Ongoing New build for 2009 (1 Viewer)

[Jackal5]

Hello everyone, I'm about to build my 3rd HTPC and hopefully I'll keep this build for a long time.

Here is my parts selection:

New Gear:
Motherboard: Gigabyte E7AUM-DS2H mATX Nvidia 9400 HDMI
Optical: Plextor PX-310A Blu Ray
PSU:Seasonic M12II 430-GM 430w
Heatsink: Scythe SCSK-1000 100mm "SHURIKEN"

Already picked up:
Case: Moneual MONCOSA 312B
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Left to get:
HDTV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner 1213

Reused Gear:
HDDs:
WD Scorpio 160GB 2.5 SATA
SAMSUNG Spinpoint M6 HM500LI 500GB 2.5 SATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000333AS 1TB SATA 2.0
WiFI: Netgear WG111 v.2
Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech diNovo Edge Bluetooth
Antenna: Terrestrial Digital DB2 Multi-Directional HDTV

If I splurge, I'll pick up a Black Magic Intensity Pro later.

The case is smaller than my old Antec NSK 2480 and taller than my GMC AVC-S7-B cases and can hold 3 3.5 HDDs. I'm planning on using 2 2.5" laptop drives. The 160gb as the OS and progams, the 500gb for music (no, I don't have that much music) and for ripped media. A 3.5" 1tb will be used for recording HDTV. Might seem like overkill but I don't plan on building another HTPC for some time after this one.

The 2 2.5 drives will be held in a bracket that I bought from A-Tech.

I'm going to load Windows 7 for the OS and use Media Portal for the pvr functions. I've loaded Media Portal onto my current build and it's not working as well as SageTV, but I still need to go through the configurations more thoroughly this weekend.

 

[Peter2]

Woaaw, nice case!
Hope everything works out well, including your 'plunge' into w7.

 

[etheesdad]

very nice. so does the bracket mean you can fit 2x 2.5" drives in place of 1x 3.5"?

 

[Jackal5]

I thought I had posted my progress here too. I'll copy and paste from the other forum. Sorry for the delay.

Hey all,
With the arrival of my 2 Avermedia Duet cards this Wednesday, my hardware will be complete and I will be setting up software at that point. Here's the specs:

Case: Moneual MONCOSA 312B

Motherboard: Gigabyte E7AUM-DS2H mATX HDMI
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
CPU Cooler: Scythe "SHURIKEN"

Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 9400 - Onboard
Sound: Realtek ALC889A - Onboard

Drives:
Main: 1 x SAMSUNG Spinpoint 500GB 2.5
Storage: 1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB
Optical: Plextor PX-B310SA SW Blu Ray

HDTV Tuner: 2 x AVerMedia AVerTVHD Duet - PCTV Tuner (A188)
WiFI: Netgear WG111 v.2
Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech diNovo Edge Bluetooth
PSU: Seasonic M12II 430-GM 430w
Antenna: Terrestrial Digital DB2 Multi-Directional HDTV

And on the software side:

OS: Win7 Ultimate RC1 Build 7100

PVR:
SageTV will handle the recording of my OTA HD programs. But may share some of the other duties with WMC. SageTV will also require me to try a few more codecs for recording TV shows in the H.264 format. I'll also be checking out more of the plugins and extenders for each that make for some decent alternate layout and functions.

Blu Ray:
Since playing a DVD is no problem, I still have to come up with a good choice for my Blu Ray player. My Plextor drive came with the limited function PowerDVD 8. But I wanted to read more about the other software packages before making a decision. BR movies will mostly be from disc and I don't plan to rip many BR movies. But I do want to give it a try so I will be looking into some of the methods and softwares that make it as painless as possible. If that's possible.

Music:
My music file management is done with Media Monkey. I've been using it for a long time now and it does what I need it to do. For ripping I'll stick with EAC but I'll try FLAC instead of Lame now. Of course I'll have a lot of choices for music players: WMC, WMP, SageTV, Media Monkey.

Pictures:
One word: Photoshop.

Streaming Content:
Netflix and Hulu. There is a SageTV plugin to run Netflix that I may try since 7MC doesn't currently have the Netflix plugin. Hulu may also have a plugin for SageTV but it also has it's own browser now. Or I could just use either service in the Firefox browser.

My needs are simple but I see a lot of other things that people are using for organizing to ripping to plugins. I'll be checking them out too.

AnyDVD HD
Media Browser
Media Scout (TV Scout)
Media Splitter
MPC-HC
MyMovies
Salami Movie Organizer

And I'm probably forgetting some. So any helpful comments and suggestions are welcome.

And then....

Well, I guess this project is done, hardware wise anyway. I have installed the 2 dual HDTV cards and I now have them working. I've ripped a few disc to try some setups in Windows 7 Media Center and Sage TV.

Here, both dual tuner cards are installed. All hardware is in the case now.

Due to the way that his case is made, I had to get a little creative with cooling. The case is made for 3 40mm fans to be mounted in the rear but I opted to mount some slim fan underneath the hard drives themselves. The case still gets a bit warm and actually hot when the outside temps are high and we have a lot of humdity like we did here in Chicago a few weeks ago. But all is running fine.

Ripped DVDs and a couple of Blu Ray movies and pre-recorded HDTV shows in Windows 7 MC

For Sage TV, I have all tuners setup. I had to scan for each tuner separatedly in order to get them to record.

Recording 4 shows at the same time. This initially failed because I had only scanned channels for 1 tuners.

And then of course in imported movies and TV shows in Sage TV.

Music management via Media Monkey. And wifi via a Netgear adaptor placed behind the TV. It's the small grey thing in the bottom right corner.

Since 7MC doesn't have the Netflix plugin like VMC, so I have to use the web browser to stream the movies. Hulu work just fine too. So that's it for the hradware. I would try some additional plugins and software but I might just wait until the full Windows 7 is released.

Critics, comments and suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for your patience everyone.

Followed by....

Thanks guys. I've upgraded two of the slim fans to the 2000 rpm models to move a bit more air around and also upgraded to PowerDVD9 Ultra. I've also tested and successfully recorded 4 TV shows at once in 7MC.

PDVD9 seems to have integrated into 7MC for BR playing. But I still have the problems playing .MVK files in 7MC. While in SageTV I think I was able to play MVK files but it won't play BR disc.

Now once they get Netflix in there all will be fine.

 

[JohnDoe2000]

Hi Jackal5,
Hi @all,

I want to build the same HTPC. The case has already been ordered. But most of the other components are not available anymore.

So, can anyone help me to choose the right set of components? I want to play BD, watch TV (DVB-T + C) and the HTPC shoult be as quiet as possible. But I think that I prefere quiet vans instead of vanless components. Tell me about your opinion about that.

I'm very glad for any helpful posts.