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First time HTPC build - Please help!

post #1 of 36
7/31/08 at 3:33pm
Thread Starter 
So I am at the point now that I am ready to buy and build a HTPC.
I am new at this, so any advice or recommendations will be much appreciated.
I have looked through some of these threads and have acquired some knowledge but I would like some help regarding my specific situation.

Please dont make fun of me if my demands are beyond my budget or if such a configuration is unavailable. My budget is about $800-$1000 and Im willing to add memory, upgrade, ect. down the road.

I currently run everything into my Marantz 7002 AV receiver and would want to connect the HTPC to it via HDMI and/or 7.1 analog for audio. The video is then passed to a Panasonic AE2000 1080p projector via HDMI.

These are my goals/wants in this build:

-Ability to back-up my DVD and Bluray disc collection and use some sort of organization program such as "MyMovies" and be able to play them off the Hard Drive. Is this even possible for bluray discs?

-Upconvert all SD material to 1080p resolution and do it well. Are there chips/processors/graphics cards that are better than others in upconversion?

-Record both SD and HD Channels and store it on the hard drive for future watching. I have Comcast cable right now.

-I will need the ability to have 4-5 TB of storage. Is this even possible or will I need some external type configuration.

-As far as I know, there is currently no way to get the advanced audio codecs (TrueHD, DTS-MA), bitstreamed or decoded. So the Sound card is something I would like to be able to switch out down the road. Supposedly the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 HDMI sound card will be able to bitstream it to my receiver for decoding but that doesnt come out till later this year.
I would at least want to get the DD and/or DTS tracks to play correctly.

-I dont know if there is any advantage between Vista and XP ME, but I guess Vista would be preferred.

-All of this is a relatively quiet (doesnt need to be silent) nice looking horizontal black chassis. I like the Silverstones.

Does anyone here have a system than can accomplish the above requirements? How much did it cost?

Thanks in advance for any ideas that may assist in building this system.
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post #2 of 36
7/31/08 at 10:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post


-As far as I know, there is currently no way to get the advanced audio codecs (TrueHD, DTS-MA), bitstreamed or decoded. So the Sound card is something I would like to be able to switch out down the road. Supposedly the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 HDMI sound card will be able to bitstream it to my receiver for decoding but that doesnt come out till later this year.
I would at least want to get the DD and/or DTS tracks to play correctly.


As far as I know, New Intel G45 motherboards will be able to bitstream new generation audio formats, refer to the thread, So maybe you can wait for a while for those mb's.
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post #3 of 36
8/1/08 at 7:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-Ability to back-up my DVD and Bluray disc collection and use some sort of organization program such as "MyMovies" and be able to play them off the Hard Drive. Is this even possible for bluray discs?

right now the software players can be buggy for Blu-ray, but it is doable for the most part. For DVD's it is not an issue. MyMovies will work for both.


Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-Upconvert all SD material to 1080p resolution and do it well. Are there chips/processors/graphics cards that are better than others in upconversion?

Not a problem. Even an older P4 can do this pretty well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-Record both SD and HD Channels and store it on the hard drive for future watching. I have Comcast cable right now.

I don't use my HTPC as a DVR because I find my FIOS box does a better job. If you are planning on recording HBO or Showtime or any other premium, forget about it. They are encrypted and can only be recorded if you have Cablecard, which is only available on overpriced prebuilt systems

Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-I will need the ability to have 4-5 TB of storage. Is this even possible or will I need some external type configuration.

This alone is going to blow your budget. 1 TB hard drives are still around $200. 4 or 5 them puts you right at you $800-$1000 budget

Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-As far as I know, there is currently no way to get the advanced audio codecs (TrueHD, DTS-MA), bitstreamed or decoded. So the Sound card is something I would like to be able to switch out down the road. Supposedly the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 HDMI sound card will be able to bitstream it to my receiver for decoding but that doesnt come out till later this year.
I would at least want to get the DD and/or DTS tracks to play correctly.

Supposedly there are chipsets coming that will bitstream these, but none at the moment. Since you said you don't have HDMI in your reciever anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. I would go with S/P Dif now, and eventually add a secondary sound card, when you upgrade your receiver, with the added benefit of a probable steep decline in prices by then

Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-I dont know if there is any advantage between Vista and XP ME, but I guess Vista would be preferred.

For a media center, I much prefer Vista.

Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

-All of this is a relatively quiet (doesnt need to be silent) nice looking horizontal black chassis. I like the Silverstones.

you are not going to fit 5 hard drives in a case of this style. You would need a tower. Also, keeping that many drives in a single enclosure is going to get hot, which would require fans for cooling, which then get loud. It is typically better to store your media somewhere outside your HTPC
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post #4 of 36
8/1/08 at 10:05am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by davdev View Post

This alone is going to blow your budget. 1 TB hard drives are still around $200. 4 or 5 them puts you right at you $800-$1000 budget

you are not going to fit 5 hard drives in a case of this style. You would need a tower. Also, keeping that many drives in a single enclosure is going to get hot, which would require fans for cooling, which then get loud. It is typically better to store your media somewhere outside your HTPC

I was thinking of possibly some kind of external memory. Is there some type of chassis that I could add memory to over time. I could start with 1 TB and then add 1 TB drives as I need them. I dont know much about it, but is this what a RAID arrangement would be. I would prefer not having multiple external drives that I have to swap out depending on location of files.

Also, My AVR does have HDMI and is able to decode the advanced codecs. I know there is currently no card that will bitstream these codecs. My question is then, will I have to upgrade anything else, such as motherboard or RAM, when such a sound card that bitstreams becomes available. Or will I be able to just swap out the card i buy now and not worry about upgrading anything else.
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post #5 of 36
8/1/08 at 10:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

I was thinking of possibly some kind of external memory. Is there some type of chassis that I could add memory to over time. I could start with 1 TB and then add 1 TB drives as I need them. I dont know much about it, but is this what a RAID arrangement would be. I would prefer not having multiple external drives that I have to swap out depending on location of files.

What you are looking for a is NAS device:
http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCateg...ry=124&Tpk=nas

While a NAS could do Raid, it would not be able to do so if you add drives at different times. I am not sure, but unraid may be able to work for you. There is a big thread her about it. I personally just us external drives. Right now, I have six of them pluged into a USB hub. All six drives can be read at once, so no need to worry about swapping them out.

Also, be careful with your wording or you can confuse people. Hard Drives are not technically memory, they are storage. RAM is memory and serves a completely different function than storage.


Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

Also, My AVR does have HDMI and is able to decode the advanced codecs. I know there is currently no card that will bitstream these codecs. My question is then, will I have to upgrade anything else, such as motherboard or RAM, when such a sound card that bitstreams becomes available. Or will I be able to just swap out the card i buy now and not worry about upgrading anything else.

No, you would not have to swap Motherboards or Ram when changing a sound card.

Not to put you down, but do you have any experience assembling a PC from scratch? If not, this may not be a project you want to take on. Getting an HTPC up and stable is a lot more work that setting up a simple machine to go on the internet or use excel.
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post #6 of 36
8/1/08 at 10:26am
I have built three such systems and a server for them at home based on a mymovies with vista setup. The challenge you will have is the cost, because getting into the game will run you about $1500 with the software purchases that will need to be made in edition to the hardware. My recommendation would be to hold off a little bit and save the extra coin and do it right, or do what I did with my first one and stagger the build over a few months so that you can afford it. The end result is definitely worth the patience. Anyway some points to your questions:


Ability to back-up my DVD and Bluray disc collection and use some sort of organization program such as "MyMovies" and be able to play them off the Hard Drive. Is this even possible for bluray discs?

Yes , I use mymovies with Anydvd HD to back them up (and then make an iso image using free program imagebrn). Anydvd hd runs about 64 euros.

-Record both SD and HD Channels and store it on the hard drive for future watching. I have Comcast cable right now.

As someone else pointed out this gets into cablecard territory which we can't do in the diy universe.

-I will need the ability to have 4-5 TB of storage. Is this even possible or will I need some external type configuration.

Again as pointed out before you'll burn your budget here. I've been adding as necessary, which is probably the best route for you as well. DVD's on the high end are just over 8 gigs, Blu-ray, around 45 gig at the top end, some I've seen go as low as 25.

-As far as I know, there is currently no way to get the advanced audio codecs (TrueHD, DTS-MA), bitstreamed or decoded. So the Sound card is something I would like to be able to switch out down the road. Supposedly the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 HDMI sound card will be able to bitstream it to my receiver for decoding but that doesnt come out till later this year.
I would at least want to get the DD and/or DTS tracks to play correctly.

Actually Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater can do the DTS-MA now apparently, or so I have read, regardless that package is definitely the way to go for Blu-Ray playback. It integrates well and works really well with mymovies.

-I dont know if there is any advantage between Vista and XP ME, but I guess Vista would be preferred.

If you're going the mymovies route go Vista, there's a new version coming out shortly that will be Vista only. Oh and go 32 bit Vista, there's a problem with arcsoft and 64 bit vista.

The other recommendation I would make is to get a decent video card, don't worry about the 3d stuff but if they have chipsets that will help the HD viewing experience. The last one I built used an ati 3650 card and it works amazingly well, plus that card offloads a lot of work off the cpu so you can spec that a little bit lower and save some money.

Cost wise the ones I built all ran between 1500-2000, the server was about 3 grand (and still counting), but you don't really need that unless you're doing multiple machines.
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post #7 of 36
8/1/08 at 10:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobOnt View Post

Cost wise the ones I built all ran between 1500-2000, the server was about 3 grand (and still counting), but you don't really need that unless you're doing multiple machines.


I would say that a simple machine for play back of Blu-ray and DVD can be made around $600, not including storage and software, but once the server is built, storage is no longer important. It gets more expensive as you add Tuners
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post #8 of 36
8/1/08 at 11:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by davdev View Post

I would say that a simple machine for play back of Blu-ray and DVD can be made around $600, not including storage and software, but once the server is built, storage is no longer important. It gets more expensive as you add Tuners

Well I should have qualified it better, I'm in Canada, and really up here you can't get it done below $1500, but I'm including software costs as well which can add up quickly plus I was factoring around a tb of storage in that machine.
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post #9 of 36
8/1/08 at 11:52am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by davdev View Post

I personally just us external drives. Right now, I have six of them pluged into a USB hub. All six drives can be read at once, so no need to worry about swapping them out.

Not to put you down, but do you have any experience assembling a PC from scratch? If not, this may not be a project you want to take on. Getting an HTPC up and stable is a lot more work that setting up a simple machine to go on the internet or use excel.

Thats a good idea. I dont know why I didnt think of just using a hub and adding the new drives as I need them.

As far as my experience goes, Ive never built one from scratch. I have done some swapping of drives, and RAM but thats about it. I have a buddy that knows how to build them pretty well, but he doesnt know much about HD, ripping discs, and HDMI video capabilities. I think between the two of us, we could figure it out. Do you think I should buy a comp already built and just upgrade the individual components to fit my needs or would I be better off building from scratch?

Also, what component would be in charge of the scaling/deinterlacing of the video or is it a combination of elements? Is it the hardware or software or both that is involved.

As far as a video card that has HDMI, are there any specific manufacturer/model suggestions that will do what Im looking for. I would think the video card is one of the more important aspects of a HTPC and I would want to do it right.

Thanks again everyone. Lots of great info!
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post #10 of 36
8/1/08 at 12:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

As far as a video card that has HDMI, are there any specific manufacturer/model suggestions that will do what Im looking for. I would think the video card is one of the more important aspects of a HTPC and I would want to do it right.

Thanks again everyone. Lots of great info!

This MOBO has very good on board graphics that also does hardware acceleration:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128090

For media playback, this will be able to handle anything you throw at it. however, if you plan to do any serious gaming, it will not be sufficient.
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post #11 of 36
8/1/08 at 12:41pm
Mu suggestion would be to just buy one the new Acer Aspire x1200 or one of the new small Dells and be done with it.

I'm not trying to question your expertise, but sometimes just buying something is better than building.
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post #12 of 36
8/1/08 at 1:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by davdev View Post

you are not going to fit 5 hard drives in a case of this style. You would need a tower. Also, keeping that many drives in a single enclosure is going to get hot, which would require fans for cooling, which then get loud. It is typically better to store your media somewhere outside your HTPC

http://www.omaura.com/tf11.html

I have six WD 1TB GP drives mounted in this case. The WD drives stay really cool since they are only 5400rpm. Noise isn't too bad, I made a couple of small mods to help with vibration.
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post #13 of 36
8/1/08 at 4:30pm
Thread Starter 
I think Im gonna up my budget and do this right. I would still like to stay around $1500 though.

Ive decided I want a separate video card not integrated with the motherboard.
Ive been looking at video cards and these two seem to get a lot of good reviews and they are both about the same price $180-200.
Between these two video cards, which is better? Or are they both way overkill?
ATI HD4850
NVIDIA 8800GT
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post #14 of 36
8/1/08 at 8:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

I think Im gonna up my budget and do this right. I would still like to stay around $1500 though.

Ive decided I want a separate video card not integrated with the motherboard.
Ive been looking at video cards and these two seem to get a lot of good reviews and they are both about the same price $180-200.
Between these two video cards, which is better? Or are they both way overkill?
ATI HD4850
NVIDIA 8800GT

they're both really nice cards, the 4850 is a great htpc card, the nvidia is more geared towards gaming and not really a htpc card (it will work but doesn't offload the cpu). The 8600 does and is a better choice if you're going the nvidia route, for one of mine I used an Asus EN8600GT, which is a passively cooled card which is awesome, makes no noise and runs htpc stuff really nicely.
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post #15 of 36
8/1/08 at 9:39pm
Overkill is right... there are video cards costing less than a $100 dlls at the present.

Just any NVidia 8xxx series or ATI 3xxx series will do what you need, decode HD content
without much CPU power. Your money will be better spent on hard drives or other things
that you will need before the project it's done.

ATI;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127331

NVIDIA;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127341

Every component matters in the whole scheme and whether you've done some research
on the matter, doesn't mean that all is going to go smoothly, expect to run into some
walls and be able to work around them.
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post #16 of 36
8/1/08 at 10:07pm
Yes , I use mymovies with Anydvd HD to back them up (and then make an iso image using free program imagebrn). Anydvd hd runs about 64 euros.

Just to make sure.
If I use MyMovies (can I get a link?), I will be able to play dvds ripped as iso, and they don't have to be TS or any other format?

Is there any streaming program that I can use to PS3/360 that would be able to use ISO as well?
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post #17 of 36
8/13/08 at 10:16am
Thread Starter 
Do you guys think the following dell system would be adequate for what I am trying to do?
Any recommendations of components to change/upgrade?
I can add more storage as time goes on.

Dell Inspiron 530
PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
MEMORY 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
OPTICAL DRIVE Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (BD-ROM; DVD/CD Burner)
VIDEO CARD ATI Radeon HD3650 256MB
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Also I have read in a couple places that Vista 32-bit is the better choice for HTPCs.
Most prebuilt systems come with 64-bit. Is that a problem?
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post #18 of 36
8/13/08 at 10:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

Do you guys think the following dell system would be adequate for what I am trying to do?
It comes to $849. Any recommendations of components to change/upgrade?
I can add more storage as time goes on.

Dell Inspiron 530
PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
MEMORY 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
OPTICAL DRIVE Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (BD-ROM; DVD/CD Burner)
VIDEO CARD ATI Radeon HD3650 256MB
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Also I have read in a couple places that Vista 32-bit is the better choice for HTPCs.
Most prebuilt systems come with 64-bit. Is that a problem?

System looks good, you are going to need more hard drive space though. 64-bit may lead to some problems with certain codecs and applications, but there are also plenty of people who use it without issue.
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post #19 of 36
8/13/08 at 11:14am
Thread Starter 
Would I see any difference between this and a $1500 XPS system?
Or is the Inspiron system already overkill?
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post #20 of 36
8/13/08 at 11:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

Would I see any difference between this and a $1500 XPS system?
Or is the Inspiron system already overkill?

Do you plan on gaming?
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post #21 of 36
8/13/08 at 11:47am
Thread Starter 
no, strictly movie/music/photo playback
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post #22 of 36
8/13/08 at 12:19pm
I'm planning to put together this build -
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...Number=9006226

This has a 1TB hard disk which you can remove if you are going to have a media server, for me it will contain everything I have and is also cool and quiet. Add $100 for a bluray drive and also the OS (which I also have).

IMO you don't need a Q6600 for an HTPC, thats a really powerful and hot cpu. Unless you want it to play games, do encoding and other tasks as well.
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post #23 of 36
8/13/08 at 12:45pm
I too have gone the server route. I have a central server with 2.5tb of space running Windows Home Server. The great thing about that is it has a service called drive extender which will make all of your drive look and act as one. It will also support adding and removing drives in the future(as long as the OS isn't on it). I then have 3 media pcs running XP and using Media Portal that point to directories on the server for tv shows, music, pictures and movies. Seperating the features up allows the media computers to have very little storage space as well as be more "upgrading friendly" . But as stated earlier, if you have no future plans to add another media pc. IT becomes less attractive, though the server would back up files..
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post #24 of 36
8/13/08 at 12:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoSheezy View Post

no, strictly movie/music/photo playback

Then the XPS is overkill. It will be faster, but you don't really need the speed. It will also most likely be much louder, which you don't want.
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post #25 of 36
8/13/08 at 4:09pm
Thread Starter 
STILL LEARNING HERE:
Do I need a motherboard with HDMI or is a video card with HDMI ok.
Also, Ive seen some cards with DVI out, but it comes with a DVI>HDMI adapter.
I thought DVI was audio only.
Is the audio passed through DVI into this adapter.
In other words, will I get both audio and video through the DVI connection when using the HDMI adapter.
AND THEN...
Down the road if I add a sound card with HDMI, is the video and audio carried through a single HDMI cable?
Im a little confused in this area. Lets say you have a MB, Video Card, and Sound Card that each have an HDMI connection. Which do you use and why? Or does it matter?
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post #26 of 36
8/13/08 at 4:20pm
DVI is video only. DVI to HDMI puts the video on HDMI.
Ideally you want a single HDMI cable which has audio and video both, that's what its designed for. If the video/sound card has HDMI, it will also have a way of taking either audio/video from somewhere else and combining it so it all goes out on a single HDMI.
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post #27 of 36
8/13/08 at 4:25pm
Thread Starter 
So if my objective is to have the audio and video sent to my receiver via HDMI, is there any advantage over another to have the HDMI connctor on the MB, Video card or sound card?
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post #28 of 36
8/13/08 at 5:10pm
Onboard video is good if your budget is tight and/or ventilation of your case is not good (e.g. in a SFF case). Otherwise a discrete video card is a better choice because of better post-processing (if that matters for you). Among the discrete graphics cards, Radeon HD 4850 is the best choice right now for multichannel LPCM HDMI audio and good post-processing. For example, you can see the effect of the Enhanced DVD Upscaling of HD 4850 below, compared with the older model HD 3870:



These are captures from HQV Benchmark (SD).

A suggested system is:
  • CPU: Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz Socket 775, $133.
  • CPU Cooler (optional): ZEROtherm BTF90, $35 (after rebate).
  • Motherboard: ASUS P5Q PRO Intel P45 chipset ATX, $140.
  • Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $44.
  • Graphics Card: ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850, $158 (after rebate).
  • HDD: Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB SATA for OS, $60.
  • PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX, $52 (after rebate).
  • Case: SilverStone Grandia GD01-MX SST-GD01B-MXR, $244.
  • Total Cost: $831.

You need to add
  • BD drive, $130.
  • TV tuner, $80.
  • 4 x Western Digital WD10EACS, $165 each (GD01 is a bit tight if you use a longer card like HD 4850; 4 HDDs in total may be realistic).
  • Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit OEM, $100.
If you want 6 HDDs, look at SilverStone CW02.
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post #29 of 36
8/15/08 at 4:35pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I have my eye on that card. From what Ive read, its the best for DVD upscaling.
I actually just bought and XPS system from best buy with the 9800GT card in it just to try out. I wanted to make sure everything works as I hoped through my AV receiver and projector. Im gonna play with it for a while and see how I like the HTPC idea. So far its pretty awesome.
Question:
Are some DVD player softwares better than others at playing DVDs or is it all the same with a different interface?
I like the Mymovies library interface but does PowerDVD8 provide a better picture?
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post #30 of 36
8/15/08 at 9:20pm
4800 series will do bit-steam TrueHD, DTS-HD or LPCM 7.1 audio for you
the audio chip built into teh gpu chip supports bitrate upto 6.114mbps
and will let you send audio+video in ONE HDMI cable

arcsoft supports 64-bit now after 120 update
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