Ongoing New HTPC - New Zealand Freeview (1 Viewer)

[TommySharp]

Hi guys, my store bought HP Pavilion that's being doing it's MP duties for the last 4 years is coming to the end of it's life and is looking forward to retirement.... So I've started planning out a new replacement that will fit a lot better into the TV cabinet and also be a LOT quicker, quieter, cooler and handle all the New Zealand Freeview codecs with ease.

For the last few months we've put up with a very small "judder" that appears to affect some of the TV channels and I'm sure it's just down to the random collection of codecs that the different TV providers have chosen to go with. So my aim is that the new box should be just as silky smooth as if I was watching TV using the TV's internal DVB-T Freeview tuner....

I'd be keen to hear any feedback you guys have!

With one of the criteria being "quieter and cooler" I've decided to see if I can get away with a direct DC-DC power supply to eliminate fan noise and also keep heat down. Hopefully power savings will also be a by product. I've never used on of these and the biggest one I can seem to find is 200W so hopefully that will be enough?

Below are the parts I'm thinking of so far....

Shopping List
Case - CIIBAT HTPC Case (Purchased)
Power Supply - 200W direct DC-DC supply?
Motherboard - ??
CPU - core i3 or i5??
Graphics - GeForce GT 520??
RAM - 2GB enough??
System Drive - 32GB Corsair SSD (Purchased)
Timeshift and Recording Drive -
Network - Onboard Gigabit
Remote - Generic HP remote and WMC receiver??
TV Tuners - 2 x Hauppauge HVR-2200 Dual DVB-T (Already Own)

Case
I found this case on the New Zealand version of eBay and it looks pretty cool especially with the display up front and it was cheap! It doesn't actually have any openings or mounting points for a standard power supply hence my plans on getting a straight DC-DC power supply.

System Drive
I managed to pickup a cheap Corsair 32GB SSD drive which should give me enough space to run Windows7, MP and a few other little bits. This should hopefully keep MP running as quick as possible in terms of loading fanart etc...

TV Tuners
I already own two of the Hauppauge HVR-2200 cards which are great. With these being dual tuners and New Zealand Freeview being broadcast on just 3 "muxes" I can technically record all channels at once.... Or at least I could do that a while back, not sure if anything has changed....

Advice?
I really would appreciate any advice from people out there especially relating to ensuring I can get silky smooth TV viewing and still have something that is nice and quiet....

 

[Bleazle]

...I've decided to see if I can get away with a direct DC-DC power supply to eliminate fan noise and also keep heat down. Hopefully power savings will also be a by product. I've never used on of these and the biggest one I can seem to find is 200W so hopefully that will be enough?

I really can't see that being enough power but hopefully I'm wrong!

...CPU - core i3 or i5??

I went for the i5 750 2.66Ghz in my new setup - from what I remember of the of the research I did at the time the i5 performs almost as well as the i7 but it was a lot cheaper. I take it the i3 is a step down though? To be honest I think the i5 is overkill for a HTPC but I wanted to future proof this baby as much as I could (Blue-Ray playback, 3D playback etc) so I wanted to make sure it had plenty of grunt from the get-go.

...Graphics - Can I use onboard??...

I wouldn't. Then it's up to you as to whether you prefer Nvidia or ATI. My main HTPC (the one I built) runs a Sapphire Radeon HD5670 (ATI) but the client in the kitchen (HP Touchsmart) runs a NVIDEA GeForce GT230 - I don't have any complaints about either (Both are HD cards)... but then you've got power limitations to consider so onboard might end up being your only choice?

...RAM - 2GB enough??....

Is there such a thing as enough? I've gone for 4GB - again this is overkill really but I don't want this baby to struggle with anything (I can record all of the channels I get at once and have comskip running while the programmes are being recorded etc without any problems - 10 mins after a show has finished recording it's ready to watch commercial free )

...Timeshift and Recording Drive....

Samsung unless there's something else that is quieter now. The Samsung drives are very good.

...Remote - Generic HP remote and WMC receiver??...

Get a Harmony One - I can't recommend them highly enough!

My case has an imon VFD display (default text is "Davids kick@rse HTPC" - the kids love it ) - to be honest it's too far away to be readable but at least it looks like a stereo component (not a computer) and goes well with my Marantz amp - your case will do the same

Good luck with the build, can't wait to see the end result and hear what you ended up going with with regard to hardware. Burnt sausages at your place sometime?

Dave

 

[TommySharp]

Thanks Dave! I've only ever used NVIDIA in the past. You running HD Freeview now? Would be keen to know what codec setup you are using, are you happy with the quality as in no stuttering or anything?

I suppose if I had to I could crack out the dremel and cut me some holes for a standard power supply.

 

[Bleazle]

Thanks Dave! I've only ever used NVIDIA in the past. You running HD Freeview now? Would be keen to know what codec setup you are using, are you happy with the quality as in no stuttering or anything?

I'm still on DVB-S - as far as I can tell I can't get the DVB-T signal here because I'm tucked in behind Cape Hill in Pukekohe - things could have changed so maybe I should check again... I'm not too worried though because even if I could get the signal the last I heard comskip couldn't process DVB-T recordings and I'd hate to have to live without Comskip...

 

[johns11]

Hey Team

My favourite subject!

PSU: I've always intended to get a Pico PSU from ebay for my dedicated client. I made sure my motherboard had adequate onboard graphics, an SSD, and I intended to undervolt the CPU to ensure low power usage. I even intended to have no HDD and boot through the gigabit network off the Server SSD (didn’t work!). In the end I still have a normal PSU, my SSD for this machine is held up in the US, and I undid the undervolting due to a problem which turned out to be caused by a failing HDD. For a Client Server, I just don't know if 200W will do it but once you figure it out I'd be interested in the result.

CPU: I have a 4 core black edition AMD overclocked to 4Ghz. It’s not quite an i5 but handles everything except when there are too many h.264 comskip processes running at once. I have one Comskip donator version which pops each comskip process into a separate CPU core and another once which shares the load across all the cores. Not sure which is best, and my holiday project is to write a c# program to control and manage comskip processes. Let’s see if I actually get time to do that.

Graphics: Onboard. My mobos have 890g onboard graphics. With Windows 7 they hardly get warm playing 50FPS 1080i. I’m very happy and currently have no reason to change them. My Blu-Ray drive will arrive shortly so I can test playback of 1080p, and this is the only reason I haven’t yet sold the graphics cards I bought for my new setup but didn’t need to install. One thing is to make sure that any graphics card support DirectX 11 so that you can get True HD audio (I think I have that right)

Ram: I have 4Gb and doubt that I’ve ever used more than 2. I got high speed, low latency, as much as possible within the price range (and my server mobo won’t run it at full speed… working on that problem!)

Drives. I have my timeshift directed to my SSD (Loooove that there’s nothing spinning in there), and a Samsung 3Tb for recording. I’ve had a few failures with WD drives so let’s see if the Samsung lasts a little longer. My Server OS is on one half of a 60GB SSD split into 2 partitions with no problems. Don’t forget to enable “Trim” once you install the drive as it defaults to disabled.

Remote: Microsoft MCE, with blasters to control other units. Can’t recommend highly enough ;-) Sorry Dave.

Tuners: Still working on that! I have HVR-2200 (dual DVB-T), and I have just got a HVR-4000 to replace my HVR-3000. The 4000 has DVB-S2 which means I can get three Channel 9 stations from Australia, BUT if either of these are recording it disables the HVR4000 DVB-T tuner (or visa versa) so… looks like the HVR-3000 goes back in, and I guess my sound card comes out. So:
HVR-2200 – Freeview DVB-T x 2
HVR-3000 - DVB-S (SBS HD, SBS 2, CUE) or Freeview DVB-T
HVR-4000 - DVB-S2 (GO!, Gem, Nine Digital) or Freeview DVB-T

Display: I also have an Imon display which my children will give me for Xmas. Thanks for the ideas for the text on that Dave!

Lastly, while on the subject of new toys, through work I've recently picked up a Windows Mobile device (like a PDA running windows mobile 6.1) and a Tablet PC running windows 7. Unfortunately, so far, the CPU goes straight to 100% with 1080i TV on the Tablet. Check it out here:
Buy a Motion CL900 Tablet PC

I may use either or both these devices as a remote control or to remote desktop to the server so I can play music without needing the projector on.

Have a great Xmas guys

 

[TommySharp]

Thanks John! Always interesting to see what you're doing with your setup.

Looks like I might have to flag my idea of a DC-DC power supply for the "client/server", I don't want this thing to give me ANY issues in regards with graphics so am probably going to go with something like the GT520 which is silent and seems to have all the right stuff without being too expensive.

Will probably go i5 for the processor just for future proofing.

Now I'm off to start looking at motherboards..... Should probably be working but it's the last day before we close..... ;-)

 

[Bleazle]

...Remote: Microsoft MCE, with blasters to control other units. Can’t recommend highly enough ;-) Sorry Dave.

The Harmony One turns on my TV and Amp (to the correct settings) at one click of a button (touch screen to be precise) - or if my youngest boy wants to play Wii he clicks one button and it sets the TV and Amp to the right setting for that - programmable shortcuts (eg to Recorded TV, Music, etc), the ability to create macros and more make this remote unbeatable value for money Once I work out how to get it to get my wife to grab me a beer when I hit "On" it'll be perfect

I also have a MCE remote keyboard (Amazon) which is brilliant too A++

...Looks like I might have to flag my idea of a DC-DC power supply for the "client/server"..

So how will you power it? I thought you meant that there was no room for a PSU? I take it I misunderstood you..

 

[dvbkiwi]

On the graphics card, I use one of these

PB Tech - VGASAP5457 : Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 1G GDDR3 PCI-E Video Card , 650Mhz Core Clock - PCIe 2.0 - Low Profile Ready with bracket ( 11166-32-20G )

they are built for HTPC's It does 1080p with a smile and doesn't have a fan, also has very low power consumption. I use the HDMI for video and audio, the on board audio works great

 

[TommySharp]

Hey guys, anyone got some contacts in the states or somewhere who could help me get my hands on a Intel Core i3-2120T? Can't seem to find them anywhere in NZ.

I like the idea of the 35W TDP to try and see if I can stay low powered and still get the 200W DC-DC power supply...

 

[TommySharp]

Might also try get a FlexATX size power supply which will fit in the case nicely and also give me 250-300 watts. Just have to try find one, not very many options around....

Doesn't look like I'm making this build easy on me but I plan to take my time and get it right...