Simple HTPC

sWiZzLe · 17 Apr 2008 at 00:28

I'd like to build a simple (for now) media pc that just plays back DVD's and avi's etc stored within it or streamed to or from it, but with options for upgrading it in the future.

I was considering getting a Hiper media case, but i cannot find any decent pictures of it, so am as yet unsure.
Is there an mATX board which has a decent built in graphics card which is capable of playing back HD? And also maybe wireless built in?

Not bothered about a tv card for now as ... well, we have TV for that :/
But i would like the ability to record tv at some point.

Really not that interested in overclocking etc - i prefer computers to be stable rather than 'superfast'.

Can anyone point me in the right direction here?

Cheers

sWiZzLe · 17 Apr 2008 at 16:46

Just been to the Gigabyte site to read about that motherboard, looks perfect thanks

What's the difference between that cpu and the AMD X2 4800e 2.5GHz ?

sWiZzLe · 18 Apr 2008 at 02:02

The Gigabyte looks good enough .... i have this strange feeling this media pc will end up being faster than my pc

Nearly ordered the board and the case yesterday, but im still not sure about the case :/

sWiZzLe · 19 Apr 2008 at 05:06

Was considering the silver one of these, but thats the only picture i can find of it. Would be helpful to be able to see the back of it - its about £50, i dont really want to spend much more than that.

sWiZzLe · 20 Apr 2008 at 16:33

Cheers for those links Tosk, very helpful as finally i can see the back of it .... only one slot! No worries, i probably wont be using the slot for a while anyway

Seft, whats the deal with the MS Remote? Does it come with a card or something? <- Just googled it, usb with external reciever, not too pricey either

Yeah ive seen Media Portal, i have tried both xp and vista media things and cant stand them.

Can someone tell me what the minimum speed cpu i should get for HD playback? Oh and will the 200w psu be able to power it?

sWiZzLe · 20 Apr 2008 at 20:54

Tosk said:
it all depends on the gfx card that your gonna use, if it can do full hd playback then
it will not use as much cpu power. for me i would get a cpu of 2.0ghz dual core.

so if your gfx ain't that good then it would push the cpu at its max

reviews of the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H show it can play full hd (1920x1080)
with out any probs at all.

I was just gonna use the onboard fx on the Gigabyte - what cpu were there using in the review?

sWiZzLe · 21 Apr 2008 at 21:36

Think im gonna go for this:

Hiper Silver Media Center Case
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Socket AM2 2.3GHz Energy Efficient
Hiper HFC-20820-C1 Copper Low Frofile Socket AM2
Kingston 2GB Kit DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory
Samsung HD753LJ 750GB Hard Drive
MS Media Center Remote Control

All that is around £280

Apparently the cpu overclocks well, in case i ever need a bit more power.

sWiZzLe · 22 Apr 2008 at 12:52

What os do you recommend putting on a media centre?
I was going to use Vista 64 - good or bad idea?
Does Mediaportal work on Vista 64?

sWiZzLe · 23 Apr 2008 at 16:24

Stupidly asked whether media portal worked on Vista64 then last night thought.... Im using Vista64 you doofus, download it and see! And yes it does work ...Doh!

Ordered everything yesterday and have just received it ...went for the Spinpoint F1 1TB drive instead

Thanks for all you help, really appreciate it

sWiZzLe · 23 Apr 2008 at 19:34

I've never really used the Vista media centre. I tried it earlier today with the remote it seemed fine.
Yes i will at some point add a tv card, but for now we have this thing called a tv which does that

I do have a tv card somewhere but i can never get it to work, there is supposed to be enough space for one, i'll have a look for mine sometime.
I've just had a look in the case, doesn't seem to be a riser card but, well there's some sort of mini card thing but i don't know what it is :confused:

<-- Ahh its a slim CD/DVD to standard IDE adapter

And there's no card riser with the mobo.

Heatsink doesn't fit on the mobo, need to find a different cpu plate

Bugger!

Can you get different plates? Not even sure what they are called so find one, which is make find one of this things a nightmare!

sWiZzLe · 24 Apr 2008 at 15:23

I've got it set up using the heatsink which came with the cpu, but of course i cannot put the lid on. This the first time i have been able to use Sata2 at full speed (at least i think its full speed), my shuttle doesnt support sata2.

In the bios under the Sata options, its currently set up as 'Native IDE', on bootup it keeps asking me whether i want to switch to AHCI but if i do, the Vista bootloader gets stuck. Do i need AHCI set for it to run at 3gb or is that just so it can be hotplugged?
Bit shocked how quickly vista installed - about 20 minutes or so :eek:

Tried Vista media centre and it's utter rubbish - i can't watch any of my videos on it - the online media was pretty cool after i got the appropriate flash active x components installed, but I cannot use it for the main reason i bought.

Tried Mediaportal and it all my media worked perfect without any problems.

Seft said:
I recommend you check out MediaPortal (and the Monochrome skin) for your software needs.

Can i set up Media Portal to load up if i press the Windows button on the remote? Will i have to uninstall Vista media centre to stop it loading up at the same time or can i disable it from opening up somehow?

sWiZzLe · 24 Apr 2008 at 18:59

Thinking about getting a TV card now, whats a good one? Tried to search the forum but you can't search for 'TV' as its to short :rolleyes:

Hmmm WinTV Nova-T 500 looks tasty and quite small ....but £50 :eek:

sWiZzLe · 25 Apr 2008 at 14:45

Tosk said:
Freeview or Sky? or both?

You can get Sky card :eek:

I take it thats external.

If you recommendations on all of the above i would be very interested in what you have to say

sWiZzLe · 26 Apr 2008 at 05:04

Tosk said:
but the way i see is it connects via your sky box to the card and that then gets decoded by the card.

Cheers, from that picture i would assume you wouldn't need a Sky box as the 3rd connector from the left looks like the socket on the back of the sky box and the only output from the sky box is scart i think (well on ours anyway). Looks like i would need to get one of these card readers: http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/products/data_ci_setanta.html

Gonna pass on that card though i think, there seem to be quite a few unhappy customers in the forums - problems using it in vista and media centre, syncing problems etc, but thanks for the info - think i'll just stick with digital for now. The only thing we really use sky for is to watch football, but nowadays we seem to watch most of our football online.

Still not got the low profile heatsink in yet - gonna look for some nuts tomorrow so i can just bolt it on, but i am absolutely loving this thing and media portal is bloody superb! Just need to figure how to configure it and the remote.

Seft said:
I recommend you check out MediaPortal (and the Monochrome skin) for your software needs.

Not sure which one you mean - i downloaded the 16:9 skins and i think my favourite one is xface

sWiZzLe · 2 May 2008 at 16:01

Got the Hiper heatsink on finally - got some copper buts and some thread lock, put the lid on, took it downstairs .... connected it to the telly via HDMI .... no sound

Picture quality was lovely but just could not figure out how to get sound - nothing was muted :confused:

HDMI is video and sound right?

sWiZzLe · 5 May 2008 at 04:44

Yes, xface is very cluttered but i like the theme, got Monochrome on the go at the moment and layout is a lot better.

Also got hdmi sound finally, was the 'onboard vga output' bios setting which needed changing. Bloody ridiculous! Change the video output setting to get sound

sWiZzLe · 5 May 2008 at 04:48

Tosk said:
ah it seems you need a Hauppauge WinTV-CI Common Interface Card for WinTV Cards to
view payed tv, and it aint cheap lol

your right you use the 3rd connection on the left side of the card.

Sweet jesus! That tiny thing costs between £50-70 :eek:

Was considering getting one of the sky tv cards but after seeing the cost of that little bugger think i definitely pass!

sWiZzLe · 5 May 2008 at 20:33

New problem now...trying to get ac3 to work on it. Didn't realise when i bought this board that it only has dts on it but he amp im trying to use only has dolby digital. Is it possible to play dts encoded films to play with ac3?

I use the KLite Codec pack, do I also need to install AC3filter on top of that to get ac3 working?

Got Dolby encoded files to play with AC3 but when i tried to configure AC3 to decode DTS, the films refused to play

sWiZzLe · 12 May 2008 at 18:07

Thanks for all you help with this, really appreciate it

Still gotta figure out the remote thing and some other stuff, but its working well and quiet and runs quite a lot of games, surprisingly well

Cheers

sWiZzLe · 18 May 2008 at 14:22

AC3Filter claims to decode DTS. I have now got DTS media to playback with 5.1 sound enabled but i have not yet tried it on the amp .... maybe next week when i have some time!