Show Your HTPC Setup - Page 17

what format is the cat broadcasting?

Proprietary format over CAT-6 cable. Intermittent signals are sent by knocking over expensive connected components.

cat-6? sadly i believe that to mean the cat has sacrificed 1/3 of it's life span to chewing on electrical components. sad day.

have nothing constructive to say other than wow.....you guys have some aweinspiring setups. Friggin awesome

Hopefully my setup will look like that in the future. Very nice job PDXscreen.

I have a couple of those. Sleep mode works extremely well and wake-up is almost instant:





I really enjoy the interactive sports mode. It makes sporting events seem like you are right there.



All other components are located in the basement.

Those are impressive components. I fear that as flat screens become more and more low profile, they may become more difficult to incorporate in the home theater.

Wizzack - Are those French doors on the left side? If so, what are you using to control light? I've been looking for a good solution.

Mine's very modest and VERY cheap. I essentially gutted an HP, added a tv tuner, blu ray player, media display, a couple extra fans and put them together in a budget Apevia media center case. I pretty much learned how to put it together as I went along.

You can't really see it but the audio system is the Sony HTCT-150 Soundbar.

But I had a lot of fun, and I plan to do a lot more for my next project.



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Apevia X-Master HTPC Case
Athlon II X4 635
HIS Silence Radeon HD 5570
6 GB DDR3 RAM
Nmedia PC media display
Samsung Blu Ray Drive
1 TB WD Drive 5200RPM

Bought everything on sale, put together for about $550

Good work "heartofthedevil". That's what this hobby is all about. Nice things can be done without major dollars being spent!
BTW, lots of fans in that case...any noise problems?

Updates:
I've now been in my house for 6 months. I've got the living room right where I want it! (Well OK I need to do something about the TV antenna sitting on top of the speaker)















Cable management was tricky because the glass doors go all the way to the floor; no baseboard to stick the wires to. So most of my cables go up and over the doors and then back down by the TV stand. I bought a lot of zip ties and zip tie anchors (They stick to anything and then you can run zipties through them) for next to nothing at Monoprice

I've got the center channel angled up with door stoppers. This made a huge difference in dialog quality in movies. Much clearer now! They blend right in when they are not in direct sunlight

My surrounds are mounted on the side walls above the glass doors. My ceiling has exposed rafters and this made hiding the surrounds very easy! I just used cheap speaker mounts from Monoprice, they are very strong and hold up my heavy surrounds.

Equipment:
42" Westinghouse 1080p LCD TV
Denon 789 AVR
Ascend Acoustics 340 L-C-R
Ascend Acoustics 170 Surrounds
Epik Empire Subwoofer (Dual sealed 15")
Playstation 3 for games and Blu Ray
Antenna for OTA HD (I get Chicago, Milwaukee, and some Rockford stations)
Pioneer PL740 Turntable (Records stored on bottom shelf of coffee table in middle of room)

HTPC:
Antec ISK-300 Case
Gigabyte USB3 H55 Mini ITX Motherboard
Intel Core i3 530 CPU
Intel V25 SSD
Slim DVD drive
7MC w/ Media Browser

Harmony 650 Remote
Logitech DiNovo Edge Keyboard/Trackpad


Obviously ambient light is an issue, but by the time I get home from work it's dark outside

I'm considering buying a LED TV and suspending it from the ceiling and moving the center channel and receiver up on the TV stand. This would give me space to hide the network boxes at the bottom out of sight in sitting positions as well as give my remote a more direct line of sight to the receiver (the Harmony and Denon don't seem to work so well together )

Please give this humble bachelor any suggestions you think of!

-Smitty

Smitty2k1: Question on your HTPC. Did you get the Antec ISK with the 150W flex power supply? And are you using the stock Intel cooler on the CPU? If so, how is the cooling in your system, and how loud is it?

I've been wondering if I could get away with a build identical to yours (same mb, CPU, SSD and slim drive) but I need it to serve double-duty as a PC, and I need it to be darn near silent. I'd appreciate any comments you can make on your system.

Thanks.

Yep I bought the 150w version. It's the stock Intel cooler and the tri-speed fan on the case is set to low. I can't hear anything with my system playing 1080p h264 content which is probably the biggest workout it gets. I haven't done much hulu/flash watching but I'm sure it will be just fine.

One hell of a good case. I traded out a much larger Antec Fusion for this

I've read elsewhere that it would also have enough power for a TV tuner card. Might give that a go some time.

Hi
My temp setup. I'm try reduce noise & temperature
Nice case 3R HT1100 , but too hot

Hardware:

- Dell Inspiron 518 (stock case, MB, CPU, RAM, HDD)
- LG Blu-ray drive
- Thermaltake 450W 80+ cert. power supply
- EVGA GT 430 1GB low profile video card (HDMI out to 42" Philips LCD)
- HT | Omega Striker 7.1 sound card (TOSLINK out to Panasonic Receiver)
- 2x500GB external Maxtor HDD
- 1x500GB external Seagate HDD
- Win7 MC IR Remote

Software:

- XBMC w/Aeon skin, Home Cinema Experience add-on
- Netflix
- Hulu+

Future plans:

- nMediaPC HTPC case
- 4x2TB WD Caviar Black Internal HDD's
- MSI H55 MicroATX MB
- Intel Core i5-650 Clarkdale processor

@ Smitty - that's a nice setup
Good way to hide the router too. What did you use to attach it?

Any keyboard/Mouse Combo suggestions for use in a Home Theater.
- Should work with PC/MAC
- Would like it to be Illuminated.

Thanks

I used these tie anchors of various sizes
http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2
in conjunction with appropriately sized zip ties. I pretty much bought every size possible of cable management stuff because it was so cheap!

I like my DiNovo Edge and it fits those requirements. A bit pricey though

Samsung 3d-Plasma pn58c8000
Samsung 3d-BluRay Player bd-c6900
Pioneer Elite VSX-32
Klipsch cdt-5800-c (x5)
MK Xenon SB-12 Subwoofer
URC mx900 + mrf350

HTPC:
Silverstone LC13-e
Asus P7H55-M PRO
Intel Core i3-540
Corsair 2x2gb
4x 1tb Seagate 7200rpm
BluRay ODD
Hd HomeRun
XBMC & WMC
Logitech diNovo mini
APC Back UPS bx1300g

Wow! That's the cleanest set up I've ever seen. If you put a plant or something in front of the wall socket, it would be flawless.

it used to be my sub but i moved it behind the couch. that socket is such an eye sore and im just not sure what I want to do about it yet. i guess i could go back up in the ceiling and drop it down the next stud bay but that gd waterheater is in that one i guess i could wrap the cord white and take it to the outlet behind the right side eterage?

What is that program on your screen?

well, the damn thing wont reach the other outlet so i'll have to make a 10/2 patch cable tomorrow and run it along the right side base board.
here's my temp fix.

the mighty xbmc

Fantastic setup. Thanks for sharing. Which XBMC skin is that you have running?

Holy hell! Exactly how powerful is your sub?

10-2 is grossly oversized but I'd rather make one patch cable, one time

Ah, you scared me for a minute.

missed your post. aeon 2

Mine's still pretty simple for the moment, but one day I want a decent projector in my personal room. Other priorities for the moment, but the audio & HDMI cables are already present in the walls ;-)

For the moment I have this in the living room:
Case: Silverstone Grandia GD04B
Power: Nexus value 430
Motherboard: MSI H55M-E33
CPU: Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz dualcore
RAM: 2x 1GB Kingston DDR3 1333MHz
SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB
GPU: integrated in CPU, but thinking of adding budget Radeon HD5xxx/6xxxx
Blu-Ray ROM: Lite-On IHOS104
Keyboard: Logitech diNovo Edge
Fan control: Zalman FanMate 2
CPU cooler: Scythe Big Shuriken
Casefans in: 2x Nexus 120mm @ 6V
OS: Windows 7 utimate x64

TV: Philips 40" 40PFL7605H/12 LCD LED
Decoder: BelgacomTV
Amplifier: Onkyo TX-SR508
Speakers: Jamo (~10 years old)