Ongoing New dedicated HTPC based on Mini-ITX (1 Viewer)

RedeviL

Portal Member
August 22, 2007
46
0
Wellington
Home Country
New Zealand New Zealand
I've been running a dual-purpose Gaming/HTPC for months, and it was well past due time to build a dedicated HTPC.

First step was what I require from it:
Small
Quiet
Cheap (~$500NZ)
DVI and HDMI video out (projector and Plasma)
SPDIF optical audio out (receiver)
H.264 hardware decoding
Low power consumption
Blu-ray/HD-DVD capable

I looked at the Mini-ITX form factor and it quickly became the obvious choice.
I then looked into Intel Core 2 Duo based boards, but most either required additional components which then pushed the price beyond my goal budget or pushed power consumption beyond what I considered acceptable since this will be on 24/7.

I'm not a fan of sleep or hibernate for desktops, and had no interest in going down this path, so flat out low power consumption was the final decider.

This lead me to go for an Nvidia ION board, sporting an N330 Atom teamed with a hardware H.264 decoding GPU.

I wanted network connectivity to be wireless, as well as something with the outputs to cover all of the above. The only one which covered all of these was the ZOTAC ION A-U Mini-ITX Mainboard. This model had wireless as well as an external 90w PSU. Reviews clocked full load power consumption in the range of 50w, with as low as 10~15w idle.

Teamed with 2GB of DDR2-667 this covered the board.
Not to mention by default the memory bus runs at 533Mhz, 667 allows for the bus to be pushed up yeilding an Atom running at 2.0GHz.
After some very vigorous testing, it turned out to be _very_ stable as well as produce only a couple of extra degrees of heat.

The case was the next issue, I didn’t want one with a PSU which was accessed from the rear. Since I wouldn’t use that space and it’ll leave a large empty hole when the PSU is removed. Additionally the case needed to have an externally accessible 5.25″ bay for the LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive I currently have. This turned out to be an extremely hard set of requirements to cater to. The cases without a PSU had Slimline optical drive slots, where the cases with external 5.25″ bays had an external facing PSU.

I was about to change my requirements when I came across the Aywun A1-8989 Black cube mini-iTX case.
It looked decent enough, had an internally located removable PSU and was _cheap_.

TV recording duties are based around a Pinnacle PCTV Nano USB Stick receiving DVB-T.

Storage in the machine didn't need to be large, but needed to be quiet and power considerate.
While 3.5" drives are cheap, they tend to be noisy and require a fair amount of power.

This left me with 2.5" drives - I scored a 40GB drive for the OS for a few dollars and a 160GB on special. This all came close to budget, but did exceed a small amount.

Once assembled I found that the remote software from Pinnacle can't customise the remote which came with the PCTV Nano.
This was rather disappointing, and it seems I'm the only one with this issue so haven't found any solution - even after bashing my head against the software configuration for 3 hours.

This means I need a remote, currently I'm leaning towards a Hauppauge MCE Remote Kit.
Still working on making a final decision on this.

The machine hasn't made the move from the computer room to the lounge quite yet, still a bit of tweaking and setup to go - but I have finished MediaPortal install and configuration, other than TV. Sofar the ION board has preformed exceptionally!
720p and 1080p streamed MKV's work flawlessly, teamed with SAF the machine doesn't exceed ~25% CPU load.
Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback via PowerDVD 7 (included with LG drive) work quite happily with the GPU and also sit ~30%.
~5% isn't bad for playback and decrypting!

As for pictures, they can be seen here, as well as the full story: Red's Media PC

More to come as I progress! ^_^
 

JiRo

MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • May 1, 2009
    184
    44
    Prague
    Home Country
    Czech Republic Czech Republic
    Hi RedeviL,

    really exciting - my views are similary :). I think, you are on the right way. I'll be with you share experiences willingly.

    Here is description of my setup: Server/Client.

    Regards,

    JiRo.
     

    RedeviL

    Portal Member
    August 22, 2007
    46
    0
    Wellington
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    Your post was actually one of the sources I used to make my decision on which parts! :)

    I also use a server, but aimed purely at storage and remote desktop.
     

    RedeviL

    Portal Member
    August 22, 2007
    46
    0
    Wellington
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    After a few months of bashing my head against my Pinnacle Nano stick 73e - I just can not get it to reliably scan and tune into the DVB-T signal. The combo of Windows 7, beta MediaPortal and drivers which don't seem too stable is killing me.

    Everything else has been flawless - will Image 7 and store it, and reinstall to XP where I had the tuner working 100% previously.
     

    Neville

    Portal Pro
    July 21, 2008
    136
    13
    Hamilton
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    Hi Redevil
    Thanks for your post and blog!

    I am looking at something similar and wondered if you had any thoughts.
    I have a camper van needing MP (of course). Plan is for Sat TV (dvb-s) as needed (eg news - largely for live TV only) and portable USB drive for previously recorded DVB-t (h.264) movies and programs etc.
    Problems - Like you it has to be cheap - similar price point.
    I have XP home handy
    It needs Sat TV decoder - there are external powered USB or internal? - I believe your Nvidia Ion board has no PCI-e slots - it that correct
    It has to be low power (freedom camper so no power plug in...!)

    I had been thinking therefore of dual atom with integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with internal TV card and 32 GB SS drive (speed and power)

    Any comments from your or anyone elses experience? :)


    regards

    Neville
     

    RedeviL

    Portal Member
    August 22, 2007
    46
    0
    Wellington
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    Hi Neville,

    Correct, the Zotac Nvidia ION doesn't have any expansion slots.
    The only option would be an external adapter - now I've only seen a couple of USB ones but couldn't recommend any.

    From the reviews I read the system uses ~30w under full load.
    It would consume less with a SSD, and honestly you couldn't get less than that while decoding HD.

    I would really recommend against the Intel graphics model, the 950 is completely useless.
    It'd handle the SD streams from DVB-S, but HD H.264 would all have to be handled by the CPU. While the Dual Core Atoms are quite fast considering how little power they use, it'd consume all processing power to playback HD smoothly. Not to mention be less efficient power wise.

    Hope this helps!
     

    ryan20021982

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • June 27, 2008
    655
    86
    USA
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    I just built another one recently using a mini-itx board

    Its the J&W MINIX 780G-SP128M Mini-ITX AM3/AM2+/AM2 Motherboard
    Amazon.com: J&W MINIX 780G-SP128M Mini-ITX AM3/AM2+/AM2 Motherboard: Electronics

    Very happy with it, I dont use the slot but it has a pci-e slot.
    Mine consumes 60w playing HD and thats using a amd 65w cpu. The 45w amd's like the 4850e and the 5050e arent made anymore and I didnt want to pay the outrageous price of them that are left on ebay now.

    I have another mediacenter that I ordered a new mobo for and I might take the 5050e out and swap the cpus in the systems, that should drop the watts a little, but mine is setup to go to sleep and shut the tv off when it does using IRSS so it's not really a big concern.

    They also have the new MINIX™ 785G-SP128MB which uses the ATI 4200 instead of the 3200 but mine plays everything I have from divx to 22mb/s bitrate HD no problem.
    J&W Technology Limited

    Heres the case I went with and really happy with it, I had to mod the psu a tad to add silent fans but no big deal.
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811234021&cm_re=winsis-_-11-234-021-_-Product
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom