Guide to Building a HD HTPC

[renethx]

Originally Posted by H8nXTC

Thought I read somewhere that the minimum for full Blu-Ray was a 5400+ recommended. This was a long time ago, but it stuck in my mind.

X2 4600+ is 2.4GHz. Typically you will see < 30% CPU usage for H.264 and 50-70% for VC-1 (as 8800 GT lacks hardware VLD [variable length decoder] for VC-1).

[renethx]

Originally Posted by amitabh9

still havent found a sapphire 4670 hd gddr4

Buy HIS.

[amitabh9]

Originally Posted by mkedda

Renethx and all,

This is my first EVER HTPC build. I plan to use it as an HTPC, iTunes Streamer, and File Storage. So, it will be always on.
I plan to overclock.

Is the PSU too much? Is the CPU overkill?

BESIDES a DVD player, what am I missing?

SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum front panel, 0.8 mm SECC body LC17-B ATX Media Center / HTPC
$119.89

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop $50.99

HIS Hightech H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
$74.99

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
$134.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model
$116.99

CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active $99.99

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives
$99.99

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
$31.98

Total: ~$750.

i just built a similar htpc, and its great, didnt really use a third party cooler, but thats just a personal choice.

the only con of the system is the mobo layout and how it fits in the case. May just be the case. a long v/c will eliminate the usefulness of the middle hdd bay.

[mudfrog]

Originally Posted by renethx

Your hardware components are good enough (dual-core processor, 8800 GT supports HA). But not every version of PowerDVD supports BD/HD-DVD. Only Ultra supports BD, and only 7.3 (and 8 with a hack) supports HD-DVD.

Thanks for the help.. I've heard from multiple sources that there really isn't any software that works well with bluray playback at the moment. Do you have any you suggest?

[renethx]

Originally Posted by mudfrog

Thanks for the help.. I've heard from multiple sources that there really isn't any software that works well with bluray playback at the moment. Do you have any you suggest?

Actually there are only three BD software players: PowerDVD, TotalMedia Theater and WinDVD. Any of them will do a decent job in BD playback, though not perfect.

[gmanhdtv]

Originally Posted by amitabh9

i just built a similar htpc, and its great, didnt really use a third party cooler, but thats just a personal choice.

the only con of the system is the mobo layout and how it fits in the case. May just be the case. a long v/c will eliminate the usefulness of the middle hdd bay.

Why use a single 1TB drive. Use a smaller drive for the OS and a larger drive for media storage. Why risk the OS drive to storage when drives are a low cost item...Just a suggestion.

[Marc_G]

Originally Posted by rani5907

...Biggest thing is I don't know what to do with the MB and CPU. My preference is to stick to AMD but not to have a separate Graphics card. I don't mind paying extra for a quad. Should I be looking at GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H AM2 + Phenom II. Also planning to use Win7RC and then upgrade to win7Home($49 upgrade). Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

I went down basically the route you are considering, and popped a few extra bucks for a Gigabyte MA78GPM-UD2H, which has Radeon HD3200+128MB sideport RAM. While it handled everything I threw at it, I wasn't really pleased with the picture quality. I use a 50" 1080i plasma, I should mention. Apparently this MB/iGPU isn't the best for interlaced content or displays (see comments a page or two up).

Eventually I replaced the GPU functionality with a Sapphire HD4550 ($35 after MIR) and the visual difference was astounding. Things just look a lot better in ways that I don't really have the vocab to describe. The card I got is fanless so is silent. Gets hot though! But I don't sweat it.

I strongly recommend a discrete card if you are working with interlaced content or a 1080i display. Even a cheap one like the one I got is a big visual step up from an iGPU.

Marc

PS: I now use W7 7100 and it's fabulous.

[gfortune1981]

I looked at specs for both the gigabyte board onboard SATA ports and the two AOC-SAT2-MV8 cards are compatible with software raid 10.

Is this a viable solution?


Quote:
Originally Posted by gfortune1981 View Post
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...GA-MA780G-UD3H

GA-MA780G-UD3H

Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD
If you want to go with software RAID (e.g. Openfiler) with two AOC-SAT2-MV8 cards + possibly onboard SATA ports, then you should use a mb with two PCI-X slots (such as Supermicro MBD-X7SBE on page 85).

For JBOD (individual disks) with any OS, WHS and unRAID, GA-MA780G-UD3H is good enough.

[carverm]

Thanks for any feedback.
Building a multi-use trading/HTPC/driving sim system.
-The trading function will need to run four 26" 1920x1200 monitors and
have 40 browser windows open simultaneously with fast access times and no slowing (adequate headroom)
-The HTPC will need to run 1080p to a 52" 120hz LCD with hd sound.
It will feed a Yamaha RX-V765 that can accept either optical s/pdif or HDMI which has Burr-Brown DACs.
Does it make a difference to run the HDMI sound vs. s/pdif optical sound to the Yamaha ie.
can the s/pdif out on the P6T SE send full 24/192 as the HDMI on the 4850 can (if I understand this right)?
I was under the impression that both are the raw signal so they are the same although rate may be different.
-The driving sim will require a vid card with 1GB for the depth of performance of the environments.

The system needs to run fairly cool for dependability and stability.

So my system plans are already very close to Rene's premium Intel/Intel setup but has a few changes for cost/features.

295 O/S: Win 7 64 Prof.
275 Proc: Intel i7 920
205 Mobo: ASUS P6T SE
165 Case: Antec 1200 full tower
165 Power: CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular
50 Cool: XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V
110 Mem: 6GB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600
220 HD: Intel X25-M Gen 2 80GB SSDSA2MH080G2
100 HD2: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Hard Drive
120 LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner
30 LG Black 22X DVD+R SATA 22X DVD Burner
260 Vid: Dual HIS H485QS1GP Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready IceQ4 Video Card
This card was chosen over the 4670 for its sim properties and cooling.

Any thoughts?
Thanks.

[renethx]

Originally Posted by gfortune1981

I looked at specs for both the gigabyte board onboard SATA ports and the two AOC-SAT2-MV8 cards are compatible with software raid 10.

Software RAID does not depend on hardware. The only requirement is that OS recognizes the drives. As long as OS supports the mb's SATA controller and MV8, you can create a RAID array. Another important consideration is bandwidth. A virtue of RAID 5 (or 10) is faster read speed (as well as minimum downtime in case of a HDD failure), but then HDD controller needs to support larger bandwidth and PCI will be the performance bottleneck. That's the reason why PCI-X is recommended over PCI.

[renethx]

Originally Posted by carverm

Thanks for any feedback.
Building a multi-use trading/HTPC/driving sim system.
-The trading function will need to run four 26" 1920x1200 monitors and
have 40 browser windows open simultaneously with fast access times and no slowing (adequate headroom)
-The HTPC will need to run 1080p to a 52" 120hz LCD with hd sound.
It will feed a Yamaha RX-V765 that can accept either optical s/pdif or HDMI which has 192/24 Burr-Brown DACs.
-The driving sim will require a vid card with 1GB for the depth of performance of the environments.

The system needs to run fairly cool for dependability and stability.

So my system plans are already very close to Rene's premium Intel/Intel setup but has a few changes for cost/features.

295 O/S: Win 7 64 Prof.
275 Proc: Intel i7 920
205 Mobo: ASUS P6T SE
165 Case: Antec 1200 full tower
165 Power: CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular
50 Cool: XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V
110 Mem: 6GB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600
220 HD: Intel X25-M Gen 2 80GB SSDSA2MH080G2
100 HD2: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Hard Drive
120 LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner
30 LG Black 22X DVD+R SATA 22X DVD Burner
260 Vid: Dual HIS H485QS1GP Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready IceQ4 Video Card
This card was chosen over the 4670 for its sim properties and cooling.

Any thoughts?
Thanks.

A nice system. You could use dual HD 4770 depending on your performance requirement (runs much cooler than HD 4850 at idle/2D/3D). From x-bit labs:

[carverm]

Thanks much Rene!
Didn't realize the 4770 was so good.
Read the whole article, and the fact that it was so close to the 4850 in perf.
and matched/beat it with a mild o/c while running lower power and temps was impressive.
I think it's the way to go.

[Marc_G]

Originally Posted by mudfrog

Thanks for the help.. I've heard from multiple sources that there really isn't any software that works well with bluray playback at the moment. Do you have any you suggest?

Originally Posted by renethx

Actually there are only three BD software players: PowerDVD, TotalMedia Theater and WinDVD. Any of them will do a decent job in BD playback, though not perfect.

@mudfrog:
I use PowerDVD7.3Ultra because it came with my drive. But, it frequently loses audio sync with the video when we pause/resume a movie. Restarting at the last chapter mark or ff/rw sometimes fixes it. BAsically, it blows.

So what I do instead is make a .mkv file from the BD by the use of Anydvdhd to decrypt, then MakeMkv to create the .mkv file. My .mkv's are handled by Media Browser plugin for Windows Media Center.
I recommend W7 as it gets past several bad Vista bugs relating to video playback.

Good luck!

Marc

[mudfrog]

I have a copy of Powerdvd 7 OEM that came with the 8800GT I have and I'm not too impressed with it. Since I do not have a bluray drive I was toying with the abilitly to upscale a normal DVD to 1080p (23" Acer H233H). I tried it on my gaming PC first (Phenom II 920 @ 3.71GHz and ATI 4890 @ 950 / 1150). In the settings I enabled hardware accelartion and the picture was absolutely horrible. I had vertical lines breaking up the picture, lots of overscan, etc.. I disabled hardware accelaration and the picture looked better but not great. I then tried media player classic and the picture looked 10x better. Anyone have a clue why PowerDVD would display this way with HA turned on?

[bradinbrooklyn]

Hi all -

I find when I play DVD or Blu Ray video on my build that the picture is quite dark, no matter how I adjust the TV settings. My video card is a SAPPHIRE 100255DDR4 Radeon HD 4670 and I'm running it HDMI to my Panasonic TC-P54G10 (Plasma). The picture is so dark that I can't even use Avia to properly calibrate. Other input devices (stand alone DVD, XBox 360, etc.) work fine and calibrate nicely. I've seen some random posts about ATI output, but have not found a comprehensive solution. I've ended up playing with the Catalyst display settings to up the brightness and down the contrast, but I'm a little uncomfortable with managing contrast and brightness in two places. Does anyone have any feedback here?

Thanks!
Brad

[renethx]

Originally Posted by mudfrog

I have a copy of Powerdvd 7 OEM that came with the 8800GT I have and I'm not too impressed with it. Since I do not have a bluray drive I was toying with the abilitly to upscale a normal DVD to 1080p (23" Acer H233H). I tried it on my gaming PC first (Phenom II 920 @ 3.71GHz and ATI 4890 @ 950 / 1150). In the settings I enabled hardware accelartion and the picture was absolutely horrible. I had vertical lines breaking up the picture, lots of overscan, etc.. I disabled hardware accelaration and the picture looked better but not great. I then tried media player classic and the picture looked 10x better. Anyone have a clue why PowerDVD would display this way with HA turned on?

Which decoder are you using with MPC? Try to use CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD7) in MPC too and compare. In my case PQ is much better in PowerDVD 7.3 when HA is on than off.

[mkedda]

How do you calculate total system wattage?

Originally Posted by renethx

CPU is good. The max power consumption of your current system is < 200W. So even 450W is plenty enough.

[speedoflight]

Originally Posted by mkedda

How do you calculate total system wattage?

Look up the specs for each component and add up the wattage.

[Marc_G]

Originally Posted by bradinbrooklyn

Hi all -

I find when I play DVD or Blu Ray video on my build that the picture is quite dark, no matter how I adjust the TV settings. My video card is a SAPPHIRE 100255DDR4 Radeon HD 4670 and I'm running it HDMI to my Panasonic TC-P54G10 (Plasma). The picture is so dark that I can't even use Avia to properly calibrate. Other input devices (stand alone DVD, XBox 360, etc.) work fine and calibrate nicely. I've seen some random posts about ATI output, but have not found a comprehensive solution. I've ended up playing with the Catalyst display settings to up the brightness and down the contrast, but I'm a little uncomfortable with managing contrast and brightness in two places. Does anyone have any feedback here?

Thanks!
Brad

Powerdvd and some other players invoke their own settings upon playback. Check the program configuration in the video or inyterface page if applicable. Powerdvd has options for I think Cinema, Bright, Standard, etc.. Maybe in your case the wrong one is set to default.

Marc

[olwe]

Hi there,

I've been following this thread for a few weeks now and I think I'm ready to pull the trigger on this low-end system I have in mind.

Corsair xms2 ddr2-800 4 gigs
AMD Athlon II x2 245
WD Caviar Green 1TB
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H (when it becomes available)
Antec NSK2480

Will this system be able to display bluray and hd video/audio nicely? Anything else i need? I have Panny 1080i 42" display. I'm thinking of not getting a discrete video card if possible to keep costs down.

Again, thanks for all the help guys.

[THe_Flash]

Originally Posted by olwe

I've been following this thread for a few weeks now and I think I'm ready to pull the trigger on this low-end system I have in mind.

Corsair xms2 ddr2-800 4 gigs
AMD Athlon II x2 245
WD Caviar Green 1TB
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H (when it becomes available)
Antec NSK2480

I just bought the same setup, only I ordered the Athlon X2 5050e 2.6GHz processor. This will be my first attempt at a HTPC, so I am hoping that the system will be capable of decently playing 1080p mkv files. I'm not too worried about Blu-Ray playback as I have a standalone S550, but it sure will be nice to just dump all my digital content to one spot.

[amicusterrae]

Hello Renethx and all posters,
You helped me build an HTPC last year. At that time I only cared about the video half of blu-ray playback. Now that I have an HDMI-capable receiver, I want to take advantage of 7.1 LPCM. My receiver does not decode HD audio, so I don't care about bitstreaming True HD or DTS master Audio. I use ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater.

My question is, what is the best way to go about this with a single HDMI connection?
A dedicated video or sound card? One of the new 785G mobos coming out soon?
I'd prefer to spend as little as possible (ie, I take it you have to buy the expensive Xonar card even though I don't need bitstreaming capability?), and I'd rather not increase power consumption and heat very much (which is why i stuck with integrated graphics at build). Oh, and I'd rather not replace the mobo!

thanks in advance!

[renethx]

Originally Posted by olwe

Hi there,

I've been following this thread for a few weeks now and I think I'm ready to pull the trigger on this low-end system I have in mind.

Corsair xms2 ddr2-800 4 gigs
AMD Athlon II x2 245
WD Caviar Green 1TB
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H (when it becomes available)
Antec NSK2480

Will this system be able to display bluray and hd video/audio nicely? Anything else i need? I have Panny 1080i 42" display. I'm thinking of not getting a discrete video card if possible to keep costs down.

Yes. You only need good drivers.

[renethx]

Originally Posted by amicusterrae

Hello Renethx and all posters,
You helped me build an HTPC last year. At that time I only cared about the video half of blu-ray playback. Now that I have an HDMI-capable receiver, I want to take advantage of 7.1 LPCM. My receiver does not decode HD audio, so I don't care about bitstreaming True HD or DTS master Audio. I use ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater.

My question is, what is the best way to go about this with a single HDMI connection?
A dedicated video or sound card? One of the new 785G mobos coming out soon?
I'd prefer to spend as little as possible (ie, I take it you have to buy the expensive Xonar card even though I don't need bitstreaming capability?), and I'd rather not increase power consumption and heat very much (which is why i stuck with integrated graphics at build). Oh, and I'd rather not replace the mobo!

Add HD 4550. (Or Xonar HDAV1.3 Slim if you want undownsampled HD audio [LPCM] when using TMT.)

[thcalan]

OK
Im looking to build my HTPC because Im losing my office to the second baby (and the first baby makes it almost impossible to do good research)

I want it as a media server, and to play DVD/Blu/files through the surround sound (which I scaled down to F/L/R while my son is in his climbing/pulling down stage) and my 40in Sammy

I need a case that fits in a typical entertainment stand, and will be using a Harmony remote. I would like a wireless keyboard with touchpad to directly control the TV and will be remote desktopping to it for the file server stuff, as we still have 2 laptops

Mt Tivo will be taking care of my cable and broadcast recording

BUDGET:
Heres the catch
I want to spend close to NOTHING to do it
If I have a componant that will do the job then im using it

Heres what Im converting

Mobo - Asus p5b Delux (is the onboard sound sufficient? I dont have any digital out do I?)
Mem - Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2 Twin 2x
PSU- Enermax ATX 12v 485W
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz 4mb cache 1066MHz
Sound - Soundblaster X-Fi platinum (this card pops and hisses (known problem) but im not sure if its just with XP)
OS - win xp (will do a clean install of other OS for this project)
Video - Nvidia geforce 7900gt (is the DVI out fine with adaptor for the TV or should I replace)

Any suggestions would be apprecieted by my son-to-be

[digitlnoize]

Originally Posted by thcalan

OK
Im looking to build my HTPC because Im losing my office to the second baby (and the first baby makes it almost impossible to do good research)

I want it as a media server, and to play DVD/Blu/files through the surround sound (which I scaled down to F/L/R while my son is in his climbing/pulling down stage) and my 40in Sammy

I need a case that fits in a typical entertainment stand, and will be using a Harmony remote. I would like a wireless keyboard with touchpad to directly control the TV and will be remote desktopping to it for the file server stuff, as we still have 2 laptops

Mt Tivo will be taking care of my cable and broadcast recording

BUDGET:
Heres the catch
I want to spend close to NOTHING to do it
If I have a componant that will do the job then im using it

Heres what Im converting

Mobo - Asus p5b Delux (is the onboard sound sufficient? I dont have any digital out do I?)
Mem - Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2 Twin 2x
PSU- Enermax ATX 12v 485W
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz 4mb cache 1066MHz
Sound - Soundblaster X-Fi platinum (this card pops and hisses (known problem) but im not sure if its just with XP)
OS - win xp (will do a clean install of other OS for this project)
Video - Nvidia geforce 7900gt (is the DVI out fine with adaptor for the TV or should I replace)

Any suggestions would be apprecieted by my son-to-be

Well, I'm not expert, but if you don't mind being a little ghetto, your setup should work. It's better than mine at least.

I've been running a Pentium D805 with a GeForce4200. I can only do 720p, but that does just fine...

I don't have a digital audio out either, so I've been suffering through the hell of "stereo" sound. Ugh. Works fine though.

I guess the question is, just how little do you want to spend? I'm betting you could do a "meh" job with what you have.

That being said, I'm upgrading soon myself!

[grod777]

This is a little off the subject but I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I have noticed some screen shots of members HTPC and saw the Media Center with pics of movies. How do I go about putting the core (No Extras) of a DVD or Bluray on my HDD and to display the cover art of the Movie on Media Center as I have seen. If there is a forum for this topic, please direct me to it. Thanks in advance.

[thcalan]

Originally Posted by digitlnoize

Well, I'm not expert, but if you don't mind being a little ghetto, your setup should work. It's better than mine at least.

I've been running a Pentium D805 with a GeForce4200. I can only do 720p, but that does just fine...

I don't have a digital audio out either, so I've been suffering through the hell of "stereo" sound. Ugh. Works fine though.

I guess the question is, just how little do you want to spend? I'm betting you could do a "meh" job with what you have.

That being said, I'm upgrading soon myself!

Put it this way

If I have to spend a few hundred I wont die, I just want to ensure that Im not wasting my time with this and would be better off hooking up my laptop to the tv

So I will spend money to do the job semi-right

[renethx]

Originally Posted by grod777

This is a little off the subject but I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I have noticed some screen shots of members HTPC and saw the Media Center with pics of movies. How do I go about putting the core (No Extras) of a DVD or Bluray on my HDD and to display the cover art of the Movie on Media Center as I have seen. If there is a forum for this topic, please direct me to it. Thanks in advance.

You need to add a plugin that retrieves metadata from a movie database on the Internet. E.g. Media Browser + meta browser.

[pyroz]

I have a Slim Tower Dell with OnBoard Audio.
What I want to do is to use it as a HTPC for HKV files.

Can I get this Card and run the HDMI Cable from that card to a HK AVR254 for both the audio and video? Or would I need to run a S/PDIF as well?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102819

Thanks a bunch.