HTPC Spec & Requirements

Hi Guys......

Your wish is our command lol

In response to this thread (particularly poltergeist666) we now have the OrigenAE HTPC cases in stock in black and silver - including full Win MCE remote and VFD display. The H5 series will support a full ATX mobo and Micro ATX PSU whilst the H7 series will support a Micro ATX Mobo and Full ATX PSU.

See, we do listen... lol

Thanks for the input on this thread guys, its been very helpful.

Best Regards

AndyOCUK
OCUK Tech Dept.
 
AndyOcUK said:
Hi Guys......

Your wish is our command lol

In response to this thread (particularly poltergeist666) we now have the OrigenAE HTPC cases in stock in black and silver -

See, we do listen... lol
Click to expand...

Thank you for listening - your'e very very nice people. :) :)
 
Hi guys!

How about listing the components for your dream HTPC then? Something like:

Important factors in order of importance:
e.g. Looks
Noise
Features

And a list of what you'd use in the build....

AndyOCUK
 
Dunno about case, but:

Athlon 4400 X2 cpu.
2GB ram
7600GS
2 x Samsung Spinpoints (one for OS, one for archive)
WinTV PVR-500 Media Centre Edition Dual TV Tuner
HDA Digital X-Plosion 7.1 DTS soundcard.
MCE2005, latest Purevideo installed.
 
For me, the part that would entice me into buying a HTPC would be the software package. I have all the components needed to built a decent htpc, but I don;t have the inclination to spend hours installing the hundreds of small apps to get it working properly (e.g. ffdshow, theatertek, a remote control driven GUI etc). Being able to buy a <£400 pc based HTPC that I could plug and only have to tweak a few setting to my preference would be worth a lot.

Also, outputs is VERY important. If it can't output component, vga, and composite it would very much limit its market.
 
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i get confused regarding the best combination of tv/digital/freeview cards required for a htpc so you can pvr stuff, especially as to what cards work with windows mce +/- mediaportal without any hassle
 
Ive stopped playing games on my Main PC and had a basic media centre pc setup in the living room consisting of:-

Ideq Cube
Xp2200
Fx5200
PVR-150 MCE tv card

This system has lasted me well for the past 2yrs, running homebrew, and of late MCE.

Just upgraded to a 32inch LCD tv and im now moving my main PC into the living room to use as a media centre pc and to play counter strike source on, so this will now consist of

Silverstone LC03 case
A64 3200 processor
Nvidia 6800GT
2gb Ram
running WindowsXP with MediaPortal (far better than MCE).
All this is connected up to my NTL cable via PVR-150 tv card, so i can record programs etc and connected to a Denon AV Amp via optical, so i will now have a full entertainment (games, films, tv, music) system in one box :)

Looks are very important if its sat in your living room with your other AV equipment, thats why ive gone for the LC03 (it doesnt look like a pc).
 
I'd say Noise, Looks and Features are all equal considerations for me..

What I don't understand is peoples massive specs for HTPC's..

I have just built a HTPC for the front room

Silverstone LC11 slim case £85
Asus A8N-VM CSM (integrated 6150 graphics) £55
1 Gb PC3200 £37
A64 3200+ £85
160Gb Sata HDD £48
LG DVD Writer £24
Hauppauge Nova-T PCI - £45

Costing a total of £379!!!!

I Run Media Portal, which is free, and is very very flexbile, with good integration of the TV Card.


The A8N-VM-CSM integrated Nvidia 6150 has a lot of hardware video decoding features built in, as it was designed for HTPC, it has a DVI port that has worked flawlessly with my HDCP enabled HDMI ports on my Projector and Plasma.. I think it's a misconception that you need an expensive graphics card, and massive processor, they just generate heat, and need expensive cooling to keep noise down!

I can play 1080i .ts files with only 30% CPU usage, using NVidia Purevideo decoders, but I prefer to use the DScaler 5 with IVTC mod, this gives the best PQ, and even though its softare, 1080i material stil only uses 60% CPU..
I upsample DVD's to 1440 * 1164 and applying some post processing, and it handles this well, certainly makes a huge improvement to PQ!

However, the newer H264 MBAFF stuff is struggling, because it's all slow software decoders only at this time.. however when NVidia sort their Forceware drivers, and we have codecs using the hardware features, I am sure even the 6150 chipset will have enough poke to decode..

Quite honestly though, H264 is a way off yet, 99% of HD material I come accross is WMV and MPEG2 transport streams. If the H264 becomes a necessity, I'll just pop a PCI-E card that hardware accelerates it, possibly that'll be a new graphics card but up until that point, I'd rather save the money..

For storage, I have a file server based on a an A64 3200 and the same Asus Mobo, but it a cheap 10 5.25" bay £45 case, with 10 SATA Caddies, I'm slowly adding 320Gb SATA Drives as and when I need them, all stored in the study.. I use it for downloading/file sharing, running an FTP.. the only real hardwork was running Cat5E Cable to everywhere to ensure I have Gigabit LAN everywhere..
 
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Demon said:
I'd say Noise, Looks and Features are all equal considerations for me..

What I don't understand is peoples massive specs for HTPC's..
Click to expand...

Well to playback 1080p mpeg4 hd material such as blu-ray/xivd/h.264 and to recieve hd bbc broadcasts in h.264 would be the tip of the iceberg, not everyone just uses a htpc for watch video either, people also use them for playing games on their huge high res telly, encoding media esp stuff recorded off the tv, capturing and transcoding video from their digital camcorders, adding a lot of extra processing to dvds also requires some hefty processing power and some people also use them as their normal pc.
 
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Fair point, although it's then not really a HTPC when you start using it for normal PC Duties.. purely as a HTPC you don't necessarily need a massive spec, that's all I really meant..

even a lowly A64 3200 can play 1080p WMV and Transport streams easily with only integrated graphics..

on the subject of H264 though, Since blu-ray and H264 material is almost non-existant, I'll wait until the state of hardware decoding this is progressed, at worst, I'd imagine a new graphics card, but then it's not about just buying an expensive card, it's just about getting one with the right features..

As you say, it's about how you use the PC, for me it's a pure HTPC and media is the predominant factor.. which I only needed to spend a little to achieve.
 
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