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Home Theatre/Media Centre PCs

Started by AsparagusTrevor, June 04, 2010, 11:48:43 AM

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AsparagusTrevor

I'm thinking of putting together a cheap-ish HTPC, one good enough to play HD content, but not necessarily Blu-Rays. I don't really want to spend more than £300-£400 on it because I don't have much money and I plan to buy parts over the next few months to spread the cost, and make it more exciting like one of those magazines where you get a new part of a dinosaur model every issue.

I'm mainly wanting to do this because I've got a lot of stuff under the TV that could be replaced with one PC. DVD-player, set-top box, media player with HDD, lots of cables making a mess, too much dust, not enough freedom. Building a PC for this would give me more control over the behind-the-scenes aspects that shop-bought appliances don't offer. Also it would be easier and much cheaper to keep the PC future-proof. Looking at some of the things you can do, the plug-ins available, it all seems very impressive. Plug-ins that automatically strip the ad breaks out of recordings, integration with iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc, emulator frontends etc.

Does anyone have experience with HTPCs, advice to offer or general amusing comments?

Uncle TechTip

I did it for around 300 pounds using MythTV. The main aim was to provide a PVR for Freeview channels, and it works really well. It also plays avis and such seamlessly. HD is no problem, certainly for downloaded items, Freeview HD as you know is still in its nebulous stage and you need a special, not-yet-available digital tuner card to receive it. HD is not a concern for me so I wasn't bothered.

Integration with iplayer is an interesting one, recently the BBC introduced some DRM which killed a lot of homemade iplayer grabber solutions, this could be the tricky part as any tools are supposed to be approved by the Beeb. However since building this I've found I use iplayer rarely, as I always record what I want to watch and never miss it.

So in summary I built an Intel Dual Core E5300 based system with 2Gb of RAM, 500GB and 1TB HDDs, Nvidia 9400GT video and two Hauppage DTV cards for aronud 300-odd. MythTV is free and is easy to set up with one of the pre-built installs eg Mythbuntu. It sits in the corner of my living room and is fairly quiet, though i could do more here by eg buying a silent power supply. So far it's worked wonderfully well. 1TB disk is for the TV recording and currently it's at 800GB holding around 400 programs of 150hrs in total, off the top of my head. The two tuner cards can each be split to allow two recordings off the same multiplex, meaning I can generally record four programs at once if there are spread across two muxes (eg BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, C4)

If you're not interested in the Freeview side then something like that would still provide a great platform to watch downloaded stuff. The performance is fantastic, probably overpowered to a degree. Use a modern Nvidia card and you can take advantage of recent developments in hardware video processing, like VDPAU, which help massively with HD content.

If anyone wants more info or help send me a PM.

surreal

I built one about 18 months ago, went for very low-power components basically following guidlines I found here:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/04/building-your-own-home-theater-pc.html - quite an old link now but the general advice stands, just take the latest versions of the components

As long as it's just for high-def video and not a monster gaming rig you're after, onboard video is more than enough.  I'm now considering using the box I built as storage on my network and getting one of these for the lounge:

Acer Aspire Revo

Tiny and quiet, and inexpensive but you would need external HDD storage - but as you can get 2GB external drives for under £100 now it's definitely still going to be within your price range.

Software wise - Windows 7 media centre is excellent, or you could use MediaPortal, or the windows port of XBMC.

Here is another guide using one of the Revo's with XBMC:
http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-silent-standalone-xbmc-media-center-on-the-cheap


AsparagusTrevor

Yeah PVR functionality is something I want to have so I can replace my current PVR, but I'm not bothered about Freeview HD or any of that. Mainly just want to be able to play some 720p MKVs I've got quite a few of. Sounds like Freeview HD isn't something that TV-card manufacturers are embracing, since we're using a different format to the US for terrestrial HD video.

I do already have a TV card knowing around, a dual tuner Hauppage 500 or something, so I suppose that's covered. I'm not interested in gaming on it, I have my very capable desktop PC hooked up to the TV for gaming anyway, so I can probably go with an onboard graphics card, and plan to do the same for the sound card.

I've played around quite a lot with Windows Media Centre on Vista and like it quite a lot and the plug-in community is quite good, so I'll probably stick with that. Might bump up to Windows 7 though.

Quote from: surreal on June 04, 2010, 12:40:02 PM
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/04/building-your-own-home-theater-pc.html[/url] - quite an old link now but the general advice stands, just take the latest versions of the components
That seems like a very useful article, I might see what modern hardware alternatives I can get and build close to those specs.

I find the building hard to get my head around. When I built my last PC, I had quite a large budget and wanted to just make sure I didn't have to upgrade for as long as possible, so I just bought the most powerful stuff I could afford. Now I've got to work to a tight budget, small case, and have to think about quietness and all that, it's a different beast altogether.

katzenjammer

I'm using mediaportal on an old laptop I had that the screen had broken.  As something which started out as a way just to utilise the old laptop, it's turned into something that's transformed how we watch TV.  There are loads of plugins for mediaportal, I have a torrent UI for uTorrent, Spotifier, Last FM, youtube player and others that automatically fetch all movie and series info and graphics from the web.  I can't play HD content due to the spec of the laptop but have been toying with getting the ASRock ION 330 to do just that.  Like you, I'll then dispense with all the crap under the TV and have just one box.

surreal

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on June 04, 2010, 03:06:29 PM
I find the building hard to get my head around. When I built my last PC, I had quite a large budget and wanted to just make sure I didn't have to upgrade for as long as possible, so I just bought the most powerful stuff I could afford. Now I've got to work to a tight budget, small case, and have to think about quietness and all that, it's a different beast altogether.

I was the same, following that article.  I just looked for the AMD 780g chipset board, an "e" processor (like the AMD 4850e) which is very low power.  I got an 80% efficent PSU and use a laptop HDD to run Windows so it takes up as little power and noise as possible.  I then put 2x 1tb drives in,  but they are asleep most of the time.  This makes for a silent and very low-power PC which can sit happily on all the time without a problem and without being a distraction in the living room.  You could easily add a TV card, which is exactly what I'll do as soon as I can get Freeview where I live (I have Virgin Media at the moment).

Santa's Boyfriend

PS3, my friend.  Use PS3 Media Server (a free programme for your PC/mac) to stream content wirelessly from your computer's hard drive.  One of the most useful pieces of kit out there IMO, and obviously it plays blu-rays, but pretty much any format you can think of will play through the PMS, either directly streamed or re-encoded on the fly.  It plays music and pictures too, and it's all accessible from menu navigation on your tv.  It's the best kit I ever bought, but it's not the PS3 per se that's so great, it's the fact that the PMS is so cool.

surreal

Tversity is another good alternative to that, free version available too

http://www.tversity.com

AsparagusTrevor

After a couple of weeks research, pricing up etc, I've finally ordered parts for this now, should come tomorrow hopefully so I can build it over the weekend. Managed to get the price to just under £300. I managed to really sell this to my wife quite easily, so that isn't a problem like I thought it might be.

I've gone for:
CASE - Silverstone SST-LC17B in black
MOBO - Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G MicroATX
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7850 2.80 GHz
250GB HDD (I've got a 1.5TB drive with my media on already)
2GB RAM, 400W MicroATX PSU, DVD-RW
I already have a TV dual-tuner card, so I saved on at least £40 there, and I have Windows 7 ready to install.

Might eventually upgrade to a Blu-Ray drive and might possibly get a dedicated GFX card, but for now this should do.

So over the next few weeks I'll probably be tweaking this and getting it all perfect and ready to replace all the other bumf under the telly. Can't wait.

surreal

Sweet - pics when you've built it please!

Uncle TechTip

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on June 17, 2010, 04:56:30 PM
So over the next few weeks I'll probably be tweaking this and getting it all perfect and ready to replace all the other bumf under the telly. Can't wait.

For maximum WAF* don't forget a remote control. I found the MCE remotes to be best, several companies make these and you shouldn't pay more than 20quid. That's the one with the Windows logo on a key in the centre. Should go fine with your Windows setup. Under no circs get an RF-transmitting remote, they are rubbish. Go IR evey time.

* - Wife Acceptance Factor

Slaaaaabs

If you have an Apple iDevice then I highly recommend HippoRemote Pro as an extremely powerful remote control for your HTPC. It uses a VNC client with low overhead and comes loaded with profiles and layouts for all major software (and offers up user made profiles to download from within the app).

I tried several remote apps before Hippo came out and I've not used anything else since.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on June 17, 2010, 06:42:36 PM
For maximum WAF* don't forget a remote control. I found the MCE remotes to be best, several companies make these and you shouldn't pay more than 20quid. That's the one with the Windows logo on a key in the centre. Should go fine with your Windows setup. Under no circs get an RF-transmitting remote, they are rubbish. Go IR evey time.

* - Wife Acceptance Factor

Aye, I've ordered a cheap one since I've got a Logitech Harmony already, so I'm just gonna eventually nick its IR sensor and use the Harmony when it's set up.

katzenjammer

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on June 17, 2010, 06:42:36 PM
Under no circs get an RF-transmitting remote, they are rubbish. Go IR evey time.

Do you speak from experience?  What's the problem with them?  I have this one
http://www.conceptronic.net/site/desktopdefault.aspx?tabindex=1&tabid=242&cid=40&gid=4050&pid=CLLRCMCE
it works great.  Especially since the PC is entirely enclosed, I don't have to strategically place the receiver in sight.

Uncle TechTip

I had the ATI RF remote and it was terrible, I had to extend the antenna with a bit of headphone wire, even then it would sometimes just not work, depending on where you were sitting, the orientation of the remote, did next door have their hoover on.  Essentially if it doesn't fire 99% of the time then it's no good as a remote. Switching to IR and as long as you pointed it in the general direction of the sensor, it worked every time.

AsparagusTrevor

My last parts arrived today so I finished building it this afternoon and to my absolute surprise I plugged in the PC and everything worked first time, really wasn't expecting that, I don't usually have much luck with, erm, anything really. I've spent the best part of this afternoon running the diagnostics and setting up the software.

Now I'm doing the arduous task of getting my media set up right, meta-tagged and all that gubbins. It's really tedious, cos I have over 1TB of video files, all set up to work on a different and specific file-system, now I gotta make all right for a completely different system. I've found Media Centre Master a good tool for this job.

AsparagusTrevor

I got it all built last week, today I've just had a new aerial fitted because ours didn't work, and now I'm fannying with getting TV sorted.

Setting up all the software is really annoying. Everything is one difficult task after another, just to get stuff to work. One random problem after another. Trying to play videos that play fine on Window Media Player to play in Media Centre is an extra task, if Windows can play them, why can't Media Centre? Well I've got all that shit sorted now, after ridiculous amount of tinkering, codec installing etc. Why isn't it more simple, it's surely not supposed to be for extreme techies is it? This is something that needs to be as wife-proof as possible. If something goes wrong, she doesn't know how to fix it.

Today I've been testing recording TV, should be simple, channels work fine, recording works fine, but trying to play a recording freezes everything up for a while, then plays only very jittery sound with a black picture, which then causes live TV to do the same. Back to bloody Google with yet another "should be simple" problem to fix.

Uncle TechTip

This is where pre-prepared distributions like Mythbuntu come into their own. Someone has spent the time sorting all the myriad issues and more often than not, it just works.

To be fair, doing it from scratch is for advanced techies, as there are so many things to configure.