Guide to Building a HTPC, Workstation and Server - Page 508

I'm thinking of building a box with this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856115034

I'd probably get an i3 with the built in graphics and 4GB RAM. I'd really just be using this as a front end to stream the movies off my movie server in the basement. I have my DVDs ripped on it now (plus some .avi shows) but may eventually do Blu-rays too. I'd also be doing Hulu occasionally. Think this will have the power to do these tasks? Would this have decent up conversion scaling of the DVDs? Thanks.

I wouldn't be playing the BD on this actual machine. I would be streaming it after I rip my BD. Would these issues still exist?

I have the following system:

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz
ATI Radeon HD 5670
MSI P55M-GD41 Mainboard
Aerocool PGS Qx-2000

It works pretty well for what I need. I mostly watch movies and ocassionally game. However, I may game on it more often given that my PS3 recently died. Which brings me to my current problem.

I recently received my PC copies of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. I use my Radeon HD 5670 as both video card and sound card and get surround sound in Mass Effect 2 by default. But I only get stereo from Mass Effect (even though my receiver reports 7.1 audio in both instances). At the Bioware Social Network I was told the following:


In this guide, I see recommended the ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe, the Auzentech Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD, and the ASUS Xonar Essence ST with ASUS Xonar H6 (although I suppose the last one is out of the question as I am using my sole standard PCI slot for a dLink wireless receiver). Which sound card would you guys recommend? Also, if the sound card has HDMI, do I still connect to my receiver via the HDMI port of my Radeon or through the one on the sound card (I want to sent both audio and video to my receiver via one cable)? Also, will Crossfire be impossible even if I go for the Auzentech card?

Ok. Thanks for the info. I'll start reading your Recommended page.

Figures it's the one I had my eye on

Which machine do you plan on playing the BD rip on (ie - which machine will the BD player software reside)? For HD audio playback with clarkdale igpu you need MEI to work properly on this machine.

Yes, it looks like the MB I was looking at won't support this correctly. Glad I posted here. Thanks for the help. I'm reading over the Recommended builds stuff. Lots of good info there. Trying to keep costs down since I'll be mainly using the box to stream/occasional hulu but I want good quality steams and full audio formats support.

Well, I made a slight mistake. I did not notice that the AverMedia Duet was Digital only and now I cannot record the analog signals coming from my cable company.

Just to make sure I order the right part this time, I'm going to describe where my signals are coming from and let you experts suggest a tuner. I was originally planning on using the Hauppauge 2250 but I mistakenly wrote that I was just interested in recording OTA HD stations and therefor renethx suggested the AverMedia card, which works great btw. I'm not blaming renethx, he gave great information.

So, what I should have said is that I would like to record the stations coming from my cable company and the OTA HD stations. They are still on the cable line so would that make them ClearQAM and the non-HD stations are analog? I have an antenna available that also picks up all the HD stations but for simplicity I would prefer to run just one Coax cable to the HTPC (with a splitter for multiple tuners).

Is the Hauppauge 2250 the best bet for this as it is a dual tuner with each tuner being analog & digital?

Also, is anyone interested in a LNIB AverMedia Duet? lol. Newegg restocking fee sucks.

Well I'm ready to build another htpc. This one will only be used to stream movies and tv shows from main htpc using mediabrowser. How does this look:

Combo Deal:
AMD Sepron 140 Sargas 2.7Ghz Socket AM3 45W single Core
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H Micro ATX

or

AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8Ghz 65W Dual Core
Gigabyte GA-M68M-S2P Micro ATX

A-Data (2x1GB) 240 pin DDR2 800
Antec Microfusion Remote 350 Micro ATX Media Center
Powercolor Go! Green HD 5450
WD Cavier Green 2TB (will go in main HTPC and move 320GB drive to this box)

Already own an additional license for Win 7 and DVD drive. I'll probably add a bluray drive down the road to use with TMT3.

Is the 2250 able to configure itself for either analog or digital or would I have to do that each time I want to switch?

For example, coming from my cable company, the coax carries both analog and digital channels. My tv is capable of tuning all of them without any setting changes. Will I be able to scan all of the channels in WMC in Windows 7 and just change channels at will? Or would I have to manually change the tuner from analog to digital in order to watch the different types?

Also, could anyone give me an idea of about how large a BD rip would be if I encoded it to .mkv? Also, what kind of quality loss am I looking at? I would encode with ripbot if it makes a difference.

Thank you so much for the help!

Yes play movies streamed from main HTPC. I think I'm going to go with the combo that includes the Sempron 140.

I have selected the following components

nMedia HTPC 6000B
ASUS P7P55D-E PRO
Core i5-750
Cooler Master RR-CCH-PBU1-GP
G.SKILL RipJaws 2*2GB-4GBRM
MSI Cyclone GeForce GTX 460 1GB for gaming
Corsair TX650W CMPSU-650TX
Intel 40gb SSD
Seagate Spinpoint 2TB
Asus ML238H LED Backlight Monitor
Win7 Ultimate x64

Since the recommended items are about 2 months old and I cannot wait until November, I just wanted to know if there are any better options out there that anyone can point out esp. for the motherboard. I tried to research myself but couldn't find better options.
Also wanted to know if on a whole this setup would be ideal for gaming and htpc.

I'm getting ready to place an order for my first ever HTPC build, I'm going to be using at least one Ceton quad tuner and use Linksys 2100 extenders to 4 tv's, possibly 8 all together ( would need another Ceton Quad Tuner ) so I want enough power to stream to all set's, record, and have two or three 2TB hard drives for movie storage, appreicate any suggests or feedback on the following set-up:

I already have a brand new Core i7-920 D0 stepping cpu, brand new in the box that's not been used yet... I could save this for a gaming rig or just use it?

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R mother board
G.SKILL RipJaws, 6 Gigs DDR3 Ram
Geforce GTX 470 video card
Plextor SATA blu ray reader / burner
1 possibly 2 Ceton Quad Tuner Cards
SSD for booting and os
Minimum quanity of 2 to 3, 2-terabyte hard drives with sata
Already have: Antec Signature SG-850 850W power supply
Windows 7 Ultimate with Media Center Edition
Large enough ATX case for all components, ceton tuner cards, and hard drives.

I guess I could consider a mini-atx mother board, and that would benefit a smaller htpc case, if everything could fit, and have proper air flow and ventilation. Thanks again for your opinions and suggestions!

Okay, I have Windows 7 Media Center so with the 2250, I can set WMC to record either an analog or digital channel and the 2250 will switch automatically as needed?

BTW, renethx, I appreciate all the help! I'm currently at my HTPC watching a recorded show and encoding a BD rip to mkv. Any idea what kind of loss in quality would I be looking at by doing this and what kind of storage space savings? I would just wait and see myself but it's going to be 9 hours before it finished encoding.

Thanks again!

thanks a lot renethx will look into those.

I'm putting together a WHS fileserver for movies, pictures and music consisting of the following components.

- MSI H55-G43
- Pentium G6950 w/ IGP
- 4 GB of Corsair DDR3-1600 memory
- Corsair 650 Watts PSU
- 500GB WD hard for OS.
- LG BD-Rom drive

I have everything put together and OS installed. The problem that I'm having is the LG BD-ROM is not being recognize as a Blu-ray drive by the OS.
I installed AnyDVD HD along with ClownBD but ClownBD is not recognizing the movie. Can you install all this software to WHS and rip movies from the server?

I'm also planning on adding a RAID card either a RocketRAID 3530 or start with a RocketRAID 2320 and eventually add a second one. Would I still have integrated video from the CPU if I install a PCIe X4 or X8 RAID card?

Any difference 1 gig 5850/5870 vs 2 gig cards? Nope, not buying into 3D. I thought the Geforce Fermi series could do HD Audio Bitstreaming?

Was my HTPC build overkill? Could I go buy the mini-atx recomendations you have listed in the June edition, if I'd consider the mini-atx route, not sure how much power is really needed to do what I want. Having a large enough case to fit two Cetons Quad tuners, and maybe going the mini-atx route might work fine?

This system I have right now is:
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, C2Duo 2.66, 512 MB MSI 8800 GTS, 2x2=4 GB OCZ Gold memory, Creative X-Fi Titanium Pci-Express Sound card, maybe just switching to the ATI HD 5850/5870 1 GB card and use this? I also have an AM2 X2-6400 system. Thanks again.

Hmm...I'll have to check the settings I used on a movie I encoded last night. I pretty much used the default settings in RipBot and the finished .mkv came out to just shy of 3GB.

Using MediaInfo, I get this information:
Video Stream:
2769 Kbps, 1920*1080 (16:9), at 23.976 fps, AVC (Container profile=Unknown@4.0)(High@L4.0(CABAC / 3 Ref Frames)
Audio Stream:
English, 640 Kbps, 48 KHz, 16 bits, 6 channels,AC-3

What movie? I use Ripbot as well and will check my file size and settings.

Law Abiding Citizen

My htpc has been running great until yesterday. I purchased the hd homerun dual tuner. Now, everytime I run wmc7 to watch recorded or live tv, the cpu temp shoots up pretty quickly and shuts down my pc. I am using a i3 530 and a h55/usb3 motherboard. Any suggestions would be helpful!

My Law Abiding Citizen is over 7GB at only 720p with TrueHD and AC3 track, but it's also at a much higher bit rate than what you have listed for your movie (8967 kbps vs. 2796 kbps).

I'm trying Transformers 2 right now. Going to let it run overnight with some different settings and see if it comes out any better. Law Abiding Citizen looks fine on my 22"monitor but I haven't tried it on my 50" plasma yet.

Would you mind telling me what settings you change from default on rip bot for your encoding? How can you control the bit rate and what would be an adequate bit rate that will still allow for decent savings on storage (I don't have the money for a media server).