falser's MP-based 1080p HTPC

[falser]

The system:
- AMD64 3200 (stock)
- Geforce 7600GT (stock)
- Gigabyte K8N-Ultra motherboard
- Seasonic 500W psu
- Sabrent "el cheapo" soundcard (onboard sound didn't do spdif passthrough)
- Vbox DTA 150 atsc tuner (was not in the case when pic was taken)
- DB2 atsc antenna
- 120GB Seagate drive (will be upgraded to 2x300GB Maxtor raid striped setup soon)

Accessories:
- Accent HTPC case, full size ATX, Samsung VFD
- Logitech bluetooth mouse
- no remote control, I use the LiteOn IR keyboard and map keys to a universal, the IR reciever is mounted inside the case so as not to be visible

Software:
- Media Portal June 19th SVN
- Zoomplayer Pro
- NVidia PureVideo for mpeg decoding

The case:


The ghetto fan that's taped up is for a bit of active cooling on the northbridge heatsink which runs crazy hot. All the fans (including video fan) are are downclocked to run very quiet. I ended up not using the MP plugin for the VFD, it would often go buggy and display jumbled garbage - I opted for LCD Smartie which now just displays the computer's name, date, and time.

OTA HD screencaps:


I was blown away at the quality of OTA reception. I've been watching HDTV on a rear projection over cable for years. But seeing HD off the air on an LCD monitor using a computer is a completely new level. For some reason I can no longer tune the CBSHD station because it crashes. Fox/ABC/NBC/WUSA all look great when they're playing good feeds.

How it looks on a Dell 2405 LCD:



This system is nearly done. It's functional, but I'll still be making some tweaks and doing more testing over the next month or two. I won't be putting it into practical use until I buy a 1080p LCD HDTV for the living room. For now the computer is sitting on my desk hooked up to my computer monitor. The case should look pretty good in my stereo rack with the rest of my HT gear which is all silver as well.

Thank-you to the MediaPortal crew for making this all possible. I've been using a modded Xbox+XBMC along with a separate MythTV-based HTPC for a few years now. But I finally have something that can keep pace and surpass what I've been doing so far.

I'll post an update in a month or two when I have the MP box in it's natural habitat.

[CHli]

I wish I could have the same at home. But no HDTV in switzerland atm