Ongoing HTPC Build- Comments and Suggestions (2 Viewers)

[Lupismaximus]

Hello all. Newbie here.

I have been avoiding jumping into the HTPC realm, since I use Playon, Xbox 360, PS3, Popcorn hour.

The problem with all these is that I have MKVs for all my movie content, and the only device that plays this container is the Popcorn hour. Since I have this in my bed room, I need to build a HTPC for my main media room.

What I plan to do with the HTPC:
- Make it easy for the wife to be able to use
- Watch Movies, play music, and view pictures
- Record and watch TV programs via software PVR
- TV Stream Timeshifting
- Stream content to my Popcorn hour
- Stream content to it from my NAS
- Steam music via Shoutcast, LastFM or hopefully Pandora
- Stream all network IPTV (Netflix, Hulu, CBS.com, ABC.com, Youtube, etc.)
- Encode/ Back-up my BlueRay discs via AnyDVD and Ripbot264
- Get rid of my Cable operator as much as possible
- Surf the web, play an occasional Video Game (Battlefield)

Following is the gear I plan to use to build out my HTPC:
- Case: Antec Fusion 430 Black w/IMEDIAN HD & Antec earthwatts EA430 430W PSU
- OS: Vista Ultimate SP1 64 bit
- MB/GPU/SC: GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9400 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
- CPU: Either Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 95W or Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 65W
- Memory: 4x1GB Corsair Ballistix 8500 1066 Mhz
- Optical Drive: LG GGC-H20L 16X Blu-ray/HD DVD drive
- HD: WD Caviar Green WD15EADS 1.5TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
- Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 MCE
- Remote: Logitech Harmony One (currently used for all other components and will train with MCE remote to be able to work well with I MEDIAN HD IR)
- Keyboard: PS3 Logitech Cordless Mediaboard Pro
- Mouse: Mircorsoft BT Notebook Mouse 5000

I want to run this buy you folks because I most likely will be using the Media Portal front end, because it provides more features than the traditional XBMC. Boxee looks interesting, but it seems Media Portal has a huge lead in the Windows Support front. SageTV looks the best, but I would have to invest another $250 to get client end support. I plan to use my Popcorn Hour for now and mount the Media Portal, via UPNP plugin.

Please comment on your thoughts surrounding this build, and especially what you think about the CPU I should go with.

Thank you,

Fellow A/V geek!

 

[Lupismaximus]

Bump

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

I have decided on using the Mircorsoft BT Notebook Mouse 5000

Thank you!

 

[moab]

Nice set up.
IMHO processor is less important than video card. So go with the cheaper CPU listed. Although if you have the $$$ and are serious gamer then go with the better one but not necessary for normal use. Your fast 4GB RAM is good.
Your video card should handle all of the heavy graphic processing.
What type of TV are you using? Will you be running at full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution.
I have a similar usage to your requirements. I ran into some WAF issues but I worked around that by having the cable TV split to both the PC capture card and the TV built in tuner. The wife uses the TV remote for "no brainer TV". I use the PC for TV because of the nice TiVO/PVR features. Being able to pause live TV to get the phone/doorl is a huge plus. I finally figured out my TV guide issues. I use IPTV like you but from a web browser. I actually have quick keys on my wireless keyboard which launch netflix, hulu etc. I use the MCE remote for MediaPortal.
I have not played with BluRay yet but that will be my next purchase. I actually burn all my regular DVDs to the HDD as I can't stand getting them scratched up.

 

[bazzz]

I agree with the above comments regarding processor. A dual-core should be more than sufficient. More importantly, it won't run so hot, so you can get away with less cooling = quieter. If the case is big enough, you might want to consider using two smaller drives instead of the one large one and split the OS/Time-shift/Recording/etc duties across them. It can potentially reduce disk bottlenecks.

 

[moab]

I agree with the above comments regarding processor. A dual-core should be more than sufficient. More importantly, it won't run so hot, so you can get away with less cooling = quieter. If the case is big enough, you might want to consider using two smaller drives instead of the one large one and split the OS/Time-shift/Recording/etc duties across them. It can potentially reduce disk bottlenecks.

Great point about the cooling. Must keep your machine as silent as possible. My vid card fan was noisey so I replaced it with a passive cooler.

 

[Lupismaximus]

Thank you for your responses. Definitely some food for thought. Like you folks mentioned, I have decided to go with the E8500 processor due to the lower power and lower heat. I will have to think about your suggestion regarding the HD. I still think I need the 1TB+ for movie content, and then maybe for the OS and other content I should go with a second drive. Hmm, decisions.

To address some of the questions, I will be connecting the HTPC, via HDMI, to my 60" Sony LCOS XBR2 1080P television. The only 1080P content I will be watching will be BR. All movie content will be 720P, and TV content will be either 720P or 1080i. I am still trying to integrate a player for MP that will do good quality 1080P software up conversion. In the future, I will have my receiver do this via hardware, but for now, I only have my receiver processing audio via Optical cable, and have my HDMI cable going strait to the TV.

I am not looking to produce a very powerful gaming rig, because I have that with my main computer. (Intel 3GB Quad, 4 GB DDR3 1600, WD Raptor drive, Nvidia 9800 gx2, etc.) I want a system that is quite and get's the job done. I plan to offload as much as I can to the MGPU for video processing of content. From my understanding, there should be no issues with the motherboard I am chosing in regards to this. I am sure if I tried to play something like Crysis on Very High, it would choke the box, but since my main focus is HTPC, I should be fine.

<MOAB> It seems that it is almost impossible to get completely off of cable in order to make this solution Wife friendly. I was going to try to drop cable, but with the thought that my wife would be able to watch majority of the channels she needs via the installed HD antenna. I have high hopes for OTA reception, and I might be seriously be disappointed after I set everything up. If everything does work out, then this method should help with the spontaneous live TV channel surfing, while still provide me with a means to capture HDTV from the main local channels. The next hurdle to overcome is the extended cable channels like, CNN, Nicolodian, Bravo, TNT, Discovery, MTV, etc. I could use the IPTV solutions out there, and plan to, but my feelings about those services is that the quality of the picture is horrible. I could use TED to capture these shows, but again, I won't always be able to find HD content. Any suggestions would be great.

Finally, what keyboards are you folks using?

Thank you for your feedback thus far, and I welcome anything else or any foreseeable challenges/ limitations you can think of that MP might produce based on my requirements.

 

[moab]

Keyboard

Microsoft Wireless Keyboard

Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse (this has extra thumb buttons which are a huge help. They zoom in on the screen. This is essential when web surfing so you can read all the text. I tried using the CTL + to increase the zoom in the browser but unfortunately most pages get distorted. Using a huge dpi in video settings also resulted in some undesireable side effects, i.e. MP fonts get too big.

Both work great.
However to save clutter I would recommend a keyboard with a built in mouse tracker ball or touch pad.

 

[Sugar3d]

Check here there are tonnes of builds.

Guide to Building a HD HTPC - Page 85 - AVS Forum

I use the Dinovo Mini

 

[moab]

...
I use the Dinovo Mini

That looks like a sweet keyboard. Sadly my budget has ran out for the moment.