Hello There,
Introduction:
I finally finished work on my first build of a HTPC system. It's main use is for watching DVD's, DivX movies, listening to music and being used as a harddiskrecorder for recording TV shows, etc. Maybe some retro gaming in the future, but for now it is functional.
It has taken me a lot of time, testing, tweaking, reading, etc. But, now I have a fully operational HTPC .
Used Hardware:
This is the hardware I used:
Case: Antec NSK-2480
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 380
Mainboard: MSI K9VGM-V
CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ DualCore
CPU Cooling: Cooler Master GeminII, HeatPipe Cooler
Case Fan: Stock Antec TriCool 120 mm, at low RPM (at this moment)
Memory: 2x 1024 mb DDR2-800 (2 gb)
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro, Passive Cooled
Audio: OnBoard Realtek ALC883 HD-Audio
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ES 250 gb, 7200 RPM
CD/DVD Drive: LG GH20 DVD Rewriter (Dual-Layer)
TV-Card: Hauppauge PVR-150
Remote Control: X10 OR22V MCE Remote
Keyboard/Mouse: Labtec wireless (only used for updating, etc.)
The software I installed:
Windows XP SP3 Professional
Mediaportal 1.0 + Integrated TV Engine (I don't own a HD-TV, and it suits my needs)
Blue3Retro skin, looks nice and quite readable on a CRT TV .
PVR Scheduler
TweakUI
Avast! Antivirus
ffdshow
MCE Standby
TVxb
I have a Samba (Linux) Domain controller at home, my HTPC is a domain member, so it has access to media files on my server. I've used TweakUI to configure autologon, so my HTPC logs on to the domain automatically .
My HTPC is most of the time in hibernation (ACPI S4 state), it takes a bit longer to wake up then standby (ACPI S3 state) but energy consumption is the lowest. PVR scheduler works like a charm with this . Wakes up the HTPC, does the scheduled recording and goes back into hibernation, really cool .
I even use PVRScheduler to update my TVguide, I've made a little VBscript (saw an example on the internet, tweaked it a little bit for my needs). Basically, it does the following things:
Start TVxb, get a new TVguide from TVGids.nl, output this to a tvguide.xml file.
Start the MediaPortal tvguide grabber
Finally start MediaPortal, wait 1 minute and synchronize it.
PVRScheduler takes care of waking up the HTPC, run the script and hibernate again, works like a charm .
Here are some pictures of my HTPC:
Introduction:
I finally finished work on my first build of a HTPC system. It's main use is for watching DVD's, DivX movies, listening to music and being used as a harddiskrecorder for recording TV shows, etc. Maybe some retro gaming in the future, but for now it is functional.
It has taken me a lot of time, testing, tweaking, reading, etc. But, now I have a fully operational HTPC .
Used Hardware:
This is the hardware I used:
Case: Antec NSK-2480
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 380
Mainboard: MSI K9VGM-V
CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ DualCore
CPU Cooling: Cooler Master GeminII, HeatPipe Cooler
Case Fan: Stock Antec TriCool 120 mm, at low RPM (at this moment)
Memory: 2x 1024 mb DDR2-800 (2 gb)
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro, Passive Cooled
Audio: OnBoard Realtek ALC883 HD-Audio
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ES 250 gb, 7200 RPM
CD/DVD Drive: LG GH20 DVD Rewriter (Dual-Layer)
TV-Card: Hauppauge PVR-150
Remote Control: X10 OR22V MCE Remote
Keyboard/Mouse: Labtec wireless (only used for updating, etc.)
The software I installed:
Windows XP SP3 Professional
Mediaportal 1.0 + Integrated TV Engine (I don't own a HD-TV, and it suits my needs)
Blue3Retro skin, looks nice and quite readable on a CRT TV .
PVR Scheduler
TweakUI
Avast! Antivirus
ffdshow
MCE Standby
TVxb
I have a Samba (Linux) Domain controller at home, my HTPC is a domain member, so it has access to media files on my server. I've used TweakUI to configure autologon, so my HTPC logs on to the domain automatically .
My HTPC is most of the time in hibernation (ACPI S4 state), it takes a bit longer to wake up then standby (ACPI S3 state) but energy consumption is the lowest. PVR scheduler works like a charm with this . Wakes up the HTPC, does the scheduled recording and goes back into hibernation, really cool .
I even use PVRScheduler to update my TVguide, I've made a little VBscript (saw an example on the internet, tweaked it a little bit for my needs). Basically, it does the following things:
Start TVxb, get a new TVguide from TVGids.nl, output this to a tvguide.xml file.
Start the MediaPortal tvguide grabber
Finally start MediaPortal, wait 1 minute and synchronize it.
PVRScheduler takes care of waking up the HTPC, run the script and hibernate again, works like a charm .
Here are some pictures of my HTPC: