to HTPC or not to HTPC

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 10:02

Ok so last night my recordable freeview box went BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM..

So i was pondering on the idea of building a HTPC system, What benifits could it bring and what exactly can it be used for? would i be able to do it with say a budget of about £300-£350 and would that be enough to build a good system?

Snow-Munki · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:01

I'd say £400 is a good figure.

I use mine to record live TV any time ( machines goes in and out of standby etc ) pause live TV.

able to watch a show even though it is still recording and fast foward through adverts.

watch dvds / divx / play music / surf internet / download box / file server

mine's got a 400gb hdd

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:17

Could someone advise me on the type of hardware to go..e.g..

AMD/Intel
IDE/Sata
Which drive is quietist?
Onboard gfx?
TV or TFT?
Which board?

pcoltrane · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:39

Check out my post in this thread for HTPC hardware advice. It should answer most of your questions.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17599967

Marc

Lanz · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:46

CA-053-AN Antec NSK2400 Desktop Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-053-AN) 1
£46.95 £46.95
MB-119-AS Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-119-AS) 1
£46.95 £46.95
CP-117-AM AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3000BPBOX) (CP-117-AM) 1
£52.95 £52.95
HD-017-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2004C 200GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-017-SA) 1
£41.50 £41.50
MY-004-OK OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK) 1
£49.95 £49.95
GX-027-HA Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 Media Centre Edition TV Tuner (GX-027-HA) 1
£50.95 £50.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE) 1
£19.95 £19.95
SW-008-MS Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre 2005 Edition - OEM - 1Pk (M93-00200) (SW-008-MS) 1
£64.95 £64.95
Subtotal £374.15
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
VAT £67.40
Total £452.50

The onboard video is fine if you're connecting to a HDTV (VGA or DVI) but if you need TV-Out, get a cheap Nvidia 7300 or something.
If you want to save money on the OS, you could always use Vista Beta for free for a year, as the Media Center that comes with it is good.

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:50

What if i got a TFT screen, can these be used in replacement of a tv or would it have to be a LCD TV

Lanz · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:52

Yeah it'll work just fine, just be smaller of course (and you'd need speakers and the like)

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 12:17

Ok, is there a major quality loss if i chose to use a TV card then? how much would i be looking for a TV card which will be good enough until i get an LCD TV.....

pcoltrane · 14 Jul 2006 at 12:52

If you go for a freeview tv card you won't have any quality loss at all from the tuner. If you are planning on using a monitor or a tv with a vga or dvi input the quality loses will be less than that of the SCART you used on your old freeview box.

If you want to use an old CRT tv, there are a few ways to go about it. Best quality would come from soldering or buying a vga to Scart cable and using powerstrip to output the right signal. You can only do this with ati gfx cards however. Next best is svideo and bottom of the list is composite. Some people get decent results from using tv-out / svideo, but i can't really comment myself as i am using a CRT monitor as my TV.

Marc

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 13:20

So if i get a freeview TV card i can whack that in the machine and connect upto my TV?

pcoltrane · 14 Jul 2006 at 13:47

Basically yes, the freeview tuner just grabs the mpeg2 stream from the aerial. The software mpeg2 decoder converts it to a picture (using your CPU). Finally your graphics card then converts this picture into a suitable signal for your TV/Screen - sent from the vga/dvi or tv-out (svideo) outputs depending on which you choose to use.

If you go the Tv-out route I'd suggest checking the green-button forum to see how other people have gone about this.

Marc

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 14:34

marc mercer said:
Basically yes, the freeview tuner just grabs the mpeg2 stream from the aerial. The software mpeg2 decoder converts it to a picture (using your CPU). Finally your graphics card then converts this picture into a suitable signal for your TV/Screen - sent from the vga/dvi or tv-out (svideo) outputs depending on which you choose to use.

If you go the Tv-out route I'd suggest checking the green-button forum to see how other people have gone about this.

Marc

And it does not matter which i use? I.E i can use the DVI out on the gfx/tv card and go straight into the tv via a DVI to Scart or something

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 16:25

[Sniper][Wolf] said:
And it does not matter which i use? I.E i can use the DVI out on the gfx/tv card and go straight into the tv via a DVI to Scart or something

Can somebody confirm that i can get a DVI to scart adapter to connect my HTPC to my TV? Will the resolution be messed up?

Lanz · 14 Jul 2006 at 16:27

Its a lot of mucking about, I wouldnt bother. Best just get a cheap PCI-e card with s-video out.

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 16:29

tim_enchanter · 14 Jul 2006 at 18:27

You can use your TV and it's scart connection to your gfx card as marc said above. However your scart connection on the TV needs to support S-vhs which not all TVs do. You need a cable with scart at one end and the small S-vhs plug at the other, some of these do come with combined audio leads for the soundcard to give the sound through the TV speakers.

Using this method for viewing on a large CRT TV works fine for watching the TV and playing some games etc. The windows desktop is a different story and you need to turn down the resolution and turn on large fonts to be able to do stuff like surfing without messing up your eyes.

DJMK4 · 14 Jul 2006 at 18:54

tim_enchanter said:
You can use your TV and it's scart connection to your gfx card as marc said above. However your scart connection on the TV needs to support S-vhs which not all TVs do. You need a cable with scart at one end and the small S-vhs plug at the other, some of these do come with combined audio leads for the soundcard to give the sound through the TV speakers.

Using this method for viewing on a large CRT TV works fine for watching the TV and playing some games etc. The windows desktop is a different story and you need to turn down the resolution and turn on large fonts to be able to do stuff like surfing without messing up your eyes.

I have one of those connectors, it goes into the s-video port on my gfx card, comes out into red white and yellow cables, into the scart connector which goes into the tv..

DJMK4 · 17 Jul 2006 at 11:23

Last question then based on the previous post, i was planning on using onboard graphics, does this mean that whilst viewing on a CRT-TV, do i have to have a sepeate GFX card with the S-video, or can i just use the TV Card..

Lanz · 17 Jul 2006 at 11:28

Some motherboard with onboard VGA will have TV-out too, but they are rare. So yes, you'll need a graphics card. The TV Card, just recieves TV, it doesnt output.

DJMK4 · 17 Jul 2006 at 11:33

Lanz said:
Some motherboard with onboard VGA will have TV-out too, but they are rare. So yes, you'll need a graphics card. The TV Card, just recieves TV, it doesnt output.

Ah i see, so the TV Card recieves the signal, processes it and passes it to the GFX card which output's it to the TV..

I so want to do this but money is tight at the mo, im starting to wonder if i should just get a new Freeview box...