CPU) must be large enough (so E8400 with 6MB L2 is relatively good with GeForce 7100). Go with a newer IGP such as GeForce 8200/8300, AMD 780G/790GX, Intel G45 or GeForce 9300/9400. Or use a cheap mb with a discrete graphics card.

E5200 vs 5050e: CPU architecutures are different so that you can't draw a conclusion by comparing, e.g. the size of L2 cache. Basically they are very close in performance. E5200 runs cooler at load.

Well, that clears that up. Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

I like the look of the Radeon HD 4550, I don't need 3D horsepower as not playing games and the HD 4550 is passively cooled and a bit cheaper than the HD 4670.

In regards to 8-Channel LPCM over HDMI I read:

"Cyberlink, everyone's favorite player software manufacturer, supports decoding both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA in software (although it appears that Cyberlink does downsample the 24-bit 48kHz LPCM output to 16-bit 48kHz, but at least you get 8 discrete channels even if you lose the bit-for-bit lossless accuracy of the original signal)."

Can Arcsoft Total Media Theatre do the above as well ? As I would prefer to use TMT with Vista Media Center.

Thanks.

In regards to 8-Channel LPCM over HDMI I read:

"Cyberlink, everyone's favorite player software manufacturer, supports decoding both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA in software (although it appears that Cyberlink does downsample the 24-bit 48kHz LPCM output to 16-bit 48kHz, but at least you get 8 discrete channels even if you lose the bit-for-bit lossless accuracy of the original signal)."

Can Arcsoft Total Media Theatre do the above as well ?
Yes, TMT does exactly the same thing.

Is there an ATX configuration that can handle 1080p 24p, SD (and DVD upscaling although I can wait for SlimHD from TM) and HD with good post-processing, and 7.1 LPCM. From all the digging around, it seems like the closest is either the 8200 board and a 9500GT or the GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 and the Radeon HD 4670. What do you guys recommend? Can it be achieved without an audio card?

If I have to make a compromise and go without 24p or 7.1 LPCM which do you think is least important? Does someone have a good link that compares 1080p 60hz to 120hz? I haven't been able to find a good comparison. And by that I mean a link that will show the extra frame or whatever.

Any chance that there are more ATX 730i boards coming?

Is there an ATX configuration that can handle 1080p 24p, SD (and DVD upscaling although I can wait for SlimHD from TM) and HD with good post-processing, and 7.1 LPCM. From all the digging around, it seems like the closest is either the 8200 board and a 9500GT or the GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 and the Radeon HD 4670. What do you guys recommend? Can it be achieved without an audio card?

If I have to make a compromise and go without 24p or 7.1 LPCM which do you think is least important? Does someone have a good link that compares 1080p 60hz to 120hz? I haven't been able to find a good comparison. And by that I mean a link that will show the extra frame or whatever.

Any chance that there are more ATX 730i boards coming?
There are a bunch of ATX mb with GeForce 8200/8300/9300 chipset that supports 7.1 LPCM over HDMI and excellent 24p.

Or you can add a Radeon HD 4550 or higher graphics card to any ATX mb to get 7.1 LPCM over HDMI and excellent 24p (but with mixed reports).

Any of the above will do SD/HD deinterlacing/pulldown dection fine (except for 8200/8300, which requires Phenom processor for good deinterlacing/pulldown detection). A sound card is unnecessary unless you want 7.1 analog, or TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstream over HDMI.

Or you can add a Radeon HD 4550 or higher graphics card to any ATX mb to get 7.1 LPCM over HDMI and excellent 24p (but with mixed reports).


Hmm. I was under the impression the HD 4670 could do everything except 24p. This thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14948644#post14948644) made it seem like it could handle it for short bursts at best. Is its 24p performance contingent upon the power of the CPU or other hardware it's coupled with?

Thanks again for all your correspondence. Your knowledge really has helped me learn and understand everything better. I really appreciate it and can't say it enough.

Sorry still learning what's 24p ?

Sorry still learning what's 24p ?

This post (http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7596_102-0.html?forumID=60&threadID=271746&messageID=2629683&tag=forums06;posts#2629683) sums it up pretty well.

This post (http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7596_102-0.html?forumID=60&threadID=271746&messageID=2629683&tag=forums06;posts#2629683) sums it up pretty well.

Ok thanks I follow that, so how do you know which GPU cards are good for 24p? is it a thing that is normally listed in their specs?

OK, so finished setting up my HTPC, used the following specs:

Antec Veris Black 430 Case
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP Mobo
G.Skill 4GB (2x2GB) SDRAM DDR2 800
AMD Athlon 4850e CPU
LG Black DVD/CD Drive
ASUS Radeon 4670
Vista Ultimate x64
Logitech diNovo Mini
Seagate Barracuda 500GB

This is my second HTPC, and overall I am very happy. I am probably going to use SageMC as my main media center software (I just set up FanArt which is pretty sweet), but I am still testdriving others as well.

I had a couple questions though if anyone had any thoughts:

1) Radeon 4670 - are there any additional tweaks that should be done once installed to get optimal performance, or should everything be good to go out of the box?
2) Antec Fusion 430 - has anyone had luck powering up this case using a remote while in shutdown/hibernation mode? I didn't get a chance to play around with this much, but ideally I would like to turn the HTPC on with my Logitech remote and not have to manually press the power button. I was only able to get this to work while in Sleep mode, but as I mentioned did not get a chance to work on too much.

I'm looking at buying a new entry level 7.1 HDMI AVR as well, do any of the onboard iGPU's on the motherboards for the AMD 4850e CPU do 7.1 LPCM over HDMI or would I need a GPU card? If I do need a GPU card which motherboard would you recommend that does not have onboard iGPU as it seems a waste to have an oboard one if it won't be used.

Thanks again.

I used Kill-A-Watts. So the values are very crude, but still useful to compare system power consumption. 4670 is better than 4550. The above combination is very good, but supports only two displays. If you want to use three displays, a possible system is either:

- E8500
- GA-E7AUM-DS2H
- GeForce 9500 GT + GeForce 9400 (onboard)

or

- Phenom X3/X4
- GA-GM78GM-S2HP
- Radeon HD 4670 + HD 3200 (onboard).

In either system you will get multichannel LPCM (if it is your concern). The latter is better in PQ (at least in my test), but consumes more power (+10W or more at idle; Phenom is power hungry; of course you can use a 45W dual-core to reduce power consumption). BTW Phenom II 45nm processor will be released on January 8, 2009 that is much better in both performance and power consumption.

Finally pulled my triggers on the following on newegg (they have 15% off using Paypal)

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
Core 2Duo E8400 65W (ZEROTehrm BTF90)
HIS H4670QT512P

Will use other components already have to build a HTPC. I guess it should be good for

HDTV watching
BDrip/DVDRip playback
Encoding/Gaming (in case)

Looks like the video card is only 10 watts at idle. So no big deal of not going for G45 platform. This should give better stability and over-clockability.

Thanks.

You will definitely need the "UseBT601CSC" = "1" registry tweak. Does your HDTV support HDMI? If yes, CCC 8.11/8.12 will show only the color spaces your display supports. Otherwise (so you connect via DVI?), I don't know ...

Thanks renethx -- I went ahead with the reg tweak. My HDTV does support HDMI - but I'm not using the dongle supplied with the card as I'd have to buy a new HDMI cable. I have a standard DVI to HDMI cable. After applying the registry tweaks, I made the settings as described in #3 - overall brightness and contract. I had to change them slightly from described - but not by much. Now both my BD video and my photos look good again - or at least as good as they did with the nvidia 8600 card.
Now I'm thinking how stupid it is of me to refuse to buy standard hdmi cable and use the supplied dongle and avoid all this since I can never really be sure I have everyting set optimally. I appreciate your help. This registry tweak is found under the "ATI Radeon HD 2X00 series owners thread" and my card being and 8550, I wasn't sure it was needed. It certainly was!

I am considering to buy a HP 9400t Cabe Card ready HTPC, but before pull the trigger I would like to confirm/ask a few things:

- Video Card: I have two options according to the HP website:
GeForce 9500GS 512MB
ATI Radeon 3850 512 MB

I don't intend to play any games on this machine, but I need it to play HD DVD & Blu-ray movies with the same video quality I expect from a stand alone/dedicated player. With that in mind, which Video Card is better? (HP charges exactly the same price)

- Sound: Will this system allow me to get 7.1 LPCM sound via HDMI? If not, what would I need to replace?

Okay, hoping someone has seen this problem before: I have a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard (only a couple of months old) and am trying to reinstall Vista Ultimate SP1 on my way to getting my media center back online.

I am noticing an old problem that I have had in the past with some systems, namely that during the installation of Vista, the computer pauses for a really long time before continuing. A couple of examples; When Vista installation begins, shortly after the moving green dots on the bottom, you get that initial light blue screen as vista starts up. I have to wait something like 5 minutes from the time that screen appears until the first screen where I can enter in a Product Key. After the product key screen, it is five minutes more before I can do the next step.

I have tried this on other systems, and it whizzes through those steps very quickly. I have tried both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions with the same result. Now, here is where it gets interesting. I have swapped out the hard drive, the DVD drive, the video card, and the memory. None of these aforementioned changes makes a difference.

In case you are wondering, if I do let it proceeed with the install, it will finish, but shortly after that I will start to get errors as services stop responding, so I think I need to figure out what is broken during this step.

I'm going to be annoyed if it is the motherboard as I just replaced my old one which died a couple of months ago with this one.

So, my question - has anyone else seen this kind of behavior before? I have on a different motherboard/CPU combination, but that is no help here.

thanks

Jim

@insboswiz - I've had similar problems in the past and it turned out to be a grounding issue. A loose wire was making contact with the board. Not sure if that's what's causing your issues. Do you have a test bed where you could get it out of the case? That might reduce other influences.

@insboswiz - I've had similar problems in the past and it turned out to be a grounding issue. A loose wire was making contact with the board. Not sure if that's what's causing your issues. Do you have a test bed where you could get it out of the case? That might reduce other influences.

Possibly. I can certainly give it a try. Gives me a place to start. thanks.

The weird thing is in the past when I noticed this problem, it did not affect XP, only Vista. I have not tested XP on this machine. May do that next.

is this an OEM version that was married to another motherboard ?
That could be the problem. You can pretty much change everything but the Mobo
with a oem version of windows.
Just a thought

Hmm. I was under the impression the HD 4670 could do everything except 24p. This thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14948644#post14948644) made it seem like it could handle it for short bursts at best. Is its 24p performance contingent upon the power of the CPU or other hardware it's coupled with?

Thanks again for all your correspondence. Your knowledge really has helped me learn and understand everything better. I really appreciate it and can't say it enough.
It is mysterious to me why 24p works fine for someone and does not work for others. CPU power probably has nothing to do with it.

I'm looking at buying a new entry level 7.1 HDMI AVR as well, do any of the onboard iGPU's on the motherboards for the AMD 4850e CPU do 7.1 LPCM over HDMI or would I need a GPU card? If I do need a GPU card which motherboard would you recommend that does not have onboard iGPU as it seems a waste to have an oboard one if it won't be used.
Check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15300046#post15300046). IGPU may be useful later if you recycle the mb for a server, for example. Check also my recommedations at page 85. Basically your choice is either 780G/790GX+Radeon HD 4xxx or GeForce 8200/8300 (I prefer the former).

Thanks renethx -- I went ahead with the reg tweak. My HDTV does support HDMI - but I'm not using the dongle supplied with the card as I'd have to buy a new HDMI cable. I have a standard DVI to HDMI cable. After applying the registry tweaks, I made the settings as described in #3 - overall brightness and contract. I had to change them slightly from described - but not by much. Now both my BD video and my photos look good again - or at least as good as they did with the nvidia 8600 card.
Now I'm thinking how stupid it is of me to refuse to buy standard hdmi cable and use the supplied dongle and avoid all this since I can never really be sure I have everyting set optimally. I appreciate your help. This registry tweak is found under the "ATI Radeon HD 2X00 series owners thread" and my card being and 8550, I wasn't sure it was needed. It certainly was!
All these tweaks assume you use the ATI DVI-HDMI adapter. Colorspace/levels may be different between the ATI dongle and a generic dongle.

It is mysterious to me why 24p works fine for someone and does not work for others. CPU power probably has nothing to do with it.

Ah. What was your best environment with the 4670 that allowed 24p? I'm considering the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P build with an E7300 and the HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670.

I am considering to buy a HP 9400t Cabe Card ready HTPC, but before pull the trigger I would like to confirm/ask a few things:

- Video Card: I have two options according to the HP website:
GeForce 9500GS 512MB
ATI Radeon 3850 512 MB

I don't intend to play any games on this machine, but I need it to play HD DVD & Blu-ray movies with the same video quality I expect from a stand alone/dedicated player. With that in mind, which Video Card is better? (HP charges exactly the same price)

- Sound: Will this system allow me to get 7.1 LPCM sound via HDMI? If not, what would I need to replace?
Either card is OK. But none of them support 7.1 LPCM over HDMI. You have to choose Radeon HD 4xxx graphics card, or add ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 sound card which I don't recommend right now.

Ah. What was your best environment with the 4670 that allowed 24p? I'm considering the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P build with an E7300 and the HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670.
This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15249315#post15249315) (nothing special).

I may just be ignorant (confirmed many times) but I need someone who knows computers to verify this is indeed the case.

I put my new HTPC together over the weekend and it uses the new Zotac Geforce 9300 motherboard. The last PC I built was years ago and it didn't even have SATA so it is somewhat new to me but I thought I understood it. Basically, I wound up plugging my SATA cables into any available SATA input on the motherboard. I thought they were pretty much plug and play. I have two DVD drives and one hard drive. On my first boot the hard drive wasn't detected? After an hour of messing with cables and trying to determine where the issue was I think I figured it out but it makes no sense to me!

There are three banks of two SATA inputs on the motherboard giving me a total of six inputs. The BIOS only sees the first two giving me a Master and Slave for IDE Channel 0 and 1. IDE channel 2 isn't even visible so SATA inputs 5 and 6 appear to be useless.

I read the entire Zotac motherboard manual and nothing alluded to this. The crazy screenshot in the manual even displays an IDE Channel of 1, 2, and 3 all with Masters and Slaves. Could it be that I need to flash the firmware on the BIOS? This thing is brand new.

Can anyone make heads or tails of my experience here. Is there indeed something wrong or is something here common knowledge that I'm just not aware of. Any guidance is appreciated.

This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15249315#post15249315) (nothing special).

Wow, interesting. Could the chipset have anything to do with it? Or do you think it's software based maybe? I was thinking about going with this setup since the board features fit my needs more:


GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P
Intel Core 2 Duo E7300
Scythe Mini Ninja
HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800
LG GGC-H20L


Already have Zalman HD160 case and PSU.

So I think I'm gonna go the AMD route after some recommendations.
What do you think of the GIGABYTE GV-R485OC-1GH Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card? It is only 179.99 after mail-in-rebate and has 1gb of memory and is overclocked to 700mhz?

Thanks,
Mike

I may just be ignorant (confirmed many times) but I need someone who knows computers to verify this is indeed the case.

I put my new HTPC together over the weekend and it uses the new Zotac Geforce 9300 motherboard. The last PC I built was years ago and it didn't even have SATA so it is somewhat new to me but I thought I understood it. Basically, I wound up plugging my SATA cables into any available SATA input on the motherboard. I thought they were pretty much plug and play. I have two DVD drives and one hard drive. On my first boot the hard drive wasn't detected? After an hour of messing with cables and trying to determine where the issue was I think I figured it out but it makes no sense to me!

There are three banks of two SATA inputs on the motherboard giving me a total of six inputs. The BIOS only sees the first two giving me a Master and Slave for IDE Channel 0 and 1. IDE channel 2 isn't even visible so SATA inputs 5 and 6 appear to be useless.

I read the entire Zotac motherboard manual and nothing alluded to this. The crazy screenshot in the manual even displays an IDE Channel of 1, 2, and 3 all with Masters and Slaves. Could it be that I need to flash the firmware on the BIOS? This thing is brand new.

Can anyone make heads or tails of my experience here. Is there indeed something wrong or is something here common knowledge that I'm just not aware of. Any guidance is appreciated.
You have to use the AHCI mode instead of the IDE mode to use all six SATA ports. In BIOS setup, choose AHCI mode, then save and reboot. Then you will see six SATA ports in BIOS in addition to two IDE ports. Next you have to select a correct boot order. In order to install OS, the DVD drive must come first (or second to floppy disk drive). The name of the DVD drive is not just "CD-ROM" but more cryptic.

You have to use the AHCI mode instead of the IDE mode to use all six SATA ports. In BIOS setup, choose AHCI mode, then save and reboot. Then you will see six SATA ports in BIOS in addition to two IDE ports. Next you have to select a correct boot order. In order to install OS, the DVD drive must come first (or second to floppy disk drive). The name of the DVD drive is not just "CD-ROM" but more cryptic.

I feel like an idiot. I've never even heard of AHCI mode but I'll be researching it now. Thanks for confirming my ignorance :D

I feel like an idiot. I've never even heard of AHCI mode but I'll be researching it now. Thanks for confirming my ignorance :D

I had the same difficulty figuring it out. You aren't alone. ;)

So I think I'm gonna go the AMD route after some recommendations.
What do you think of the GIGABYTE GV-R485OC-1GH Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card? It is only 179.99 after mail-in-rebate and has 1gb of memory and is overclocked to 700mhz?
The card should be fine. Remember that either Athlon X2 is too weak for extra works or Phenom X3/X4 consumes lots of power. :) Phenom II is much better in both power consumption and performance but released only in January 2009.

is this an OEM version that was married to another motherboard ?
That could be the problem. You can pretty much change everything but the Mobo
with a oem version of windows.
Just a thought


thanks, no. This is a retail SKU of Vista. I have used it before on other systems without a problem

I am considering to buy a HP 9400t Cabe Card ready HTPC, but before pull the trigger I would like to confirm/ask a few things:

- Video Card: I have two options according to the HP website:
GeForce 9500GS 512MB
ATI Radeon 3850 512 MB

I don't intend to play any games on this machine, but I need it to play HD DVD & Blu-ray movies with the same video quality I expect from a stand alone/dedicated player. With that in mind, which Video Card is better? (HP charges exactly the same price)

- Sound: Will this system allow me to get 7.1 LPCM sound via HDMI? If not, what would I need to replace?


After some research I learned that neither of those cards are capable of mLPCM via HDMI. So I need to stick with DD/DTS for now, while I wait for the new version of the Xonar.

Only one request left? What would recommend as the best card to play HD DVD, Blu-rays, etc? The GForce 9500GS or the ATI 3850?

Thanks

Only one request left? What would recommend as the best card to play HD DVD, Blu-rays, etc? The GForce 9500GS or the ATI 3850?
Bisically either one is fine, in particular for progressive contents (most BD/HD DVD movies).

Ren,

I pieced the below together based on your recommendations. Want to have a capable gaming machine while having BR and HD playback. Does the below look good? Is anything missing other than keyboard? I will not be recording any OTA HD as I'm military and moving to Japan for a couple of years. Receiver is older 5.1 with component video only. Purchasing Thanks for your help!

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

ENERMAX MODU82+ EMD625AWT 625W ATX12V Ver.2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8400

ZEROtherm BTF90 92mm Silent UFO CPU Cooler

LG Black Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model GGC-H20L

Antec Black Aluminum / Steel Fusion Remote Max ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

SAPPHIRE 100259L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2RPR800C44GK


Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit English for System Builders 1pk DSP OEI DVD

ESET NOD32 Antivirus Home Edition V3.0

Check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15300046#post15300046). IGPU may be useful later if you recycle the mb for a server, for example. Check also my recommedations at page 85. Basically your choice is either 780G/790GX+Radeon HD 4xxx or GeForce 8200/8300 (I prefer the former).

Sorry just to double check only the onboard graphics with the Nvidia GeForce 8200/8300 chips support 7.1 LPCM over HDMI ?

If using a mobo with AMD 780G/790GX then you need a seperate GPU card like the Radeon HD 4xxx.

I was hoping for an onboard AMD Radeon that would support 7.1 LPCM over HDMI ?


Thanks.

I pieced the below together based on your recommendations. Want to have a capable gaming machine while having BR and HD playback. Does the below look good?
Looks fine. :)

Sorry just to double check this only onboard graphics with the Nvidia GeForce 8200/8300 chips support 7.1 LPCM over HDMI ?

If using a mobo with AMD 780G/790GX then you need a seperate GPU card like the Radeon HD 4xxx.

I was hoping for an onboard AMD Radeon that would support 7.1 LPCM over HDMI ?
The current AMD onboard graphics is HD 3200/3300, based on the previous generation of GPU and does not support multichannel LPCM. You need HD 4xxx for this purpose.

If you are going with GeForce 8200/8300, I recommend Phenom for better video playback performance. But then you can buy GeForce 9400+Pentium Dual-Core at the same cost (actually slightly more?) ...

The current AMD onboard graphics is HD 3200/3300, based on the previous generation of GPU and does not support multichannel LPCM. You need HD 4xxx for this purpose.

If you are going with GeForce 8200/8300, I recommend Phenom for better video playback performance. But then you can buy GeForce 9400+Pentium Dual-Core at the same cost (actually slightly more?) ...

Ok, how about a Phenom II they are out next month?]

I will look in to the GeForce 9400+Pentium Dual Core.

This is a minefield there are so many different options and configurations and many different motherboard I just get lost.

Ok, how about a Phenom II they are out next month?
Only the highest end of Phenom II will be released in January 2008.

- Phenom II X4 940: $275
- Phenom II X4 920: $235

If you want faster encoding, these will be a good option as well as Core 2 Quad and Core i7. Cheaper Phenom II X3 and X4 8xx are released in February.

The other thing I've been wanting to do is have a 7" touch screen on a case or better mounted on a wall. However on my last attempt with a Moneual htpc case with touch screen, I could get both Windows Media Center on both screens using Ultra Mon software and the Nvidia settings in clone mode, the 7" touch (monitor 1) was 800 x 600 and the HDTV (monitor 2) was set to 1920 x 1080 resolution. However the HDTV itself reported only running at 720P and not 1080P as the resolution settings on the computer suggested.

There is this problem of having the different screens at different resolutions still.

There looks like 1080p touch screens coming out now see here (http://www.sundialmicro.com/silverstone_crown_sstcw03smt_desktop_htpc_case_1699_1261.htm l).
which would presumably resolve this issue.

Would the HD Redeon 4670 and the onboard GeForce chips run two monitors ok in this kind of setup.

Athlon X2 4850e/GA-MA78GM-S2H/DDR2-800 2x1GB, Sapphire 4550/HIS 4670, Catalyst 8.11, Vista x86 SP1, TMT 126, HDMI to ONKYO 606+REGZA 52Z3500.

It really is mysterious that 24p works for some and not others. At first I was thinking it might be because of the 780 chipset's ability to do ATI hybrid graphics, but that's restricted to 3400 series graphics cards.

I have built HTPCs based on both the Antec Veris Fusion 430 Silver UK V2 - with VFD/IR and a Silverstone Grandia GD02 without VFD/IR.

The VFD is quite a neat thing to have (it is slightly flaky but shows things like channel number and show being watched in Media Center, time and date etc. It can also show news headlines, PC system info) - but I don't really miss it on the Silverstone.

The IR receiver on the Fusion is an OEM Sound Graph iMon and is flawed for Media Center use. It doesn't properly emulate the triple-tap SMS style alphabet entry (you just get repeated numbers) and neither does it work with the coloured buttons present on European remotes (which we use for Teletext and now MHEG Digital Text in TV Pack)

I have Microsoft USB IR receivers on both my Fusion and Silverstone cases as a result.

I was emailing the Silverstone company regarding there cases and mentioned this problem with the Sound Graph IR and they said "Thank you for your provide this information for us.

We will contact the Sound Graph and asking them if there is any way to fix this problem."

Not sure if they will actually fix it but you never know.

I was emailing the Silverstone company regarding there cases and mentioned this problem with the Sound Graph IR and they said "Thank you for your provide this information for us.

We will contact the Sound Graph and asking them if there is any way to fix this problem."

Not sure if they will actually fix it but you never know.

Cheers. I e-mailed SoundGraph about this directly but didn't hear back from them.

AIUI there may be an insurmountable reason for the lack of support. Apparently most of the MCE buttons can be emulated using a standard HID driver (as they have equivalent keyboard short cuts?) - which is how iMon apparently works.

However the triple tap SMS style stuff and coloured buttons seem to be implemented using something specific to the MS USB IR receiver driver, and not a standard HID interface? (AIUI there are no keyboard shortcuts equivalent to the coloured keys - so iMon can't send those codes as key presses?)

hi renethx,everybody,
i have been reading this thread for long time.while going throough newegg for tv tuner cards i stumbled upon this asus tv tuner card which is analog(which is the only available type in india),ntsc,atsc,fm tuner,media center remote and the ir reciever,dual tuner.

ASUS My Cinema-PHC3-100/NAQ/FM/AV/RC TV Tuner Card PCI Interface - Retail

i am not allowed to post links as first post.
can you tell me what do you think about it?

also i want to know how do you grade hitachi deskstar drives for storing the recorded tv shows.they are pretty cost effective here in india.

what do you advice regarding this Deskstar P7K500 hitachi drive?

i am just upgrading an old machine (2yrs old) to work as htpc for recording standard def.cable tv and dvd playback.
its compaq presario desktop,3.0 ghz pentium 4 ,2 gb ram ,ati xpress 200 chipset,vista premium and 160 gb seaget.
please help me in this.

hi renethx,everybody,
i have been reading this thread for long time.while going throough newegg for tv tuner cards i stumbled upon this asus tv tuner card which is analog(which is the only available type in india),ntsc,atsc,fm tuner,media center remote and the ir reciever,dual tuner.



Isn't India a PAL country rather than NTSC? I was under the impression that India used 625 line 50Hz (aka 576/50i) PAL B for OTA transmission (i.e. VHF PAL?) and any set-top box etc. will output PAL composite 625/50Hz with a 4.43MHz subcarrier.

I think that you may have issues with that card - as India and the US use very different analogue TV systems. India uses a system similar to that used in parts of Europe.

In the US NTSC-M is used OTA, with different line standard (525 lines 60Hz), different chroma standard (NTSC 3.58MHz subcarrier) and different sound offset from vision.

An analogue, NTSC M only, capture card will be of no use in India if you are capturing PAL OTA broadcasts or PAL output from a set-top box.

One of the European Hauppauge analogue cards (they do a PAL B/G/I model) might be a better bet - as they should support PAL B broadcasts - and have good driver support. Something like the PVR-150 PCI card is a good choice I believe - though I'd check with the Hauppauge people to see if they have experience of working in India? (Just in case there are local issues. If India uses stereo sound then there are a couple of ways of doing this with PAL B/G - NICAM digital and Zweiton analogue for example)

I'd suggest looking for a card with PAL B/G support (B and G are essentially the same PAL standard but for VHF and UHF transmission respectively). These are the standards used in countries like Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium etc. Australia also uses PAL B/G for analogue TV. Steer clear of anything aimed at France or Russia - as they use SECAM which is not compatible.

The UK, Ireland and Hong Kong use PAL I, which is not compatible with PAL B/G. However almost everything sold in capture card terms is now PAL B/G/I compatible (as it was easier to make a dual-standard card than two versions)

thanks for reply.it will be hooked to airtel digital direct to home set top box and i think it has normal output as in co axial output .can that axial output be seen by this card of asus?

can this card capture video from component cable?

thanks for reply.it will be hooked to airtel digital direct to home set top box and i think it has normal output as in co axial output .can that axial output be seen by this card of asus?


I would be very surprised if your airtel box didn't have a PAL B coax output or a PAL composite/S-video output.

As a result - having looked at the Asus website it is clear that this card WON'T work with a PAL device, just an NTSC one.

Asus make PAL compatible boards as well - but I doubt NewEgg stock them - as NewEgg are in the US and the US doesn't use the same TV system as India (and most of Western Europe!)


can this card capture video from component cable?

No - the only mainstream component capture card is the Hauppauge HD PVR, which is designed for capturing component HD.

in the product manual,i found this image

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8817/capturevo6.th.jpg (http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capturevo6.jpg)


with this can i capture video from tv out

in the product manual,i found this image

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8817/capturevo6.th.jpg (http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capturevo6.jpg)


with this can i capture video from tv out

Sorry - you aren't understanding my point.

The video output from your airtel receiver will be PAL - that is the format used in India.

The Asus card you found is designed to accept NTSC video - that is the format used in the US. This means that the Asus card you have found will not be compatible with PAL video output from your Airtel box. Asus make different cards for PAL - but I don't know if NewEgg stock them.

You need a capture card that will accept PAL video for use in India - whether you use Coax, composite or S-video inputs.

PAL and NTSC (and there is a third format - SECAM) are all separate standards - and any receiver or TV card needs to be in the same standard to work together.

You need a PAL TV card to accept the output from a set-top box in a PAL territory, just as you need an NTSC TV card to accept the output from a set-top box in an NTSC territory.

India is PAL. The US is NTSC. They don't work with each other.

I am in the process of building the mid-range AMD/AMD HTPC. I have a question about ripping my SD dvd's. I have not done this before and I wondered what the best approach to do this is. I have read a lot of posts about different ways but wondered if there was a post or thread out there that explained the best approach to use. I have an LG BD drive on it's way as well.
Thanks.

I have spent a couple of hours reading through this thread but I am still kind of unsure as to what I need. I will only use my HTPC for music, DVD, Blu-ray storage and playback. I have Dish HD and PVR in 2 rooms so I am not looking to use it for a TV tuner or recorder. I am also not looking for a gaming rig as I dont play as much as I use to and if I do I would just use my PS3.

My main goal is to have one location for all of my movies/music and have the ability to access those movies/music any where in the house (currently 3 rooms). HD is very important to me so I need a system that will be able to play all of my blu-ray back-ups to all of my TV's, without buying 3 different blu-ray players. I think I am set on one of the low-end budget HTPCs in this guide (maybe AMD/AMD), but the thing I am hung up on is... Will I need 3 HTPCs or can I use one HTPC and buy media extenders for the other rooms? Will I be able to watch 3 different movies at the same time? I know I will need to add alot more storage but I am not sure if I want to invest in a large home server at this time.

I am pretty ignorant when it comes to computer components and what is good or bad so any specific help is appreciated.

I am in the process of building the mid-range AMD/AMD HTPC. I have a question about ripping my SD dvd's. I have not done this before and I wondered what the best approach to do this is. I have read a lot of posts about different ways but wondered if there was a post or thread out there that explained the best approach to use. I have an LG BD drive on it's way as well.
This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15235811#post15235811) for links to other posts.

Sorry - you aren't understanding my point.

The video output from your airtel receiver will be PAL - that is the format used in India.

The Asus card you found is designed to accept NTSC video - that is the format used in the US. This means that the Asus card you have found will not be compatible with PAL video output from your Airtel box. Asus make different cards for PAL - but I don't know if NewEgg stock them.

You need a capture card that will accept PAL video for use in India - whether you use Coax, composite or S-video inputs.

PAL and NTSC (and there is a third format - SECAM) are all separate standards - and any receiver or TV card needs to be in the same standard to work together.

You need a PAL TV card to accept the output from a set-top box in a PAL territory, just as you need an NTSC TV card to accept the output from a set-top box in an NTSC territory.

India is PAL. The US is NTSC. They don't work with each other.

i really appreciate your point.i am cancelling the purchase.thank you very much for your effort.i will purchase a card here in local shop.

Wow, interesting. Could the chipset have anything to do with it? Or do you think it's software based maybe? I was thinking about going with this setup since the board features fit my needs more:


GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P
Intel Core 2 Duo E7300
Scythe Mini Ninja
HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800
LG GGC-H20L


Already have Zalman HD160 case and PSU.

that motherboard has a sister board thats perfect for HTPC with integrated video
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128363

i just got this board and finished the setup.
playback is fantastic. bluRay and all.
highly recommend the board....

You have to use the AHCI mode instead of the IDE mode to use all six SATA ports. In BIOS setup, choose AHCI mode, then save and reboot. Then you will see six SATA ports in BIOS in addition to two IDE ports. Next you have to select a correct boot order. In order to install OS, the DVD drive must come first (or second to floppy disk drive). The name of the DVD drive is not just "CD-ROM" but more cryptic.

Thanks again for this. I found the AHCI mode and sure enough everything showed up when looking for the boot order. The IDE channels just disappeared after that though which I thought was strange. Why in the world wouldn't the motherboard just offer AHCI as the default?!

Oh well, for whatever reason the boot time is slower if I choose my two DVD drives in the boot order with AHCI when compared to IDE. With IDE they zip right through if they don't see a boot disk, not the case with AHCI. They just take longer by a few seconds for whatever reason.

Is there any reason outside of what I'm seeing here with the slow boot time to use IDE over AHCI if your motherboard supports it and you are using Vista? The only reason I mention Vista is because I've read online that Vista works well with both IDE and AHCI, XP Pro seems to work better with IDE or so I've been told.

The card should be fine. Remember that either Athlon X2 is too weak for extra works or Phenom X3/X4 consumes lots of power. :) Phenom II is much better in both power consumption and performance but released only in January 2009.

Hi again, i read a review that a new Athlon X2 7750 beats tha crap of a Phenom 9850 black edition in some tests and almost ( i said almost) equal to a Intel Core Quad 9450 and that just running 2,7ghz. Read this (http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/athlon7750/) and this (http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-athlon-x2-7750-be-review/)

What do you think about this borad.

ASUS M3A78 Pro AMD 780G ATX

thinking of building an HTPC (low end).

Any other suggestions. Will be use with a 4850e.

that motherboard has a sister board thats perfect for HTPC with integrated video
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128363

i just got this board and finished the setup.
playback is fantastic. bluRay and all.
highly recommend the board....

Yeah, I had considered it, but it's only available in mATX. There's a 9300 series eVGA ATX board, but people have had really bad luck with it. I'd assume go with a proven system. Plus I'm going to need plenty of SD and DVD upscaling which the 730i series isn't the best at.

Yeah, I had considered it, but it's only available in mATX. There's a 9300 series eVGA ATX board, but people have had really bad luck with it. I'd assume go with a proven system. Plus I'm going to need plenty of SD and DVD upscaling which the 730i series isn't the best at.

So do you have any links or articles?

I found this one link which makes the board sound good to me:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1090275&highlight=evga+9300

I just ordered the EVGA board and this has me worried. I've had 3 EVGA video cards and all 3 have been great.

Thanks in advance.

This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15235811#post15235811) for links to other posts.
Thanks again renethx!

So do you have any links or articles?

I found this one link which makes the board sound good to me:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1090275&highlight=evga+9300

I just ordered the EVGA board and this has me worried. I've had 3 EVGA video cards and all 3 have been great.

Thanks in advance.

There were a lot of people that were getting E7 errors or DOA boards. I just didn't want to have to deal with the hassle. dafaulty1 had great success which means that other people are just incompetent or had a badly manufactured board. I've always loved eVGA and have had many of their video cards too.

At the end of the day I decided I'd rather get a board with the features I wanted and focus on a video card that can deliver the same (well same if 24p will end up working for me with the 4670 [so many mixed reports]) as the 9300 series with better SD post-processing.

Don't fret. I'm sure the eVGA board will serve you well.

Thanks again for this. I found the AHCI mode and sure enough everything showed up when looking for the boot order. The IDE channels just disappeared after that though which I thought was strange. Why in the world wouldn't the motherboard just offer AHCI as the default?!

Oh well, for whatever reason the boot time is slower if I choose my two DVD drives in the boot order with AHCI when compared to IDE. With IDE they zip right through if they don't see a boot disk, not the case with AHCI. They just take longer by a few seconds for whatever reason.

Is there any reason outside of what I'm seeing here with the slow boot time to use IDE over AHCI if your motherboard supports it and you are using Vista? The only reason I mention Vista is because I've read online that Vista works well with both IDE and AHCI, XP Pro seems to work better with IDE or so I've been told.
The motherboard (or any other motherboard with GeForce 8200/8300/9300/9400 chipset) has:

- One PATA controller for two PATA ports; IDE mode only
- Three SATA controllers for six SATA ports; two of them support IDE, AHCI and RAID mode for four SATA ports and one of them supports AHCI and RAID mode for two SATA ports.

Therefore

- If you select IDE mode, two PATA devices and four SATA devices, all in IDE mode, are available.

- If you selelct AHCI mode, two PATA devices in IDE mode and six SATA devices in AHCI mode are available.

- If you selelct RAID mode, two PATA devices in IDE mode and six SATA devices in RAID mode are available.

The difference between IDE and AHCI is that AHCI supports hot-plug/hot-swap and NCQ. If you need only four SATA devices and don't need hot-plug or NCQ, you can select IDE mode. But if Vista was installed in IDE mode and if you want to switch to SATA mode later (for example, to use the disabled two SATA ports), you have to change the registry to load the AHCI driver (not so difficult unlike XP; search in MS KB). Switching from AHCI to IDE is easy: just change BIOS setup.

anyone know of a cheap IR I can purchase?

I have a Logitech Harmony 880 and I want to be able to control my pc.

I could only find one USBIRT but they are pretty pricey.. just wondring if there are any others

- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000333AS 1TB
- SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB
- Western Digital WD1001FALS 1TB

Ah thanks, I picked up the WD 1TB although it only has 16mb of cache not 32, I hope it makes not much difference

anyone know of a cheap IR I can purchase?

I have a Logitech Harmony 880 and I want to be able to control my pc.

I could only find one USBIRT but they are pretty pricey.. just wondring if there are any others

Windows Media Center remotes come with IR receivers that control many functions in MC and PowerDVD. I use Windows Vista with a standard VMC remote. The USB IR receiver contols MC and, more importantly, PowerDVD, for Blu-ray playback. You should be able to find one easily for $25-30.

I'll preface this with I've built an HTPC in the past but it was 3 yrs ago so it wasn't really ready for HD. So here's what I'm looking to do:

1. Record/playback HD content from Comcast cable
2. Replace my upconverting DVD player (Phillips DVP5982)
3. Replace my Comcast DVR set top box
4. Low power consumption
5. Stream SD and HD video to media center extender (Linksys DMA2100)
6. Plugs into my TV (Sony 46" XBR6) via HDMI with the audio over that one cable

Another factor is that I've already decided what case I want to use for this build, Thermaltake Mozart MediaLab SX VC7001SNS. This is significant because it requires a riser card and only has 1 PCI-E and 2 PCI on the riser card. And to accomplish #1 above, I'm planning to use the AverMedia AverTV Combo PCI-E card (M780). As a result, it looks like I won't be having a video card in this build. Last thing, I will eventually want to pick up a Blu-Ray drive so I'd like it to be able to play those as well. The HTPC will be plugged into my gigabit router via ethernet (WRT600N) but will stream with dual-band wireless N.

So any suggestions would be welcome on other components. And #4 is kinda important to me since I want this to replace several pieces of equipment. Hopefully I gave enough background info on what I'm looking for and what I have already.

Thanks in advance

Hi again, i read a review that a new Athlon X2 7750 beats tha crap of a Phenom 9850 black edition in some tests and almost ( i said almost) equal to a Intel Core Quad 9450 and that just running 2,7ghz. Read this (http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/athlon7750/) and this (http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-athlon-x2-7750-be-review/)
Thanks for the links. IMO Athlon X2 7750 BE is a good choice if you want HT 3.0 but don't want to spend $102 on Phenom X3 8450 (so far the cheapest HT 3.0 processor; HT 3.0 is essential for advanced deinterlacing with HD 3200/3300). So which is better in performance/price ratio, Athlon X2 7750 BE or Phenom X3 8450? bit-tech.net (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/12/15/amd-athlon-x2-7750-7550-cpus-review/1) did a good comparison between

- Athlon X2 5200 2.7GHz, HT 2.0, $66
- Athlon X2 7750 BE 2.7GHz, HT 3.0, $79
- Phenom X3 8450 2.1GHz, HT 3.0, $102
- Pentium DC E5200 2.5GHz, $84

Power consumption at idle

- Pentium DC E5200: 101W
- Athlon X2 5200: 103W
- Athlon X2 7750 BE: 148W
- Phenom X3 8450: 152W

(The difference between 5200 and 7750/8450 is much smaller ~25W than this at most other reviews and in my own test.)

x264 Encoding

- Phenom X3 8450: 1029 sec
- Athlon X2 7750 BE: 1095 sec
- Pentium DC E5200: 1220 sec
- Athlon X2 5200: 1290 sec

In some other tests, 7750 is better than 8450 perhaps because of the higher clock. Overall 7750 is of good value (if the retail price is the same as MSRP).

A couple of recommended combinations in the low-end AMD platform would be:

- GA-MA78GM-S2HP 780G chipset + Athlon X2 7750 BE ($159): good HD/SD post-processing, but no multichannel LPCM
- GA-MA78GM-S2HP 780G chipset + Athlon X2 5050e + Radeon HD 4550 ($191): good HD/SD post-processing, multichannel LPCM, the lowest power consumption at idle.
- M3N78-EM GeForce 8300 chipset + Athlon X2 7750 BE ($169): good HD/SD post-processing, multichannel LPCM

Update

I checked the current prices.

- Phenom X3 8450: $89 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103254) (free shipping!)
- Athlon X2 7750 BE: $84 (http://www.google.com/products?q=athlon+7750&scoring=p) (+ shipping).

The price of 7750 need to go down < $80 (shipped)!

What do you think about this borad.

ASUS M3A78 Pro AMD 780G ATX

thinking of building an HTPC (low end).

Any other suggestions. Will be use with a 4850e.
GA-MA78G-DS2H is of better value (unless you need three PCI slots).

I'll preface this with I've built an HTPC in the past but it was 3 yrs ago so it wasn't really ready for HD. So here's what I'm looking to do:

1. Record/playback HD content from Comcast cable
2. Replace my upconverting DVD player (Phillips DVP5982)
3. Replace my Comcast DVR set top box
4. Low power consumption
5. Stream SD and HD video to media center extender (Linksys DMA2100)
6. Plugs into my TV (Sony 46" XBR6) via HDMI with the audio over that one cable

Another factor is that I've already decided what case I want to use for this build, Thermaltake Mozart MediaLab SX VC7001SNS. This is significant because it requires a riser card and only has 1 PCI-E and 2 PCI on the riser card. And to accomplish #1 above, I'm planning to use the AverMedia AverTV Combo PCI-E card (M780). As a result, it looks like I won't be having a video card in this build. Last thing, I will eventually want to pick up a Blu-Ray drive so I'd like it to be able to play those as well. The HTPC will be plugged into my gigabit router via ethernet (WRT600N) but will stream with dual-band wireless N.

So any suggestions would be welcome on other components. And #4 is kinda important to me since I want this to replace several pieces of equipment. Hopefully I gave enough background info on what I'm looking for and what I have already.

Thanks in advance
Look at the mATX low-end Intel/NVIDIA system (you won't need an ATX mb because of the limited expandability with the case; IIRC, the case accepts only two expansion cards, 1 x PCIe x16 and 1 x PCI).

You can watch/record only basic cable channels with a TV tuner. You still need a STB and a capture device such as Hauppauge HD PVR to record premium channels (see the TV section at page 1).

Look at the mATX low-end Intel/NVIDIA system (you won't need an ATX mb because of the limited expandability with the case; IIRC, the case accepts only two expansion cards, 1 x PCIe x16 and 1 x PCI).

You can watch/record only basic cable channels with a TV tuner. You still need a STB and a capture device such as Hauppauge HD PVR to record premium channels (see the TV section at page 1).I was planning to look at that list but wanted to get opinions, especially to see if the low-end Intel/nVidia had low power consumption as well. I know not a lot of people put much thought into power consumption these days but its important to me in many ways. I was considering an AMD Phenom quad core based setup (9350e) due to its low power and ability to do a lot of processing (which I would think helpful for eventual Blu-Ray playback).

The way I understood clear QAM, I thought it only lets me record non-premium channels like say the Military channel but not HBO/Showtime/Cinemax/etc. I dont really care about those channels seeing as how I'm cancelling my HBO service to switch to NetFlix anyways. Is there a good forum topic on these boards talking about this?

I was planning to look at that list but wanted to get opinions, especially to see if the low-end Intel/nVidia had low power consumption as well. I know not a lot of people put much thought into power consumption these days but its important to me in many ways. I was considering an AMD Phenom quad core based setup (9350e) due to its low power and ability to do a lot of processing (which I would think helpful for eventual Blu-Ray playback).

The way I understood clear QAM, I thought it only lets me record non-premium channels like say the Military channel but not HBO/Showtime/Cinemax/etc. I dont really care about those channels seeing as how I'm cancelling my HBO service to switch to NetFlix anyways. Is there a good forum topic on these boards talking about this?
Power consumption: check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15277560#post15277560).

Phenom+HD 3200/3300 is more or less equivalent to GeForce 9300/9400 in video playback. The former does not support multichannel LPCM, while the latter supports it. Therefore I recommended Athlon+780G+HD 4550 at page 85 instead. I prefer HD 4550 to GeForce 9300/9400 (and Phenom+HD 3200/3300) in picture quality. CPU plays little role in video playback, every process is done by GPU (unless you go with a software solution). Phenom is good just because of HT 3.0, which is essential for good communication between IGP and system memory in the AMD platform. If you use a discrete card, Athlon (HT 2.0) is enough. Nowadays playing back BD is very easy for any recent system (one of the easiest among all video formats). Please read sneals2000's great summary (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15237384#post15237384).

AverTV Combo PCIe card has its own thread in this forum.

Mid-range GeForce cards should have enough horse power for good post-processing, but it seems that somehow its driver does not draw full potential of the card. I can't comment on 24p issue.

In your opinion, would the following setup work well to guarantee proper 24p on Blu-Ray output AND good SD/HD deinterlacing/post-processing, given that I will not be using HDMI audio:

1. X-Fi Elite premium (already own) via 7ch analog outs to HK-AVR 525 7.1ch analog in's (set in bottom PCI slot of Gigabyte 9400 IGP board).

2. TME to set decode audio formats and output via multichannel analog on the X-FI

3. Gigabyte 9400 IGP set to 1080/24p via HDMI out going into HDMI #1 on 120Hz HDTV

4. HD4550 or HD4670 (leaning towards this card) in PCIe 2.0 slot of above Mobo set to output1080/60p via HDMI into HDMI #2 on HDTV

5. Set IGP graphics (1080/24p) and HD4xxx (1080/60p) to output simultaneously (this is the big question...can this be easily done??).

6. Create remote macro (Harmony 880) to maximize TME on the IGP's 1080/24p desktop and switch TV input to HDMI #1 when watching 1080/24p blu-ray discs

7. Create macro to maximize SageTV on the HD4xxx's 1080/60p desktop and switch TV input to HDMI #2 on TV when watching everything else (SD and HDTV plus ripped DVD's via Sage).

If 24p ends up working well on the HD4xxx in my environment OR if driver update makes 24p more robust in my environment in the future, I can always disable the IGP. If 5 above is possible, then I'll only be spending $30-$50 more this way vs going with a decent p45 mATX board with the HD4xxx alone. Either way I plan on using an E7300 with Vistax86 with either the P45 or the 9400IGP. Also, both solutions leave the possibiliy for HDMI audio in the future.

What do you think??

j_the_alchemist

You can't use an ATI GPU and an NVIDIA GPU simultaneously (read this article (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/multimonVista.mspx)). Vista uses only the GPU which was first initialized by BIOS and automatically disables the other GPU and hence you can't use a remote to switch between the GPUs. The best scenario is the following. Select Onboard GPU > Always Enable in BIOS (so both GPUs are available to OS). However you have to select either Onboard VGA or PEG in Init Display First in BIOS (the default is PEG). If you select Onboard VGA, then Vista is booting only into Onboard VGA and Vista automatically disables PEG. If you select PEG, then Vista is booting into PEG and Vista disables Onboard VGA. So in order to switch between the two GPUs, you have to restart the system, enter the BIOS setup and select the GPU you want to use in Init Display First.

If 24p ends up working well on the HD4xxx in my environment OR if driver update makes 24p more robust in my environment in the future, I can always disable the IGP. If 5 above is possible, then I'll only be spending $30-$50 more this way vs going with a decent p45 mATX board with the HD4xxx alone. Either way I plan on using an E7300 with Vistax86 with either the P45 or the 9400IGP. Also, both solutions leave the possibiliy for HDMI audio in the future.

What do you think??

I'd like to hear some feedback over this idea. I might try to pull something similar. The idea of having a HD4xxx with the IGP as backup is tempting.
By the way, the only mATX P45 board is the DFI LP JR P45-T2RS (150$ at newegg).

Edit: Too slow. Renethx already answered.

Are the low end recommended systems enough to play 1080p MKV properly?

Are the low end recommended systems enough to play 1080p MKV properly?

Yes, I have 2 AMD/AMD HTPC systems and no issues playing back my 1080p MKVs

A computer is an electronic machine that changes input in the form of some result. A computer consists of hardware and software and available in different sizes and designs. Today, computer is used in each and every field.
The components which you have mentioned are well and good..

Im new to this HTPC so bare with me. Lots of info to take in. I was thinking of using what was specified in the low end AMD/AMD system but i have a few questions.

Id like to just hook this up to my existing receiver (pioneer 1018) via HDMI and i want to store my collection of regular DVDs and use VMC. I will continue to use my PS3 for Blu-Ray, but id like the option to upgrade the HTPC to Blu-Ray down the line. Id like to stay away from a dedicated video card if possible but if that much better ill think about it.

Things i think im set on:
CPU: AMD 4850e
PSU: Corsair VX450
Case: Antex Fusion
Ram: A-DATA 2GB
HD: 1TB Western Digital

With standard DVDs will just HDMI from the HTPC to the Receiver for both audio and video?

Which MB would cover my needs better?
Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H?
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP as suggested in the guide?
or
MSI-7411? (Ive read sound is good but if im hooking to my existing receiver is this overkill?

Anything else i may be missing or better suggestions?

Thanks

It is a long time I am trying to build an HD configuration (my first try in assembling a PC). This is my current thinking (TV is a Sharp Aquos 46"):


Mother board Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7300
Graphic Card None
Memory Corsair XMS2 DHX TWIN2X2048-6400CSDHX 2Gb
PSU Seasonic S12II-380HB
HD Western Caviar 1To (2)
Case ANTEC Fusion Remote
Blu-ray LG GGW - H20L
Cooling (case) Noctua NF-P12-1300 (2 for the Gemin II + 2 for the case)
Cooling (CPU) Cooler Master Gemin II
Sound card None
Thermal paste Tuniq TX-2

Cost: 1.000€

1st question: what do you think about it overall? Any mistake?
2nd question: Is the Gemin II not to high/large for the case?
3rd question: Is a graphic card needed? (no gaming - I use XBOX360)
4th question: Heat?
5th question: Noise?

Thank you very much for your help.

Marc.

I am very new to HTPC and I am looking to build one for my new place. Here is what I am looking for. I want it to be able to play Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and all video computer formats (Divx, Xvid, .264, etc). I am not looking to record any programs off of cable. I am on a pretty tight budget so the cheaper the better but i would still like 1080p and digital surround sound.

Thanks for any help in advance

What AMD cpu do i need to run 1080p content on media player software, preferable XBMC. ?

I have a X2 5200+ which plays fine on bsplayer, but cant play anything 1080p on xbmc :(

Id like to just hook this up to my existing receiver (pioneer 1018) via HDMI and i want to store my collection of regular DVDs and use VMC. I will continue to use my PS3 for Blu-Ray, but id like the option to upgrade the HTPC to Blu-Ray down the line. Id like to stay away from a dedicated video card if possible but if that much better ill think about it.

Things i think im set on:
CPU: AMD 4850e
PSU: Corsair VX450
Case: Antex Fusion
Ram: A-DATA 2GB
HD: 1TB Western Digital

With standard DVDs will just HDMI from the HTPC to the Receiver for both audio and video?

Which MB would cover my needs better?
Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H?
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP as suggested in the guide?
or
MSI-7411? (Ive read sound is good but if im hooking to my existing receiver is this overkill?

Anything else i may be missing or better suggestions?

Thanks
Yes, HDMI from the onboard video carries both video and audio, but audio is limited to stereo LPCM, DD and DTS. If you are not goint to play BD, this is not a problem, of course. A problem of the onboard video is weak post-processing. Adding HD 4550 will fix both of them. I recommed one of:

- GA-MA78GM-S2HP
- GA-MA78G-DS3H (ATX version; more expansion slots)

GA-MA790GP-DS4H has more features such as slightly better onboard video for 3D, CrossFire, RAID 5 and better overclocking. MSI-7411 has (pre-)amplifier for analog sound better than the onboard audio (useless if you use HDMI), but its onboard video is the same weak GPU. Perhaps you'd better spend money on a discrete graphics card instead.

It is a long time I am trying to build an HD configuration (my first try in assembling a PC). This is my current thinking (TV is a Sharp Aquos 46"):


Mother board Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7300
Graphic Card None
Memory Corsair XMS2 DHX TWIN2X2048-6400CSDHX 2Gb
PSU Seasonic S12II-380HB
HD Western Caviar 1To (2)
Case ANTEC Fusion Remote
Blu-ray LG GGW - H20L
Cooling (case) Noctua NF-P12-1300 (2 for the Gemin II + 2 for the case)
Cooling (CPU) Cooler Master Gemin II
Sound card None
Thermal paste Tuniq TX-2

Cost: 1.000€

1st question: what do you think about it overall? Any mistake?
2nd question: Is the Gemin II not to high/large for the case?
3rd question: Is a graphic card needed? (no gaming - I use XBOX360)
4th question: Heat?
5th question: Noise?
Looks good. You don't need a graphics card. Perhaps Gemin II fits the case (I can't guarantee though), but it's not easy to handle. E7300 runs very cool (~30W at load) and even the stock cooler is enough.

I am very new to HTPC and I am looking to build one for my new place. Here is what I am looking for. I want it to be able to play Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and all video computer formats (Divx, Xvid, .264, etc). I am not looking to record any programs off of cable. I am on a pretty tight budget so the cheaper the better but i would still like 1080p and digital surround sound.
The mATX low-end AMD/AMD without the graphics card. Add a discrete graphic card if budget permits.

What AMD cpu do i need to run 1080p content on media player software, preferable XBMC. ?

I have a X2 5200+ which plays fine on bsplayer, but cant play anything 1080p on xbmc :(
Which mb and graphics card are you using?

First of all, What a great thread. Im sure this has been mentioned b4 but thank you to all the people that have supported and added to this thread (especially renethx)

My Question

renethx, Im looking at putting together one of your builds, the M atx gaming build AMD/AMD. And everything seems ok but I am not feeling the case. OFF hand do you know of any case (preferably from newegg) that will fit all of these components and come with an IR reciever for a Harmony ONE remote.

Thanks, any help is much appreciated.

First of all, What a great thread. Im sure this has been mentioned b4 but thank you to all the people that have supported and added to this thread (especially renethx)

My Question

renethx, Im looking at putting together one of your builds, the M atx gaming build AMD/AMD. And everything seems ok but I am not feeling the case. OFF hand do you know of any case (preferably from newegg) that will fit all of these components and come with an IR reciever for a Harmony ONE remote.

Thanks, any help is much appreciated.
AFAIK Antec Micro Fusion Remote 350 and Fusion Remote are the only microATX cases that has a built-in IR receiver (supporting Harmony).

I actually changed to the AMD/Nividia setup in the high end. In the end I will be saving a few bucks and getting exactly what I need.

Anything else I should know.

Thanks

Yes, HDMI from the onboard video carries both video and audio, but audio is limited to stereo LPCM, DD and DTS. If you are not goint to play BD, this is not a problem, of course. A problem of the onboard video is weak post-processing. Adding HD 4550 will fix both of them. I recommed one of:

- GA-MA78GM-S2HP
- GA-MA78G-DS3H (ATX version; more expansion slots)

GA-MA790GP-DS4H has more features such as slightly better onboard video for 3D, CrossFire, RAID 5 and better overclocking. MSI-7411 has (pre-)amplifier for analog sound better than the onboard audio (useless if you use HDMI), but its onboard video is the same weak GPU. Perhaps you'd better spend money on a discrete graphics card instead.

Thank you for all the great advice you give Renethx. I think ive settled on this for now. Its a cross between the low and mid AMD/AMD platform. Look ok?

MB: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP $80 -($10MIR)
CPU: AMD 4850e $57
RAM: A-DATA 2GB ADQVE1A16K $24
PSU: Corsair VX450 $70 -($10MIR)
CASE: Antec Fusion Remote Black $150
HD: Western Digital Green 1TB $105
GPU: Saphire HD4550 $60
FAN: Scythe Ninja Mini $36
DRIVE: ASUS DVD-E818A3T $20

Sub Total: $602 -($20MIR)

I wont use if for BD at the moment but in the future if i want upgrade to a BD drive will i have any problems? And also any advantage with the ninja mini over the shurikan fan?

Thanks,

DVD

- Built-in player with the build-in decoder (or change it with Vista Media Center Decoder utility (http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html))
- DVD Shrink or DVD Fab for ripping
- Vote for your favorite RIPPER! (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1002316)
- help ripping dvd collection for the first time (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1085903)
- How to enable the DVD Library in Windows Media Center on a Windows Vista-based computer (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930526)
- How To Set Up a DVD Library in Windows Media Server (http://www.paraesthesia.com/archive/2008/09/12/how-to-set-up-a-dvd-library-in-windows-media.aspx)

BD

- TMT or PDVD
- AnyDVD HD (or DVDFab HD Decrypter) with or without ImgBurn for ripping
- My Movies (http://www.mymovies.dk/)
- MyMovies and WHS (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14918868#post14918868)

MKV

- HD to mkv .....the options are endless!!!! (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1033822) (creating your own mkv files)
- Playing MKV files through VMC (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1023720)
- Is Hardware Acceleration (HA) possible for MKV in Vista Media Center (VMC)? (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1035600)
- Getting hardware accel working in VMC (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1070439)
- How To Guide: Full DXVA (Hardware Accel) in Vista Media Center for 1080p MKV's (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1096447)

MediaPortal: Another great front end.

- MediaPortal Install Guide (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1092168)

Is PowerDVD or TotalMedia Theatre best to begin with for BD playback? I am running 64 bit XP Ultimate. I have searched, but can't find the best current flavor.

Thanks,

Jason

Which mb and graphics card are you using?

Currently im using an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI, but i'll change the motherboard too.

I'll use a GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H with it's onboard videocard (ATI HD 3200)

I wont use if for BD at the moment but in the future if i want upgrade to a BD drive will i have any problems? And also any advantage with the ninja mini over the shurikan fan?
BD is no problem. Passive cooling is possible with Ninja Mini. Shuriken is also very quiet if you control the fan speed correctly.

First, thanks to renethx and others for all the help. I have a good working HTPC now using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, 4850e, and HD4670 video card.

Trouble is, my LITE-ON Blu-ray Model DH-4O1S-11 stopped being able to play Blu-ray discs after only the 3rd disc. I've returned it to Newegg and received a credit as they no longer carry this model (Hmm... wonder why?). I need to replace it, and don't want to get burned again.

Can anyone here recommend a internal SATA Blu-ray ROM drive that's working well (i.e. plays everything) for them? I absolutely don't need to be able to burn discs, just RELIABLY play back Blu-ray discs (at least to the limitations of PowerDVD/TMT/AnyDVD).

Thanks!

Trouble is, my LITE-ON Blu-ray Model DH-4O1S-11 stopped being able to play Blu-ray discs after only the 3rd disc. I've returned it to Newegg and received a credit as they no longer carry this model (Hmm... wonder why?). I need to replace it, and don't want to get burned again.


If my memory serves me correctly, that model had issues reading dual layer discs so they quit production of it. Newegg has had a good deal on the LG GGC-H20L drive making it not much more expensive than the Lite-On DH-401S-08. I was able to get mine for $99 a couple days ago. Haven't tried it yet, but reviews for it are good.

Help needed here in regards to this system on the new suggested systems page.

I see that there is a video card included with this MB that already has built in graphics and HDMI.

Are there specific cards that one has to use with this MB or can I use a silent video card?

Any suggestions on what I could put in this build that would give me great video performance and total silence?

Additionally, how would I connect the display device, to the video card or the MB? I'm confused how the video card and the MB share video duties If anyone would care to educate me on this.

Thanks!

Intel/NVIDIA

System

* CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 (C0 stepping) 3.16GHz Socket 775, $183.
* CPU Cooler: Scythe NINJA MINI SCMNJ-1000, $33.
* Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H GeForce 9400 and nForec 730i chipset microATX, $135. A cheaper alternative is MSI P7NGM-Digital GeForce 9300 and nForec 730i chipset microATX, $110, which is of better value if you don't need an S/PDIF port and an eSATA port.
* Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1B16K DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit, $49.
* Graphics Card: ASUS EN9800GT HB/HTDI/512M GeForce 9800 GT, $110 (after rebate).
* HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA, $70.
* PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $57 (after rebate).
* Case: Antec Fusion Remote Black, $143.
* Total Cost: $783

renethx: I see you recommending the Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H alot here lately. I was looking at this exact setup for my new mediapc. A few questions though:

What cpu do you recommend to be enable full 1080p Bluray/HDDVD playback (from disk or such) and also still keep the full surround sound going over HDMI.

Would I be ok with 2GB ram or go for the 4GB? (Will be using vista so I can probably answer that as a 4GB MINIMUM already ;) )

Basically here is the steup I am looking at:

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
CORSAIR 450W ATX12V Power Supply
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Memory
GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
LG Black LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model GGC-H20LK

I already have the nMediaPC case from my previous setup so that is no biggie. Now, would you change any of the above? I would get the Pentium Dual-Core E5200 at half the price but will it do what I need? My requirements are basically just playback Bluray/HDDVD disks/images at their full glory with 1080p picture and full dolby surround over HDMI to my Onkyo txsr806 AVR and out to my Sharp Aquos 42" LCD.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Looks good. You don't need a graphics card. Perhaps Gemin II fits the case (I can't guarantee though), but it's not easy to handle. E7300 runs very cool (~30W at load) and even the stock cooler is enough.

renethx,

Thank you very much. Would you have any alternative for the Gemin II that would surely fit into the Antec case and give the same results (I read that this chipset can become very hot..)?

Thank you, Marc.

Currently im using an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI, but i'll change the motherboard too.

I'll use a GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H with it's onboard videocard (ATI HD 3200)
I think X2 5200+ has enough power to play back 1080p files. Perhaps it's a codec problem of XMBC. Can't you use an external player or external codec with XBMC? An AM2+ processor may work, such as Athlon X2 7750 (just released) or Phenom X3 8450.

First, thanks to renethx and others for all the help. I have a good working HTPC now using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, 4850e, and HD4670 video card.

Trouble is, my LITE-ON Blu-ray Model DH-4O1S-11 stopped being able to play Blu-ray discs after only the 3rd disc. I've returned it to Newegg and received a credit as they no longer carry this model (Hmm... wonder why?). I need to replace it, and don't want to get burned again.

Can anyone here recommend a internal SATA Blu-ray ROM drive that's working well (i.e. plays everything) for them? I absolutely don't need to be able to burn discs, just RELIABLY play back Blu-ray discs (at least to the limitations of PowerDVD/TMT/AnyDVD).
Yep, LG GGC-H20L is a proven drive.

Help needed here in regards to this system on the new suggested systems page.

I see that there is a video card included with this MB that already has built in graphics and HDMI.

Are there specific cards that one has to use with this MB or can I use a silent video card?

Any suggestions on what I could put in this build that would give me great video performance and total silence?

Additionally, how would I connect the display device, to the video card or the MB? I'm confused how the video card and the MB share video duties If anyone would care to educate me on this.

Thanks!

Intel/NVIDIA

System

* CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 (C0 stepping) 3.16GHz Socket 775, $183.
* CPU Cooler: Scythe NINJA MINI SCMNJ-1000, $33.
* Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H GeForce 9400 and nForec 730i chipset microATX, $135. A cheaper alternative is MSI P7NGM-Digital GeForce 9300 and nForec 730i chipset microATX, $110, which is of better value if you don't need an S/PDIF port and an eSATA port.
* Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1B16K DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit, $49.
* Graphics Card: ASUS EN9800GT HB/HTDI/512M GeForce 9800 GT, $110 (after rebate).
* HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA, $70.
* PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $57 (after rebate).
* Case: Antec Fusion Remote Black, $143.
* Total Cost: $783
The high-end system is intended for extra works such as encoding and gaming. For a pure video playback system, you don't need a discrete graphics card. Please read this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13897618#post13897618) to see how to connect TV and AVR in case you add a graphics card.

What cpu do you recommend to be enable full 1080p Bluray/HDDVD playback (from disk or such) and also still keep the full surround sound going over HDMI.

Would I be ok with 2GB ram or go for the 4GB? (Will be using vista so I can probably answer that as a 4GB MINIMUM already ;) )

Basically here is the steup I am looking at:

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
CORSAIR 450W ATX12V Power Supply
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Memory
GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
LG Black LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model GGC-H20LK

I already have the nMediaPC case from my previous setup so that is no biggie. Now, would you change any of the above? I would get the Pentium Dual-Core E5200 at half the price but will it do what I need? My requirements are basically just playback Bluray/HDDVD disks/images at their full glory with 1080p picture and full dolby surround over HDMI to my Onkyo txsr806 AVR and out to my Sharp Aquos 42" LCD.
I don't see a difference in video playback between Pentium DC 5200, Core 2 Duo E7xxx and E8xxx. Check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15194709#post15194709). If you can afford, E8400 is a good choice. Similary 2GB memory is enough for a pure HTPC, but you can choose 4GB.

renethx,

Thank you very much. Would you have any alternative for the Gemin II that would surely fit into the Antec case and give the same results (I read that this chipset can become very hot..)?
Actually you don't have to worry about NB temperature with the Antec case. Please read this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15136042#post15136042), and this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15279538#post15279538).

- Zalman CNPS8700 LED
- Noctua NH-C12P (only 1 cm clearance; a user posted nice pictures here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14742238#post14742238) [mb is different] and his advertisement (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14703295#post14703295).)