Advise.. on HTPC system

honky113 · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:19

Ok i was recently looking to build a whole new system. I want a system that will be pretty good for playing hd films TS films and h-264 films but also look nice under the telly.
l think it will need a Intel Core 2 Duo to play H-264 films
was thinking of this case Thermaltake Tenor
what software is the best for htpc

So can somone recommend me a psu, cpu, mobo, and DVD drive?
l have got
500gb hard drive
780 GTX or 2 X 7600 GS/OC (pci-e)
2g of memory

will play on my Acer AT3705-MGW
@ 1920 x 1080

thanks for looking

honky113

sid · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:53

I don't think you'll need 2gb or SLi graphics cards (unless you are planning on blueray drive for your pc but that has ridiculous requirements)

Also are you sure that ACER 37" is 1080p, it might just be 720p which is very likely?

Sid

pinkaardvark · 20 Jan 2007 at 00:21

sid said:
I don't think you'll need 2gb or SLi graphics cards (unless you are planning on blueray drive for your pc but that has ridiculous requirements)

Also are you sure that ACER 37" is 1080p, it might just be 720p which is very likely?

Sid

Acer is 1920x 1080 but only accepts 720p and 1080i inputs so I guess you may not be able to use the full resolution unless through VGA, plus it's got a poor 12ms response time and a very low 800:1 CR.

Energize · 20 Jan 2007 at 00:23

Acer aren't known for their quality so it wouldn't be a suprise if it didn't accept 1080p through vga.

You don't need core duo, my pc plays 1080p fine.

Bigpops · 20 Jan 2007 at 00:50

Energize said:
Acer aren't known for their quality so it wouldn't be a suprise if it didn't accept 1080p through vga.

You don't need core duo, my pc plays 1080p fine.

1080p what though?

1080p H.264 on HD-DVD takes more than a 3500+ to decode. My media PC (X2 3800+) only just manages to play King Kong, which is encoded with the less CPU intensive VC-1.

If you plan on playing HD-DVD or Blu-ray in the future, i highly recommend getting a Core2 Duo. Even the cheapest one will play both without graphics card assistance.

Energize · 20 Jan 2007 at 00:51

Bigpops said:
1080p what though?

1080p H.264 on HD-DVD takes more than a 3500+ to decode. My media PC (X2 3800+) only just manages to play King Kong, which is encoded with the less CPU intensive VC-1.

If you plan on playing HD-DVD or Blu-ray in the future, i highly recommend getting a Core2 Duo. Even the cheapest one will play both without graphics card assistance.

h.264, nvidia graphics cards have mpeg4 hardware decoding built in though.

I am using ffdshows codec and not core avc, core avc is a much faster decoder, so even a lower cpu should be able to play it with that.

squiffy · 20 Jan 2007 at 10:11

I would go for dual core for knowledge HD playback will play fine without lost frames, my 3700+ can playback 1080p AVI's but I guess some cpu intensive codecs like 264 will cause a slidshow.

Yeah agree with the above, that machine is overkill for a htpc, you don't need 2GB or top of the range single/sli. A 7300GS or similar is suitable.

pinkaardvark · 20 Jan 2007 at 11:40

Doesn't he say he has already got graphics and mem in his post, so it's only the othe rbits he is looking for.

Tinders · 20 Jan 2007 at 14:03

I use a samsung 162 (might even be the 163 will check later) thats nice and quiet.

I have a AMD X24400 and that plays all of the HD stuff around at the moment fine, but get the CPU you can afford tbh.

honky113 · 20 Jan 2007 at 20:25

the dvi is 1920x1080
hdmi. l can set that to 1080p and 720p settings useing a kiss dp600 through that
will be putting in a hd-dvd or blue ray drive in later on. l forgot to say will l need a sound card ? ( l will be getting a Amplifier later on )

Energize · 20 Jan 2007 at 22:00

honky113 said:
the dvi is 1920x1080
hdmi. l can set that to 1080p and 720p settings useing a kiss dp600 through that
will be putting in a hd-dvd or blue ray drive in later on. l forgot to say will l need a sound card ? ( l will be getting a Amplifier later on )

You will need a sound card with a digital output to conect to an amp for 5.1.

tinners · 21 Jan 2007 at 20:58

Energize said:
You will need a sound card with a digital output to conect to an amp for 5.1.

You should be able to pick up a Terratec AUREON 5.1 PCI Surround Sound Card for about £10-£15 which has digital out.

In terms of case I would recommend a Silverstone or maybe a Lian Li PC30

Would recommend you get Vista rather than MCE 2005.

I dont think you need a spec as high as that, especially the graphics. If its just for media center then get something a bit cheaper.

mdjmcnally · 21 Jan 2007 at 21:35

If you are looking at offloading CPU with Nvidia Card then the 7600GT is the entry level card according to the Purevideo datasheets.

Asus do a nice one that has HDMI so makes connecting to the HTPC easy.

fornowagain · 21 Jan 2007 at 21:55

mdjmcnally said:
If you are looking at offloading CPU with Nvidia Card then the 7600GT is the entry level card according to the Purevideo datasheets.

Asus do a nice one that has HDMI so makes connecting to the HTPC easy.

Are you sure about that? Looks like the much lower spec cards have hardware acceleration.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

The HDMI versions cost more, assuming the card has HDCP. The only real advantage of HDMI over DVI on these cards is the SPDIF passthrough.

honky113 · 21 Jan 2007 at 22:16

Energize said:
You will need a sound card with a digital output to conect to an amp for 5.1.

Thinking of getting this one: X-Meridian Sound Card

But I thought that if I got a motherboard with onboard sound it would be just as good seeing as its getting outputted to an amp
But if I need to get one I will.
Will my PC3200 memory (DDR400) be compatible with Intel Core 2 DUO Motherboard because I think I will need that cpu to play h-264 films

honky113

Energize · 21 Jan 2007 at 23:09

You need ddr2 memory for a core 2 duo processor. The audio can only be as good as the worst component in the system, since it goes through the computer first the computer will need to be able to produce good audio and since the motherboard won't have a digital out you need to get a card just for the conections.

I would reccomend just getting a socket 939 processor like an amd 4000+, my cpu can decode 1080p h.264 video at around 80% cpu usage so a 4000+ will easily be able to decode a hd-dvd because they use a less rescource intensive codec.

fornowagain · 21 Jan 2007 at 23:14

honky113 said:
Thinking of getting this one: X-Meridian Sound Cars

honky113

Thats similar to the one I use. It is worth the expense if you're not "only" playing DVD's with 5.1 tracks. Mine creates a lovely continuous DD stream. Realtime encodes any 2 channel rips/DVD, freeview and my DVB-S2 satellite card. If a native DD source appears, say BBCHD, it just passes it through.

I'm just sat here watching "Contact" on Five, on 7 speakers up mixed from the 2 channel surround. Sounds great.

"Good to go" Good film btw.

pinkaardvark · 22 Jan 2007 at 02:44

Energize said:
You need ddr2 memory for a core 2 duo processor. The audio can only be as good as the worst component in the system, since it goes through the computer first the computer will need to be able to produce good audio and since the motherboard won't have a digital out you need to get a card just for the conections.

I would reccomend just getting a socket 939 processor like an amd 4000+, my cpu can decode 1080p h.264 video at around 80% cpu usage so a 4000+ will easily be able to decode a hd-dvd because they use a less rescource intensive codec.

Plenty of mobo's nowadays have digital outs.