HTPC newbie, so many options have fried my brains..

[NathanT]

Appologies for being so vague, as the title suggests, I'm looking in to getting a little HTPC for my front room.

The long story short is the PS3 has packed up, as has the freeview recorder. I'm now using my old PS2 to watch DVD's and if the dog trips over the cable for the hand control one more time and pulls it out of the socket I can see the PS2 being no good.

I'm hoping that I can find the right software and remote (Logitech Harmony?) to do everything that the 3 older units do and a bit more. So what do I want it to do:

Watch DVD's and Blue Rays
Stream Youtube/Love Film/BBCi player
Store and play music (also burn CD's to a hard drive)
Watch Sky GO
Watch Freeview and record to hard drive if at all possible

- No need for any gaming
- No need for any 3D

Wondering what sort of set-up I would need for this to do it comfortably. Would an integrated system like the AMD Hudson be capable of this (having mixed reports on the E35M1-M PRO to be honest) or would I be looking at going to a larger scale with a 1155 sandybridge set-up.

Looking at doing it as small and quiet as possible, although money is not unlimited.

I'm still yet to research the software side of things.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me on this.

 

[saitrix]

Modern desktop cpu's are frugal enough these days I think there isn't much point to using the lower power cpu's and worrying about whether they are powerful enough for the job. The A6-3500 is being really liked right now for htpc's as it is a good mix of a powerful enough cpu with a very good onboard gpu. This will take anything you throw at it, even full 1080 3d. Perfectly powerful enough for iplayer hd etc too without any dropped frames. Run it with 4gb memory as it is so cheap these days, plus it is better to go for quicker memory with these llano as the gpu uses it.

So to watch bluray's you can get internal drives for sub £50 these days, that coupled with the correct software will play them fine.

As you are wanting to watch freeview then you will need to get a pci addon card, be careful which one you buy as it seems not all cards are equal. They will be able to record to a hard drive so I would assume you would want something like a 2tb 3.5" hdd for this htpc? Would you want any more storage than that?

Not sure on Sky GO but at the end of the day if it is a full pc then you will be able to use your normal browser.

Now for controlling the thing you have a few options. You can get an MCE compatible remote control that comes with a usb ir receiver. This is probably your cheapest way of doing this, can sometimes be a little hassle trying to get the software working how you want with it. You then can get www.flirc.tv which gets raved about. Really simplifies the use of a remote on a pc, plus allows you to use any remote you like for it. Personally I am currently using a cheap ebay one for ~£8. It does the job, took a little research to get it working exactly right but now it is, other than feeling cheap, it's fine. I keep it separate from my Harmony remote as I found it was really sluggish to use, but from what I have read about Flirc, you can select a certain device and it makes the Harmony remote fast with it. So if you have an amp etc to turn on at the same time as the tv then a Harmony remote with Flirc is the way I would do it. Though a proper MCE remote would be a nice cheap way of getting a decent enough setup.

Normally you would be able to go on this page : wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Remote_control_reviews
You will have to wait til tomorrow before the page will be viewable.

So now onto the case, this will be decided really when we know exactly you needs for storage etc, plus whether a lay flat style or tower works better for you.

An SSD is ideal for use on a htpc if you are willing to spend the money, but possibly as your first one I wouldn't bother.

Software side of things? I use XBMC, though it isn't the best with playback of your blurays due to it not supporting it directly, you have to get it working with an external player. Some people find it difficult to learn but it is the most customisable.

You then have Media Portal, that is meant to be easier. To be honest it would work better with freeview too as XBMC again doesn't natively support it whereas Media Portal does. Having a quick look it seems you can add seamless bluray playback within Media Portal using PowerDVD in the background. Seems like a sensible choice to me really. It will handle the music no problem too, I also found an addon for burning cd's too within it.

Lastly you have Windows Media Centre, some people really like this but I can't say I have ever got along with it. I really don't know much on it though. What I suggest is you try a few different ones on your current pc and see how they feel to you.

If you want to know anything else just ask. But once you have worked out what components you want I can give a hand with finding a suitable case and cooling solution. I really enjoy my htpc and certainly pleased I bought it, it just is very difficult to get into!

 

[cokecan]

I'd be quite interested to know if the AMD Hudson would be beefy enough to transcode video (mkv, avi etc) on the fly?

I'm looking for a similar setup to OP's but I'd like to stream video to my iPad from the Videostream app and that transcodes my video's on the fly as I watch them (or at least it should....my current file server isn't anywhere near fast enough to do it without pausing every 40 seconds while it loads a bit more)

 

[saitrix]

I doubt it, the cpu is only a little more powerful than an atom. For transcoding a low end sandy bridge would be the way to go surely?



NathanT,
I didn't explain why I recommended the A6-3500 over sandy bridge. Annoyingly sandy bridge has issues with getting the correct refresh rate and also people have had a few other issues with onboard gpu playback. If it wasn't for that then it would be good, it looks like ivy bridge will hopefully sort these problems out.

 

[NathanT]

Thanks for your time in answering and your help.

Yeah the AMD solution looks a lot more meaty on the GPU side of things.
The price difference worked out at about £30 between that and the Sandybridge so thats negotiable. I was looking at spending £40+ to get an additional GPU later on but I'm not sure if its warranted with the Llano set-up.

The main reason would be for Blueray and DVD playback plus some youtube streaming and music. Not being able to watch a movie in the evening times means the wife is constantly flicking between crap and even worse crap on TV.
I've found I can get Sky Go on any PC so that is not an issue, I have freeview on my TV so recording can wait, iPlayer and "on Demand" will suffice.

I have a 60gig SSD and a 500Gig 3.5 drive that I can use up as and when the time comes.
If I'm going to be keeping the machine on, is there any reason to use the 60gig SSD, its not really big enough to hold any decent size of data and would only really be as a boot disk.

Overclockers dont stock a massive amount of 17x17 boards (any), so I'm probably going to see if I can source a AsRock A75M-ITX Motherboard or simular.

Got to find a suitable case, might go cheap and nasty to start with then move on to something a little more pleasing to the eye

 

[saitrix]

Yeah no need to get a GPU for it if you go for the AMD solution.

An SSD just allows quicker loading for menu's, not totally needed but if you want it 100% perfect and instant then people go for them.

Have a look at the Asus M-ITX motherboard, that even comes with a bluetooth remote control too. Might be worth paying ~£25 more for.

I wouldn't go cheap on a case otherwise you will end up with a noisy htpc. I would buy a PicoPSU (120 or 150W version) as this will be the totally silent method. I bought a cheap case and the psu was extremely loud, so I replaced with a PicoPsu which has made it totally silent. You will also want to consider heatsink space for the cpu if you want it quiet. I am personally looking at the Lian Li PC-Q07, if you use a picopsu then it has a nice large space for a tower cooler. Which I was looking at buying the Scythe Mugen 3 as the fan on it can go as slow as 300rpm. It can be had for ~£45 and the picopsu style psu for around the £35 if you shop around. Here is the spec I have been creating for myself.

A6-3500
AsRock A75M-ITX or Asus counterpart
4gb DDR3 1600mhz
Scythe Mugen 3
120W PicoPSU
Lian Li PC-Q07
Cheap bluray reader drive

I hope this at least gives you something to go off, I realise that probably is a little more expensive than you may have expected but I really am sensitive to noise from a pc.