Home Theater PC help!

Normally I am an expert when it comes to computer hardware but I have never set up a home theater pc nor am I familiar with the tv tuner/tv out components. Basically I am setting my dad up with the main components for a home theater pc for his birthday (shuttle xpc case+mobo, amd 3000+ proc, 1Gb 3200 ram, and windows remote control. He is still going to need an AGP video card with HDTV out, HDTV in tuner, and a quiet 250-500GB HDD depending on price (hoping around 100$ or less per component). If you could reccomend any of those parts for a microatx computer (keep in mind it only has a 200 or 250 watt power supply. Thanks for your help!

Paging dmorris...

My HTPC boxes have always been MythTV (Linux) based. Not for the faint of heart unless you're a Linux junkie. )

That said, I can recommend some components that work well for HTPC's no matter th OS or PVR software

li The best tuners are the Happauge WinTV models, specifically the PVR-150, PVR-250, PVR-350, and PVR-500. The PVR-500 is basically two PVR-150's bundled together, to give you dual tuners in a single card. All of these have hardware MPEG2 encoders which take a lot of the recording workload off the CPU. The PVR-350 adds MPEG2 decoding in hardware and it's own frame buffer (i.e. it works as a standalone video card). However the 350 is expensive and can be temperamental. MPEG decoding isn't nearly as costly as MPEG encoding, so you'd be better served by the cheaper versions.

li For video cards, if you're running Windows XP/MCE, you can go with ATI or Nvidia. If you intend to run MythTV or other Linux PVR, forget ATI and go Nvidia. I have the NVidia 6200 AX in my Myth box, which has HDTV component output if your HDTV or AV receiver doesn't have VGA or DVI inputs.

li For HDD's, the more space, the better. If you can transcode to DivX/Xvid on the fly, you won't need as much HDD space but you'll want tons of CPU resources. I'd say 250GB is a bare minimum for a decent HTPC, with 500GB recommended. I prefer WD and Hitachi drives myself, followed by Maxtors. I don't buy Seagate. If $100 is your budget, you won't get much more than 250GB.

[quote24678a25bc="Wolfeman"]Paging dmorris...[/quote24678a25bc]

That was awesome!

[quotecddeaef710="lakersin2025"]That was awesome![/quotecddeaef710]
Alarm bells started going off in my house, so I dropped what I was doing, donned my geek costume, and headed straight for the forums.

lol

[quotec46d1c50c9="dmorris68"][quotec46d1c50c9="lakersin2025"]That was awesome![/quotec46d1c50c9]
Alarm bells started going off in my house, so I dropped what I was doing, donned my geek costume, and headed straight for the forums.

lol[/quotec46d1c50c9]

lol

Don't lie, you were vaccuming the house with your geek suit on anyway.

Haha, I'm totally using his geek powers via PM as well

Yeah so have I. oops

I have a few questions about this as well. dmorris, how hard is mythtv to set up if im using something like KnoppMyth? I could probably do it manually, as I've installed gentoo before and played with linux a lot. Also, this may sound stupid, but what about sound? What's the best way to integrate that with your current system? Any advice on a manufacturer (that work well with linux drivers). Thanks for the help.

if you dont want to use linux, try GBPVR - a free windows pvr that works awesome! i have been using it for about 6 months or so with few problems. i am using the Happauge 150 as well, and it is working great

What type of tuner card would you recommend for a DirecTV H20 Satellite Set-Top box (basically an MPEG-4 Capable HDTV Satellite Receiver)? A lot of the card's I've seen only have S-VIDEO/Composite as its input source..

This would be installed on WinMCE 2005 (as that is a requirement for XBOX 360's 'media' features)

Since the resident geek didn't touch on silence and HD tuners, here's my $0.02

HDTV-
As far as output goes, your HDTV probably already has a VGA or DVI input. If not, the better ATI/nvidia cards do component output through adapters (my 6600GT came with one, for my 9800Pro I'd have to buy one cheap) if necessary. Component should be your last choice as VGA and especially DVI should have clearer outputs.

For input, you'll need to check whether your cable's HDTV signals are scrambled or not. If they broadcast in clear QAM, you can use an HDTV tuner to capture them. Otherwise, you'll need to go OTA (Over The Air). To check if your area is well covered by OTA HDTV, go here
http//antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx[]http//antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

Where I am, I get good 100% reception even with the dinky antenna (looks like one of those single antennas that come with some radios) that came with my HDTV tuner. You can also get a silver fin antenna for under $20 which works better, that's what I use. Just make sure your tuner corresponds with what is available to you in terms of signals.

As for what exactly to buy, my recommendation would be to go with a DVICO HD tuner. You can get their LITE version for under $100 and their cards get great support on avsforum since many people seem to have it. The VBOX cards might have decent reviews too but I'm not sure (but not for the USB version). I have the DVICO USB version and it works great. DO NOT buy the ATI HDTV tuner (read the shitty reviews online). There's a cheap Avermedia one out there but it doesn't do 720p so it's useless. Also consider your graphic card and HD tuner matchup. These tuners also come with remotes so you might not need to buy another one unless you really want the MCE one.

Silence-
For silence, go with Seagate Barracuda or Hitachi hard drives (google for reviews). Hard drives are a huge source of noise so it is important to pick a quiet one obviously. You can also go and replace every fan you can with Panaflo fans, which are super quiet. It's cheaper than getting Zalman coolers on your GPU and CPU.

My HD HTPC's main parts
Athlon XP 1800+
Aspire X-QPACK-NW-AL/420 Black/Silver Computer Case
DVICO FusionHDTV5 USB Gold, USB HDTV Tuner, ATSC, QAM
Radeon 9800 Pro
Panaflo fans (on case and CPU)

I built it with mostly old parts I had but it works flawlessly. HDTV captures never drops a frame and playback is also perfect (9800 PRO still has one of the best 2D performance ever IMO). I unlocked my Athlon just in case but I don't even need to overclock.

I thought about Shuttle boxes too but I decided to buy the Aspire case and a separate micro-ATX mobo. 200 watts is way too small (Aspire cases have 400W) and this way I can add more storage without worrying about lacking power. It was also cheaper this way.

[quote0467ad5fc9="Brok3n_Sword"]I have a few questions about this as well. dmorris, how hard is mythtv to set up if im using something like KnoppMyth? I could probably do it manually, as I've installed gentoo before and played with linux a lot. Also, this may sound stupid, but what about sound? What's the best way to integrate that with your current system? Any advice on a manufacturer (that work well with linux drivers). Thanks for the help.[/quote0467ad5fc9]
If you've installed Gentoo and are familiar with Linux, you'd have no trouble with KnoppMyth, and probably no problem with building your own from scratch. I started out building my Myth boxes around Fedora Core using Jarod Wilson's most excellent How-To[=http//wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php]Jarod Wilson's most excellent How-To, and have stuck with Fedora ever since. A lot of what he discusses there also applies to other Linux distros, so it's a good reference no matter what distro you use. KnoppMyth of course takes all the setup away from you, and a lot of people use it -- I have no experience with it however, since I've always built mine up from scratch. The MythTV User List is also indispensible -- you can either signup to the e-mail list or just use the Gossamer Threads[=http//www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users]Gossamer Threads archive.

For the best sound you obviously want digital output to a 5.1 or better receiver. Linux supports all the popular sound solutions, including on-board mobo solutions, as well as the popular add-in cards EXCEPT for the X-Fi. Thus far the X-Fi has not been supported by ALSA (or at least not last I checked about a month or so ago).

On my Myth box I'm running the onboard audio in my Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo, with digital output to my Yamaha RX-V2600 receiver.

[quote607fdb738a="h3x"]What type of tuner card would you recommend for a DirecTV H20 Satellite Set-Top box (basically an MPEG-4 Capable HDTV Satellite Receiver)? A lot of the card's I've seen only have S-VIDEO/Composite as its input source..

This would be installed on WinMCE 2005 (as that is a requirement for XBOX 360's 'media' features)[/quote607fdb738a]
I'm not an MCE guru since Linux is my thing for HTPC. As far as Linux/MythTV goes, if the box has a IEEE1394 (firewire) output, then you don't need a capture card -- you can capture the digital stream directly through a firewire port. This is how most people use MythTV with HD settop boxes, but I don't know about MCE's support for that. You don't need an HDTV tuner card, because the DTV box is the tuner, you just need to capture the video stream to the PC.

You can record Firewire from set top boxes with MCE.

I don't know about satellite, but many cable companies either cripple or don't offer boxes with firewire, although their DVR boxes usually do (but usually inactive). There's an FCC mandate which say that cable companies must supply boxes with firewire on request but good luck with that. Read around and you'll see that it can be a real pain in the ass. My cable box (Time Warner NYC) has no firewire output.

What's this front end/back end talk I see all over the MythTV forums?

[quotec2d5c6737e="bballp6699"]What's this front end/back end talk I see all over the MythTV forums?[/quotec2d5c6737e]
MythTV is a client/server configuration. The client (frontend GUI) communicates with the server (backend recording/scheduling engine) via a Myth specific protocol.

Most people run their front and back ends on the same box, so the distinction is transparent. However, a particularly powerful feature is to stick a beefy backend box in a closet somewhere, stuffed full of tuner cards. Then you can run very lightweight GUI clients as frontends, which stream the video and frontend commands across the network. This way your tuners and recording schedules are centralized in one location, and you have easy access from multiple lightweight HTPC's at each TV.

[quote3d7f9c42df="bballp6699"]What's this front end/back end talk I see all over the MythTV forums?[/quote3d7f9c42df]

How a MythTV Front/Backend work without all that confusing dmorris68 geek speak ;)

http/" alt=""/img267.imageshack.us/img="267/1476/untitled0xk.png[" alt=""/img3d7f9c42df]

lol

+KMA to the stoner d00d... )

You drew that and posted it in 4 minutes? That would be impressive, but somehow I feel like you had it started before my response. ;)

Ah ok, so the backend with the weed isn't necessary?

[quotec3afeeff13="bballp6699"]Ah ok, so the backend with the weed isn't necessary?[/quotec3afeeff13]
The backend is always necessary, it's just usually run on the same box as the frontend. Without the weed. )

[quote5866d2a9d8="dmorris68"]lol

+KMA to the stoner d00d... )

You drew that and posted it in 4 minutes? That would be impressive, but somehow I feel like you had it started before my response. ;)[/quote5866d2a9d8]

I was going to reply to him, but by the time I finished and uploaded the pic, you beat me to it; so I just threw in a little sidenote before I posted the pic ;)