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HTPC Parts List
- Thread starter David
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2006
subbed!
Im interested to see what happens with this thread.
Can we also include OS's as well David?
Im interested to see what happens with this thread.
Can we also include OS's as well David?
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2006
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2001
- Location
- Deep Blue Sea (Maryland)
Here's some most common HTPC related software and hardware from most real HTPC user. some, most, I have experience of, some don't. and I might miss quite a fews too!
Software:
(sorry, too lazy to post all the links. but a simple google search will get you there easily tho!)
- MCE (front end & PVR, quite a lot of 3rd party plug in too. one of the few downside is M$'s DRM that will limited how you could re-distribute your recorded show! however, there's some 3rd party plug-in to go around this limitation tho.)
- MythTV (Linux)
- SageTV (PVR, never tried, but heard it's at least as good as BTV))
- BeyondMedia (don't like it, I'd rather use MCE if I only have these two to choose from.)
- BeyondTV (the latest 4.5v has a DVD burning plug-in that could automate the show that you've recorded to burn onto DVDs included all the commerical chaptered. that's what I've been using for 2yrs, love it!
)
- Meedio (an awesome front end, ultra highly customized, might not be noob friendly, but I love it too. hundreds of plug-in. used for 2yrs already! couldn't find anything I like to replace it! simply The best IMHO! however, Meedio was sold to Yahoo last summer, so no more further development tho!)
- MeedioTV (isn't as good plus the whole Meedio is sold to Yahoo now. so no more development same as Meedio.)
- MeediOS (a new front end that was created by a bunch of Meedio ex-user that try to continue the development and support of Meedio and all it's plug-in)
- FFDShow (video post processing software that most people use to resize (upconvert) the video plus all other post processing features like sharpening, deinterlacing, etc. could basically do everything to make the video quality better. however, this will depends on your CPU's processing power and need trail and error to figure out what/which setting is best for you. could be time consuming to find the best setting too.)
Hardware:
- CPU
Any CPU that is cool or doesn't produce too much heat is preferable. Mobile processor is a good option! If just for DVD/Mpeag2 viewing, pretty much any CPU from the past 4 yrs could do. however, if planning for any HD content or post processing, you'll need at least a dual core class processor then! but keep in mind, faster processor = more heat = more noise!! I know it might not be a main concern for most forum member here as you've probably got used to all the fans, but a true HTPC is mean to be a living room equipment that is used by the whole family (needs to be user friendly too), and I don't really think your significant other, kids, parents, other family members, visiting friends (you know you want to throw a Superbowl party and show off your neat HTPC and HDTV ) have as low noise sensor as you!
- Motherboard
look for the feature that you need for your HTPC function (not nessarsily o/c function tho) and a solid stable board. e.g. raid? onboard software DolbyDigital/DTS encoding for your games? passive cooling? how many PCI/PCIe you'll need? also it means to run 24/7 remember, so stablitily is very HIGH concern too!
- Memory
a gig is good in most case IMHO.
- Hard drive
you've tried to quiet down your HTPC only to find out that you are consisently hearing your HDD spining whenever you "click/load" anything!! try to find something quiet + reliable too! you know, the last thing you want to lose is your collection of the past 3 season of LOST or your favorite TV shows! look for some well known reliable drives (IMHO, Seagate and WD is a good reliable HDD). Speed? well, unless you are planning to steam multi-video to the whole house (e.g. watching 4 different channel or recorded show from your HTPC to 4 different rooms), it isn't an important factor. Size? in HTPC, size DOES matter!! try to get the biggest one you can afford is my advice!! oh RAID? IF you really wanna go raid on your HTPC, I would highly recommend you go mirror rather than stripes!! RAID0 increase the chances of losing your content!!
- Case
do some reading and search. not all HTPC cases are the same!! and it can shine or break your HTPC!! and depends on your processor choice, you can either go slim case that looks very nice and match the a/v component, or go for a full size HTPC case that use large fans (large fan = slower speed = quieter!!).
- Tuners
I only have expereience with PVR150MCE & PVR500MCE for SD source. I'm pretty happy with them. but you might read that some have better picture quality on some newer chips (e.g. ATI Theater 650 Pro chip base card, I've heard a few good thing about it). HD OTA (off the air) card. I'm using Fusion5 HDTV Lite, very happy with it too! of course, there's many other tuner cards out there, both SD or HD, ask around from the user that use/used it frist to see if it fit your need. Here, 2006 PVR guide, is a pretty good read before you go out and buy yours!!
- Video card
Unless you also game on your HTPC & HDTV, like me (trust me, once you've tried to game on a 50" HDTV, you can't go back to your 19" LCD! ). you want something modern yet quiet! I would recommend the latest nVidia 7 series or ATI X1xxx series card for better hardware accelrate video support. but you don't need the top of the line card that's hot and noisy tho (gamer aside)! 'cos the card's video performance is NOT solely base on the model level of the card itself. that's especially true on nVidia's card as it's PureVideo performance is more base on GPU clock speed rather than pixel pipeline. so a 7900GT will not produce better picture quality than a passive cooled 7600GS card, for example.
- Note:
here's three site that I would highly recommended for anyone who wants to build a HTPC for their living room.
HTPCnews.com (which is pretty much not updating anymore tho )
MissingRemote.com (a new sister site from HTPCnews.com)
AVSForum (good forum regarding ANY A/V thing included but not limited to HTPC)
GreenButton Forum (a MCE related forum. very useful for MCE user!)
Also, check on the above site's "Link" section, it shows you many HTPC/HDTV/HomeTheater related links too!!
(that's it for now.....)
Software:
(sorry, too lazy to post all the links. but a simple google search will get you there easily tho!)
- MCE (front end & PVR, quite a lot of 3rd party plug in too. one of the few downside is M$'s DRM that will limited how you could re-distribute your recorded show! however, there's some 3rd party plug-in to go around this limitation tho.)
- MythTV (Linux)
- SageTV (PVR, never tried, but heard it's at least as good as BTV))
- BeyondMedia (don't like it, I'd rather use MCE if I only have these two to choose from.)
- BeyondTV (the latest 4.5v has a DVD burning plug-in that could automate the show that you've recorded to burn onto DVDs included all the commerical chaptered. that's what I've been using for 2yrs, love it!
)- Meedio (an awesome front end, ultra highly customized, might not be noob friendly, but I love it too. hundreds of plug-in. used for 2yrs already! couldn't find anything I like to replace it! simply The best IMHO! however, Meedio was sold to Yahoo last summer, so no more further development tho!)
- MeedioTV (isn't as good plus the whole Meedio is sold to Yahoo now. so no more development same as Meedio.)
- MeediOS (a new front end that was created by a bunch of Meedio ex-user that try to continue the development and support of Meedio and all it's plug-in)
- FFDShow (video post processing software that most people use to resize (upconvert) the video plus all other post processing features like sharpening, deinterlacing, etc. could basically do everything to make the video quality better. however, this will depends on your CPU's processing power and need trail and error to figure out what/which setting is best for you. could be time consuming to find the best setting too.)
Hardware:
- CPU
Any CPU that is cool or doesn't produce too much heat is preferable. Mobile processor is a good option! If just for DVD/Mpeag2 viewing, pretty much any CPU from the past 4 yrs could do. however, if planning for any HD content or post processing, you'll need at least a dual core class processor then! but keep in mind, faster processor = more heat = more noise!! I know it might not be a main concern for most forum member here as you've probably got used to all the fans, but a true HTPC is mean to be a living room equipment that is used by the whole family (needs to be user friendly too), and I don't really think your significant other, kids, parents, other family members, visiting friends (you know you want to throw a Superbowl party and show off your neat HTPC and HDTV
) have as low noise sensor as you!- Motherboard
look for the feature that you need for your HTPC function (not nessarsily o/c function tho) and a solid stable board. e.g. raid? onboard software DolbyDigital/DTS encoding for your games? passive cooling? how many PCI/PCIe you'll need? also it means to run 24/7 remember, so stablitily is very HIGH concern too!
- Memory
a gig is good in most case IMHO.
- Hard drive
you've tried to quiet down your HTPC only to find out that you are consisently hearing your HDD spining whenever you "click/load" anything!! try to find something quiet + reliable too! you know, the last thing you want to lose is your collection of the past 3 season of LOST or your favorite TV shows! look for some well known reliable drives (IMHO, Seagate and WD is a good reliable HDD). Speed? well, unless you are planning to steam multi-video to the whole house (e.g. watching 4 different channel or recorded show from your HTPC to 4 different rooms), it isn't an important factor. Size? in HTPC, size DOES matter!! try to get the biggest one you can afford is my advice!! oh RAID? IF you really wanna go raid on your HTPC, I would highly recommend you go mirror rather than stripes!! RAID0 increase the chances of losing your content!!
- Case
do some reading and search. not all HTPC cases are the same!! and it can shine or break your HTPC!! and depends on your processor choice, you can either go slim case that looks very nice and match the a/v component, or go for a full size HTPC case that use large fans (large fan = slower speed = quieter!!).
- Tuners
I only have expereience with PVR150MCE & PVR500MCE for SD source. I'm pretty happy with them. but you might read that some have better picture quality on some newer chips (e.g. ATI Theater 650 Pro chip base card, I've heard a few good thing about it). HD OTA (off the air) card. I'm using Fusion5 HDTV Lite, very happy with it too! of course, there's many other tuner cards out there, both SD or HD, ask around from the user that use/used it frist to see if it fit your need. Here, 2006 PVR guide, is a pretty good read before you go out and buy yours!!
- Video card
Unless you also game on your HTPC & HDTV, like me (trust me, once you've tried to game on a 50" HDTV, you can't go back to your 19" LCD!
). you want something modern yet quiet! I would recommend the latest nVidia 7 series or ATI X1xxx series card for better hardware accelrate video support. but you don't need the top of the line card that's hot and noisy tho (gamer aside)! 'cos the card's video performance is NOT solely base on the model level of the card itself. that's especially true on nVidia's card as it's PureVideo performance is more base on GPU clock speed rather than pixel pipeline. so a 7900GT will not produce better picture quality than a passive cooled 7600GS card, for example.- Note:
here's three site that I would highly recommended for anyone who wants to build a HTPC for their living room.
HTPCnews.com (which is pretty much not updating anymore tho
)MissingRemote.com (a new sister site from HTPCnews.com)
AVSForum (good forum regarding ANY A/V thing included but not limited to HTPC)
GreenButton Forum (a MCE related forum. very useful for MCE user!)
Also, check on the above site's "Link" section, it shows you many HTPC/HDTV/HomeTheater related links too!!
(that's it for now.....
)
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2003
Wow....
Didn't know we had a dedicated HTPC section...this is great. I have been collecting pieces for my very own HTPC build to commence soon (I hope).
I am having difficulty selecting an appropriate case at the moment. I really like the Ahanix MCE701 but I can not find it for sale (directron discontinued it
). E-bay is not the sort of place I like to buy from....
As far as hardware for HTPC:
I am planning on using an old Opty 170, Asus A8V Deluxe, Enermax 475W PSU, Haupage PVR500 (dual tuners), ATI AIW 9600, 2x512MB G.Skill 4400LE, i currently have 2x80GB SATA-I drives but I am thinking of buying a 500GB, for the DVD burner I am going to be using an old Lite-on drive. I really just need a case and software.....hopefully come new years I will be able to put this sucker together.
Didn't know we had a dedicated HTPC section...this is great. I have been collecting pieces for my very own HTPC build to commence soon (I hope).
I am having difficulty selecting an appropriate case at the moment. I really like the Ahanix MCE701 but I can not find it for sale (directron discontinued it
). E-bay is not the sort of place I like to buy from....As far as hardware for HTPC:
I am planning on using an old Opty 170, Asus A8V Deluxe, Enermax 475W PSU, Haupage PVR500 (dual tuners), ATI AIW 9600, 2x512MB G.Skill 4400LE, i currently have 2x80GB SATA-I drives but I am thinking of buying a 500GB, for the DVD burner I am going to be using an old Lite-on drive. I really just need a case and software.....hopefully come new years I will be able to put this sucker together.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2001
- Location
- Deep Blue Sea (Maryland)
rdrash said:Wow....
Didn't know we had a dedicated HTPC section...this is great. I have been collecting pieces for my very own HTPC build to commence soon (I hope).
I am having difficulty selecting an appropriate case at the moment. I really like the Ahanix MCE701 but I can not find it for sale (directron discontinued it
As far as hardware for HTPC:
I am planning on using an old Opty 170, Asus A8V Deluxe, Enermax 475W PSU, Haupage PVR500 (dual tuners), ATI AIW 9600, 2x512MB G.Skill 4400LE, i currently have 2x80GB SATA-I drives but I am thinking of buying a 500GB, for the DVD burner I am going to be using an old Lite-on drive. I really just need a case and software.....hopefully come new years I will be able to put this sucker together.
http://www.pcalchemy.com/ is a good place to shop for. especially their intense case collection which included link to the manufacturer's site for more info even if you don't buy from them, good to check out some case and their spec!!
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2005
there's a good thread over here with additional hardware recommendations.
at the moment i wouldn't recommend the hauppauge pvr-500mce. there have been a lot of problems reported with them of late (which i also experienced and exchanged for 2xpvr150mce). there's a long thread on the issue here.
for dual tuner cards, the nvidia dualtv seems to be pretty well respected. it is outlandishly expensive imho, but nice if you have a mATX and don't have spare PCI slots for a second tuner card.
at the moment i wouldn't recommend the hauppauge pvr-500mce. there have been a lot of problems reported with them of late (which i also experienced and exchanged for 2xpvr150mce). there's a long thread on the issue here.
for dual tuner cards, the nvidia dualtv seems to be pretty well respected. it is outlandishly expensive imho, but nice if you have a mATX and don't have spare PCI slots for a second tuner card.
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2001
- Location
- Deep Blue Sea (Maryland)
I have the "TypeA" card, and may be that's why I have no problem with it.kovboi said:
btw, BTV just release a beta driver for nvidia's dual tuner card! you can check out the BTV's blog!
