Show me your media centre setups?

[-Mike-]

Hello all,

Following on from my thread the other day with regard to my uncles proposed media centre setup I just wondered if you could help me by posting some of your setups here so I can show him the sort of 'idea' behind it all?

I'm now wondering whether to just get an older shuttle based system to save a bit of cash - the specs are troubling me somewhat.

Cheers guys

 

[squiffy]

Silverstone TJ-08
Seasonic 430W S12 PSU
Athlon 64 3700+, 2.2ghz, CAQ enabled (usually runs at 1.1ghz)
Asus A8N-CSM MATX 6150/410 motherboard
ATI X300 PCI-E graphics
M-Audio Revolution 5.1 soundcard
1GB Corsair DDR Value RAM
Microsoft IR receiver
60GB 2.5" hard drive
MCE (but having problems that AVI's aren't display as OAR, XP Pro works as it should)
Case fans at 7v, Scythe Ninja (this week) will run passive.

640GB D-Link DNS-323 NAS

 

[Christo]

I have a TJ08 now but think that a Sugo Evo is a better size for a media centre. My specs were:

Sugo SG01 Evo
E6400
SI-128 Thermalright heatsink
AsRock Conroe 945G DVI (using onboard 7.1 Soundcard)
2Gb DDR II 6400RAM (For Vista)
500gb SATA II Samsung HHD
Scythe Quiet Drive Internal HDD Silencer
7900GS With Thermalright HR-03 Rev.A Passive heatsink
Pioneer DVDRW.
Hiper 580W PSU

The whole system was running passively, the only fan was the PSU fan sucking air away from the CPU heatsink below, so was quiet. Playing games I needed to turn on the fan on the Graphics card but playing HD movies/surfing the fan wasnt needed. The 7900GS is needed if you want to use the media centre to watch HD movies (up to 1080p). If you wont use it for that I would use the onboard graphics card, it runs Vista fine (without Aero) however if you want Aero, you'll need a graphics card but I would recommend a slower cooler card.

 

[squiffy]

he 7900GS is needed if you want to use the media centre to watch HD movies (up to 1080p). If you wont use it for that I would use the onboard graphics card

Disagree with that, onboard 6150 copes with 1080p.

 

[Christo]

Disagree with that, onboard 6150 copes with 1080p.

I agree with you..but my board doesnt have 6150. It uses an Intel 950 GMA chip. On paper it's supposed to be able to cope with 1080p but it just doesnt - plently of stuttering. it justabout copes with 720p tho.

 

[Stephen B]

Sugo SG-01E
MSI G965m
XFX 7600GS [passive]
e4300 pad modded to 2.4 gig
Vista Ultimate
2 x 400g SATA 2
onboard alc883 [iirc] 7.1
Logitech Z-5500
Hitachi PJ-200tx projector
84" Ikea Tupplur screen
VM V+ HD cable box 13/04/07

budget bedroom setup , silent [apart from the pj]

p.s. my onboard g965 coped with 1080p quite happily, and scores 3.8 in Vista, so runs Aero nae bother , but got an XFX7600gs cheap and will be fitting tonight

 

[afraser2k]

Shuttle SB75G2
Intel P4 2.4GHz 'Northwood'
1x512 Mb Crucial PC2700 DDR
1x300 Gb Maxtor SATA hard disk
NEC ND-2500A DVD+RW
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-3000 TV Card
Club3d FX5200 AGP graphics
Running Windows MCE 2005
Sony Bravia 26" TFT (can't remember exact model)

Records from my NTL box, also use it to play mp3s and DVDs with sound through my hi-fi speakers.

Would like to transfer hardware from Shuttle case into a HTPC/desktop case so that I can fit it under my TV without annoying the MCE 2005 activation again with new hardware but I'm not sure about the FlexATX cases available at the moment.

 

[-Mike-]

Wow, Thanks for all the replies guys. I'm quite amazed Do any of you have any pictures of your setups at all that you could post on here?

Thanks for taking the time to type the above^^

 

[Christo]

I dont have any pics of inside the Sugo just one outside:

And this is of my TJ08 setup - its great as a PC but imo not really a media centre size.

 

[-Mike-]

Looks very nice mate Thanks for taking the time to post pictures.

I'm ideally looking to make it small and functional, a maximum size of his current video recorder ideally as he'd be really happy with that. As I said though, am in two minds whether or not to get a shuttle from the bay of E and build it up from that!!

Thanks again

 

[Christo]

Looks very nice mate Thanks for taking the time to post pictures.

I'm ideally looking to make it small and functional, a maximum size of his current video recorder ideally as he'd be really happy with that. As I said though, am in two minds whether or not to get a shuttle from the bay of E and build it up from that!!

Thanks again

Even a shuttle is suprisingly large, you can get smaller cases but you might need to go down the ITX route. Another option is a mac mini- they are tiny and totally silent. (If you dont like OSX you can always install Windows on it)

Id be tempted myself!

 

[squiffy]

Just fitted Ninja to my TJ-08, AMD 3700+ at stock, CAQ enabled.

Stock heatpipe from 4400x2, 12cm coolermaster fitted @ 7v
22/23 idle
47/48 load

Ninja running passive
20/21 idle
35 load

imo the TJ-08 is a great MC box, with lots of room you can use quiet cooler, larger and quieter fans. Rather have slightly bigger case than a cube with tiny little whiney fans with poor airflow.

 

[Tosk]

Case:.
SilverSone Sugo Evo - Black
CPU:.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+
Graphics:.
XFX GeForce 6800 GS 256Mb Extreme Gamers Edition
TV Card:.
Still looking for a good tv card
Memory:.
2 x GeIL 512MB PC3200 Value CAS2.5
HDD:.
1x Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-2
1x Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-2
DVD:.
Sony DWG120A 16x16 DVD±RW
Mobo:.
Biostar T-Force 6100-939
PSU:.
Enermax Liberty 500W ATX2.2 Modular

here is a photo of it sorry for the crappy quality, camera doesn't
take images well under dark light

http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/6219/hpim00374qg7.jpg

 

[Kezmo]

Not a true media center as in sits under t.v , but my p.c is in the iving room and is used for gaming , music and vids , gonna upgrade the sound card to a m-audio and get a set of tannoy monitors within the next few weeks.

 

[p4radox]

Kezmo, do you have any pics of the internals of that Sugo - specifically the display in USB ports? What model is it? It looks awesome!

 

[Kezmo]

Kezmo, do you have any pics of the internals of that Sugo - specifically the display in USB ports? What model is it? It looks awesome!

Its a standard sugo evo that ive modded, replaced the ugly front usb ports with a matrix orbital VFD and the optical drive is a slot loading Plextor

 

[Kezmo]

 

[Tosk]

yea im gonna be using the same matrix orbital VFD as Kezmo
when ive got the money for 1

Kezmo is using a :
Matrix Orbital 20x2 VFD VK202-24-USB running on LCDC software

 

[Hades]

Mine's not complete yet. I'm gradually getting the parts through the members market to keep the cost down. I have most now but will proabably buy a new motherboard and hard drive as I want specific items. The completed system will be:

Silverstone Lascala LC11 case (silver)
Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard (onboard s-video for my current TV and also onboard HDTV outputs for the future)
AM2 A64 3800 X2 Energy Efficient (AM2's are dirt cheap nowadays and the low voltage versions can be run with slow quiet fans)
1gb value RAM (no fancy overclocking needed here)
Two Cinergy DVB T200 digital tuners ** see below
400gb or 500gb Samsung hard drive (very, very quiet)
MS Media Centre wireless keyboard
MS Media Centre remote with IR blaster ** see below

** I picked up the tuners quite cheaply but I may replace them at some point with a pair of dual tuners (can watch/record 4 things at once) because I'll be running MythTV. This allows other Myth clients to use the box as a server, resulting in one central media server and clients around the house all able to access it. I may also look into replacing one of the tuners with a DVB-S card, Common Interface and the appropriate CAM to use my Sky card in it. But that's not immediately necessary as I can use the cards input and the IR blaster to control the Sky box, albeit not in HD.

 

[Sparky]

Battlefield2 on my system


In the middle of a change around as the 752s "take up to much room" according to the BOSS.