Building my first HTPC (1 Viewer)

[pemberto]

Hello All,

Well I stumbled upon MediaPortal the other week and now I am hooked. So I going to build my frist HTPC and if all goes well my dad has asked that I build one for him.

I decided to go with the intel motherboard/cpu - like to keep things simple and build for the future, quad core may be overkill now but who knows what we will be running in the future. I am happy spend good money on a graphics card. This will be feeding directly into a Lumagen Vision ProHDP video process before hitting my Pioneer MXE1 pannel. So I want the best possible picture I can get.

The main use will be video playback, no gaming, too many consoles in the house already. I have a large collection of DVDs that I will transfer to disc, hence the 750gb drives. Take the point that I may be better off with smaller drives and store the main content on a server. (thats another project)

So the kit list, this is where I need a little help in terms of psu and cooling.

Case: Silverstone LC17S-C (order stopped. Now looking for different cases)
Motherboard: Intel DP35DP (Ordered)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6420
PSU: Need Help
Cooling: Need Help
GPU: ?
Memory: ?
DVD: Pioneer BDC-S02BK 5x Blu-Ray Reader Combo DVD±DL
OS: Do I go Vista or Windows XP - Need some words of wisdom.
HDD: ? Now looking at adding main storage to server and run over home gb network.

What am I missing. What do I need to think about? - Any help would be great.

Regards,
Pemberto

 

[cheezey]

What am I missing.

A wife to tell you that you are spending too much on computer bits.

OS: Do I go Vista or Windows XP - Need some words of wisdom.

Have a read of https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/vista_not_vista_question-t21176.html

 

[milhouse]

Overkill?

Now, you don't explain what FUNCTIONS you intend to use, and you don't specify whether or not money is an object, but that's big-time overkill.

If this is a dedicated HTPC (i.e. you won't be using it as a gaming rig), then noise is a bigger factor than most anything else. Quad-core is cool to say "I've got one", but I can run 1080p out of my Mac Mini (dual core 1.66). You can save yourself $600 on the processor alone. Put the money into a very nice case, instead.

Memory. I've got 1GB in my mac mini, and that's plenty. I've got 2GB in my other HTPC. More than I need, but memory is cheap.

5 x 750 GB??? take the $600 you can save on the processor, get a 2nd PC, and put that disk space in the basement where you don't have to listen to it. Get a nice quiet 300GB to actually put in the HTPC.

I've got two old PCs in the basement with 4 x 500 GB (each) in RAID 5 where I keep all the media, so the HTPC itself only needs space for the TV recordings. I can play standard DVDs (in .iso format) over wireless (54mbs) easy enough. So it makes perfect sense to keep the noise away from the TV.

If you do this, you can get a much more attractive case that that monster you've got picked out. (I assume you've got the big, ugly case for the 3TB of drive space you are planning to drop in there.) http://omaura.com/index.html has some really handsome cases, like in a couple posts below.

Can't help you much on PSU or cooling. I just know the stock AMD fan was horribly loud and I replaced it. Again, go for quiet, get less processor, and go for FANLESS video cards. (That's too much video card, too, in my opinion.)

I've got 2 HTPCs. One I built from components, then other is a Mac Mini running XP. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with another Mac Mini. It's enough juice for everything I need, and is almost dead silent.

[these are only the opinions of me, and I know you'll hear other opinions from other people.]

 

[pemberto]

What am I missing.

A wife to tell you that you are spending too much on computer bits.

OS: Do I go Vista or Windows XP - Need some words of wisdom.

Have a read of https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/vista_not_vista_question-t21176.html

Thanks Cheezy. I have a Wife and four kids and she knows what I am like when I buy things. Just means I will have to spend some more money on her.

 

[joho500]

I agree with milhouse that your setup is a little overkill Go for silence.

Some hints:
PSU: I use the Antec NeoHE 430, see silentpcreview.com
Cooling: use large fans (120mm) that run slow and make little noise
memory: 1GB is enough to run MP smoothly on a XP system, which answers your OS question

greetz
joho

 

[pemberto]

I agree with milhouse that your setup is a little overkill Go for silence.

Some hints:
PSU: I use the Antec NeoHE 430, see silentpcreview.com
Cooling: use large fans (120mm) that run slow and make little noise
memory: 1GB is enough to run MP smoothly on a XP system, which answers your OS question

greetz
joho

Thanks Joho,
Its back to the drawing board on the setup. I have just managed to cancel my order for the SilverStone case. I will also look at a Intel Core 2 Duo E6420.

 

[trevor]

I have to agree that your spec on some parts is overkill, graphics card for one and will agree with milhouse that the case is a better place to spend the cash and that keeping the noise down is a major factor.

I built my system about a yr ago and at the time this was (and still is) verging on over kill, I have had to work on the noise side and it is down to an acceptable level.

My thoughts

Case

to my mind get one with a VFD and IR reveiver built in, I use an Origen X11 case (http://www.origenae.com/en/htpc_x11.htm) this comes with the IRTrans VF110 and this and the remote work well with MP. The case is not cheap and is let down by the supplied fans, had to change those to help with the noise, but has a lot of room and is well made, the X10 is slightly smaller version.

Having said that the new Omaura cases do look the business! and of course you can go back to your 5x750GB using the storage enclosure


Graphics Card

With HD in mind I would go with the Nvidia 8600 GT or GTS, I have just upgraded my card to an Asus EN8600GTS Slient (http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=2&l2=6&l3=514&l4=0&model=1643&modelmenu=1) quite but has a mother of a heatsink that would not suit a small case.

I got this card with the furure in mind, hardware acceleration of HD and maybe better Vista/EVR support.

CPU/Cooler

This is where I might be in some agreement with you, I currently have a core 2 duo 2.66Mhz and a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro fan, great cooler this, really quite, slient at 50%.

As I tend to also use my mediapc to convert DVD's etc I use most this power, was thinking of going quad core myself as they have dropped so much in price and with the right DVD conversion s/w should use all 4 cores.

Motherboard

Pesonal thoughts here, you chosen MB only has 2 PCI slots, most curent TV cards are PCI so may be a limitation in a single server setup with multiple clients. Small question mark over the onboard sound, this may only be an issue if you start wanting to play .DTS music via ASIO.

PSU

I use a Seasonic M12-600 - quite and with enough power.

Disk space

can never have enough but agree that should not be all in the box, I currently have 850GB in the MP box and 4TB split accross 2 NAS devices and a SATA expansion box.

The reason...TV Series and I back everything up

Memory

To my mind 2GB of fast memory.

OS

choice between stability or latest features, this along with chosen h/w and PC/OS knowldge govens what os you choose...XP gives the best stability, driver support and is easy to setup and configure and will get you going the quickest.

Vista has some nice new features (and some bad) the new stuff is still a little beat and little buggy, drivers are on the edge currently for lot of hardware and setup/configuration is easy for base but more tricky when you have issues, which is a given with Vista currently


Cooling

Keeping the thing quite the trickest part, I use Speedfan for monitor and control the CPU fan, used to do the case fans as well till I blew up the MB system fan chip! I now use mCubed T balancer (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_3730.html) to monitor the various temps and control the 3 case fans, allows for fairly precise control of fan speed v temps.


Hope that has not confused things, just my thoughts based on a yr with MP, which I think is the best MediaPC software there is.

Cheers

trevor

 

[milhouse]

Blu-Ray

One of pemberto's points that no-one has addressed, and I don't know the answer...

what about blu-ray? He's got a blu ray drive in his selected hardware. Is this supported by MP? Does this require Vista instead of XP?

milhouse

 

[trevor]

One of pemberto's points that no-one has addressed, and I don't know the answer...

what about blu-ray? He's got a blu ray drive in his selected hardware. Is this supported by MP? Does this require Vista instead of XP?

milhouse

Good point, has anyone tried? Guess we will know when the 1st person installs a BlueRay drive and tries a Blueray disc....


Did not realise the drives had come down in price so much, maybe me...

 

[mzemina]

One of pemberto's points that no-one has addressed, and I don't know the answer...

what about blu-ray? He's got a blu ray drive in his selected hardware. Is this supported by MP? Does this require Vista instead of XP?

milhouse

Good point, has anyone tried? Guess we will know when the 1st person installs a BlueRay drive and tries a Blueray disc....


Did not realise the drives had come down in price so much, maybe me...

ThaClown - said in the ::thread:: the following: "Im vieuwing through MediaPortal (I made sure in codec sttings that PowerDVD is used when I play H264 or .MKV files) Have had no problems yet with 3 different movies (both HD DVD- and BlueRay rip) and 2 TV series in HD format (Planet earth and Band of Brothers)" - So it appears that MP is not playing the disc content natively but through PowerDVD.