Introduction
I just finished building my first HTPC 3 days ago. I have created this topic to share my experiences with this setup and how i'm playing around with different kind of configurations. I recently started a dedicated blog because this topic was becoming to bloated - the blog can be found
here.
History
The solutions i've used before ...
- KISS DP-500 (one of the first standalone xvid/divx players/streamers)
- XBOX Softmod with XBMC (still kicks ass but no HD playback and DTV)
- Popcorn Hour A-100 (superb budget hd streamer but lacks GUI and DTV)
Requirements
My wishlist before i selected the hardware...
- Silent / Passive cooling / Energy efficient
- Watch digital (HD)TV and stream it over network
- Play 1080p&720p content - HDDVD/Bluray, x264 (both 5- and standard 4.1 profile)
- Hardware acceleration for video
- IR/Remote
- Casing fits surroundings (special mediacenter casing)
- HDMI (+audio)
- Digital optical out (raw)
Hardware (07-07-2008)
Thé solution for me as of today ...
Case: Antec Fusion 430 Black (
demo)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H (mATX)
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 4850e (ADH4850DOBOX) *
Cooling: Scythe Ninja Mini (Fanless)
Memory: OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Vista Performance Platinum 4GB Dual Channel
Harddisk: Samsung SpinPoint T166, 500GB (7200rpm, SATA II, 16MB, NCQ)
DVD-r/w: Samsung SH-S203B, OEM, Black
Keyboard: Media-Tech Rimini Recent changes: *
* (07-07-2008) Changed CPU from BE-2400 to 4850e
* (07-07-2008) Moved TV card (
Digital Everywhere DVB-C FloppyDTV +
AlphaCrypt) to WHS (also dedicated TVServer)
Connectivity
My existing setup and how my HTPC is connected to it...
Display: Philips widescreen flat TV 37PF3321 37" LCD HD Ready with Crystal Clear III (Integrated HDMI)
Receiver: Onkyo
TX-SR606(Integrated SPDIF Optical Out/Integrated HDMI)
Remote: Logitech Harmony 525 (IR)
DVB-C Provider: Casema DTV with SD/HD channels (FloppyDTV/AlphaCrypt using smartcard)
Network: Local network (including internet) connected to a WHS with TVServer (Integrated NIC)
Assembling
Some pictures of the build process are attached below.
Important notes: - The case comes with only one pair of satapower connectors which are too short to reach both hdd and optical. To hook up both you need an extra molex/satapower connector.
- If you want to use a remote to power on/off your system, you have to connect the IR/LCD unit like explained here. For easy assembling i recommend doing this right after you fitted the motherboard into the case and before you connect anything else to the motherboard.
Configuration
How i configured my HTPC ...
Bios (30-06-2008)
Version: F5 (GA-MA78GM-S2H)
Primary Display: HDMI
ACPI Suspend Type: S3(STR)
Very fast resume from suspend (3 seconds!), and case leds and fans will be off in suspended state. OS & Drivers (10-07-2008)
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit + SP1 + latest critical updates
Chipset: Latest for GA-MA78GM-S2H
Audio: Realtek HD drivers 1.95
Video: Catalyst 8.7 (BETA) Drivers (ATI HD3200)
LCD/IR: SoundGraph iMON 7.01 (for LCD display and IR, I removed the Antec supplied driver)
Codecs (21-05-2008)
as a tryout i removed FFDSHOW and replaced it with the MPC Video Decoder (this is the decoder used in Media Player Classic HC).
Partitions
1x 500GB HDD
1. VistaOS (100GB, allows for easy reinstall)
2. Pagefile (10GB, minimize fragmentation of the pagefile)
3. Timeshift (10GB, minimize fragmentation of the timeshift buffers)
4. Data (380GB, media files, recordings and other non-installed resources)
OS/Vista configuration (10-07-2008)
- allow USB HID device for Trust Media Keyboard to wake the pc from standby (together with ACPI bios setting)
Device Manager -> HID -> "Device" -> Properties -> Power Control tab
- Aero disabled
Display and graphics
connected through HDMI
CCC:
Resolution: 1280x720 (HD-Ready TV without 1:1 pixelmapping so no proper 1368x768 image)
Refreshrate: 50Hz (because of TV = PAL in my region)
Deinterlacing: Auto *
*Will pick BOB most of the time - Vector Adaptive would be best but isn't available without HT 3.0)
note: If you disable Aero in Vista you get Motion Adaptive deinterlacing in CCC (could be also HT 3.0 related)
If you force the Motion Adaptive detinterlacing in CCC it will look nice for TV MPEG2 SD but MPEG2 HD deinterlacing doesn't seem to work anymore.
I also disabled the ATI Hotkey service because it would reset my Cool n' Quite function leaving the CPU at full speed when it was not required.
I set my TV to PC (instead of HDMI) mode to eliminate overscan. I also want to note that this is a personal thing and really depends on the possibilities of your TV
Only issue (MP) left: Flickering
overlay with EVR!
MediaPortal (07-07-2008)
Version: 1.0.0.0 RC1 (incl TV server) +
SVN 19453 Skin: Indigo 2.0 Plugins:
My setup officialy became multi-seat when I moved the FloppyDTV to my newly installed WHS server. Setting up TV Server on my WHS was like a midsummer breeze and after importing my channels and setting the new tsbuffer/recordings disks i was ready to go. I have absolutely NO issues to report at this time - it just works!
Logo's (25-06-2008)
TV: Ziggo (old Casema in NL)
Logopack
TV Series plugin: provided by Indigo skin
IR Server Suite: (16-05-2008)
I installed the
IR Server Suite (Test Build 1.4.2 RC1) to make my Logitech 525 (profiled as a MCE remote) work with Media Portal.
The remote now works 100% and the delays i got previously with the older version are gone!
This will definately boost my "girlfriend/wife friendly" rating
For a step-by-step walkthrough i can recommend this
guide (credits: gdl). It explains in detail the steps you have to take to make the remote working. Note: i did not use this guide myself but after reading it i found it to be exactly the same as how i made my setup working.
TV Crop settings: (27-4-2008)
Because i don't have any overscan (PC Mode on my TVdisables that) on my HTPC output i need to crop the TV image that FloppyDTV is giving me to ensure i don't get to see, what i believe is called
VBI, on some SD channels (ea. NGC).
I have set the following settings from within MediaPortal, TV -> (info) Crop settings: top,bottom,left,right: 5
Codec settings in MP: (27-05-2008)
- TV - MPEG2: Cyberlink SP Video PDVD8
- TV - HD: Cyberlink PDVD8 AVC/H264
- Navigator: DVD Navigator
- DVD: Cyberlink PDVD8
- MOVIES - SD: MPC
- MOVIES - HD: Cyberlink PDVD8 AVC/H264
- MOVIES - Postprocessing: DirectVobSub (for subtitles) (yes this will disable DXVA but there's no way around it for now)
- ALL AUDIO: AC3Filter (maybe i'm gonna replace this with Spdiffer)
Overclock settings (Based on old hardware - CPU: BE-2400)
To let the @5.1 profile 1080p play flawlessly without hardware acceleration (software decoding) i took a chance and overclocked the BE-2400. With my current setup (Scythe Ninja+ 2x 120mm TriCool of Antec) the system seems pretty much stable.
FSB: 244 Mhz (200=default + 44)
Multiplier: 11.5x (default)
I will take note of my system's stability during the next few days with these new settings. Sofar looks promising!
Result: 2x 2.8Ghz (~5600+)
23-04-2008: system still stable and temperatures are great
Performance (07-07-2008)
Bluray: smooth playback (hardware acceleration - DXVA)
x264 1080/720p @ 4.1 : smooth playback (hardware acceleration - DXVA)
x264 1080/720p @ 5.1 : smooth playback (software decoding - CoreAVC or PowerDVD HD codec)
Read more about why i also want to be able to use software decoding in this thread on the AVS forums:
x264 Encoding Options for Hardware Compatibility & DXVA - AVS Forum 23-04-2008: Another reason to want to have software decoding support is the fact that currently if I want to use subtitles (DirectVobSub), DXVA get's disabled. I have read in another
topic that Media Player Classic has a custom EVR method to use subtitles and DXVA so I think it's a matter of time before this will also be possible with other players (MP internal).
Cooling & Temperatures
The airflow "design" of the Antec case is quite nice as shown below and helps keep the temperature low.
using the supplied air guide extensions you can redirect the flow over your cpu. So i set this up also.
See image below
The northbridge on this motherboard becomes quite "hot" but this seems to be normal.
To be safe i have decided to buy a special northbridge cooler (see wishlist). Will update these results when i put it in the case.
Idle (Based on old hardware - CPU: BE-2400)
( AMD Cool&Quiet is enabled )
System: ~29
CPU: ~23
Northbridge: 81?
Full Load (15 minutes)
System: ~30
CPU: ~38
NorthBridge: 84?
Full Load (15 minutes) (27-05-2008)
Hot weather + a/v cabinet door closed (high room temperature)
System: ~40
CPU: ~50
NorthBridge: 87
TODO / Wishlist
Hardware and/or configuration i want to change or am planning to in the near future.
Configuration:
- Make the setup "Girlfriend-proof"
- Customize homescreen of MP skin
Planned additions/changes: (07-07-2008)
- Fresh Vista Ultima 32-bit installation
- CPU: Replace the Athlon x2 4850e with one of the HT 3.0 capable CPU's (Phenom x3 8450e or x4 9150e) for better 1080i deinterlacing
- Bluray drive (when the price is right)
- HDMI 1.3 (TrueHD, DTS-HD) Soundcard (ASUS Xonar HDAV, Auzentech HDMI X-Tension? when they are released)
- IMON IR connection with PWR ON/OFF connector (view)
Nice to have: (07-07-2008)
- Extra FloppyDTV + AlphaCrypt cam to fully support viewing/recording at the same time
- SmartWi (SmartWi® Multi Room Solution. Products) (if i get the extra tvcard)
- Better northbridge cooling (passive cooler or maybe stock cooling that comes with the latest revision of the motherboard)
Pictures
I attached some more pictures of my setup to the post:
- The keyboard (with broken scroll wheel that is, did not take a picture earlier) and the logitech remote.
- My current setup - which is gonna be changed really soon.. the case is on the floor for now because it didn't fit the cabinets (which i'm gonna replace by just one new, yet to discover, cabinet).
- a close-up of my MP start screen (not very interesting)
Blog
I have started a blog about my experiences on the following location:
Project HoME.
The entries that were previously located here are now moved to the dedicated blog.