Home Theater PC.

UncleChet

Good morning!
Well, I've gotten permission from the better half to build/refurb a PC into a new HTPC. I'd like to come in under 500 if possible. I currently have a pre-built media center PC from HP that I upgraded the power supply and threw in a radeon 4650 so i could play WoW (over kill).

The problem with this case is, it's Very cramped and tough to upgrade. I also have an old 2.5' high blue tower, standard ATX that I could use but it'd need a new power supply/MB and guts.

I can also start from scratch with either a standard, mini or micro ATX case.

We have an available license for 32bit win7 ultimate, so I cap at 3gb of ram or so. I'm happy to vulture the 4650 video card if it's going to serve my needs better than a new card. We need a new TV card as we intend to use DVR functions. Wired ethernet is fine as it'll be at the TV, and that's where the router is anyway.

I'm totally open to options and will be spreading my purchases out over a month or 3 to better afford things.

Can you guys direct me?

MagicPrime

If I understand correctly, Media Center PCs don't require Uber graphics cards. I would go for a decent processor, max ram (for 32bit) and shit-tons of HDD space. Especially if you plan on DVRing.

WoW will almost run on almost anything now adays, even at high or max graphics.

What is the general rule for Media/Theater PCs and Audio cards?

SporkAndrew

Generally you can get away with onboard audio unless you have an amazing surround sound system already in place. I've been using onboard for the two years that I've had my HTPC built outputting through an old amp to my monitor speakers and it's been great.

Having amazing video cards / processors / huge amounts of RAM only really come into play if you want to play back Blu-rays as most playback software offloads the decoding to the videocard to make everything smoother. You can watch / record live TV on some very basic systems.

As an example my current build is something cobbled together from an old PC mixed in with some cheap parts and it plays back every Blu-ray I've thrown at it perfectly:
C2D E6600
2gb DDR2
Geforce 8500GT
2TB HDD space
Hauppage PCI TV Card

Windows 7 Media Center is an amazing bit of software and can be extended through the use of Media Browser and Media Center Master to become a library browser that's so simple even my wife can use it.

Look for Silverstone cases if you want something classy that won't look out of place in the living room, and get a power supply / CPU fan that is next to silent. Whirring can be very irritating during quiet parts of movies.

MagicPrime

After reading a few articles through google on the subject. This seems like the kind of project that happens when you have a decent PC that is being replaced by a better one.

My current PC will probably be re-configured into a media center PC when I build my new system next year.

Most modern motherboards will even have fiber-optic digital output for audio.

UncleChet

You guys are Great. Yeah I no longer play WoW, i bought the video card at 4 am during a manic episode, just because it would play WoW prettier.

I do intend to do blu-ray playback, so would the 4650 be ideal? I can also reuse the i think it's 750 watt power supply to power it. It's a mostly modular power supply.

The big issue is whether my 4650 has HDMI. I dont' honestly remember but I'll check when I get home. Can anyone recommend a tv tuner card/capture card that'll support dual cable input? We'd like to have a dual tuner card so that we can record 2 channels. I'll probably throw in at least 1 1tb drive and maybe a 500 for system files.

I'm totally new to building htpc, so any tips are welcome.

SporkAndrew

UncleChet wrote: »

I do intend to do blu-ray playback, so would the 4650 be ideal? I can also reuse the i think it's 750 watt power supply to power it. It's a mostly modular power supply.

The big issue is whether my 4650 has HDMI. I dont' honestly remember but I'll check when I get home. Can anyone recommend a tv tuner card/capture card that'll support dual cable input? We'd like to have a dual tuner card so that we can record 2 channels. I'll probably throw in at least 1 1tb drive and maybe a 500 for system files.

Your 4650 will be perfect for your needs, and don't worry about HDMI. Grab a DVI->HDMI cable from monoprice and run the audio from your soundcard / onboard sound into your TV / receiver.

I'm not sure about the TV tuner card thing - I'm not sure about recording off cable as all I have in the UK is freeview. But have a look for anything Hauppage as they've always been pretty solid.

For your Blu-ray playback you just want to pick up a drive. For comparison's sake I got a dual HD-DVD / Blu-ray drive for £80 over two years ago, so prices will have definitely come down since then. They usually pack in a basic version of PowerDVD that runs fine for what you need, but I'd recommend upgrading to 10 as it integrates (almost) properly into Windows Media Center which helps the other halves.

Improvolone

I'm not sure what you guys are talking about. My MOBO handles 1080p as well as up to 7.1 surround sound over SPDIF. Blu-ray is no problem. Sure I can't render very heavily, but thats not what I'm using it for. Plus, thanks to MicroATX, my case is fucking tiny.

AVSforum has a great thread on HTPC builds updated every month with new products, reviews, and sample builds. I built my HTPC over the course of two months waiting for deals on Newegg for about $500, including wireless keyboard, mouse, and OS license (Win 7 64).

SporkAndrew

Regarding tuners - Lifehacker have a pretty decent rundown of what to look for.

vonPoonBurGer

When I was building my HTPC, I had almost all the parts I needed from my previous desktop build, including a power supply and full-sized ATX board. Rather than buying a microATX board and a tiny case with a custom PSU, I opted to get a HTPC case that could take a full ATX board and didn't come with a power supply. I think the only parts I ended up buying were a Silverstone case (fits right in next to my AV receiver), a fanless graphics card and some extra hard drives. That's the other thing I like about the Silverstone case; with two hard drives inside it right now, if I run out of space there's still room for two more internal drive.

Regarding the 4650, the only potential downsides I can think of are potential heat and noise. If you're not going to game on the HTPC it's definitely massive overkill, but you can start your build with it at least. If you do run into heat or noise problems you can switch to a fanless graphics cards that include native HDMI out and HDCP support, they only cost around $30.

UncleChet

Thanks ya'all. We've decided to refurb the old HTPC as the the new HTPC. We're going to try to fix any problems with it, and then go from there. It has a tv tuner card built in, but that hasn't worked since I installed the 4650, probably due to me bumping something. That card is Waaaaay to big for that case. I'll probably look to and HDMI/HDCP card to replace it and put the 4650 to better use elsewhere. We also considered a slingbox HD-Pro as an alternate. Does anyone have any experience with this and is it a viable alternative? The only downside is the loss of the project aspect.

Thanks!

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UncleChet

So, we can lock this one Moe:
Here's what we did....
I took the existing but semi-functional HTPC, Completely disassembled it, put it all back together again, reworked the cabling and stuff, it now works at 100%, we dropped win7 and it's working like a brand new, semi-loud but not overbad machine. The only problem is, the processor is only a 4200+ and it's honestly bottlenecking everythign. I did a win7 PC rating and everything got 5.6-6 but the processor dropped it to a 3.2 and it's hardly upgradeable. So, we're gonna run with things as is for now, and look to rebuild later using a lot of the same components and a different processor/motherboard at a later date.

Thanks for all your words of wisdom.

Nakatomi2010

If you're going to play BluRays later on a good video card is pretty much required.

Just FYI...

Improvolone

Nakatomi2010 wrote: »

If you're going to play BluRays later on a good video card is pretty much required.

Just FYI...

There are a bunch of affordable MOBOs now that can handle BluRay with just their integrated video cards. A video card is nice for rendering 3d graphics, but is not needed for playback.

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