Slashdot Mirror
How to Build The Perfect Home Theater PC
Ian Bell writes: "We have just updated our HTPC guide to include some new parts for building the perfect home theater PC. We scoured the net and talked with various manufacturers to find these hard to find parts and components. This includes a new component width black anodized aluminum case complete with reciever sytle legs, a fold down front door and front USB/FireWire ports. Add to this an ATi AIW Radeon 8500 DV, DVD-RW/CDR-RW drive and Dolby Digital sound and you have the perfect HTPC. Check out our guide for complete system specs pictures and links to where you can find these hard to find parts. This system replaces your DVD player complete with HDTV and progressive scan support, Tivo or Replay TV and TV guide." Update: 05/26 23:44 GMT by T : Helstein writes with another All-In-Wonder based approach, his 1U Multimedia Station.
I know ATI has the most comprehensive video-handling VGA cards, but I'd strongly recommend you dump it in favor of a GeForce-based card with video in/out. ATI's drivers have always been funky and I've never been satisfied with them.
This advice is for a Windows-based system; I don't have any experience with *nix drivers for the ATI cards.
The Radeon 8500 is seriously broken for playing DVDs on a very high quality display. The gamma correction is screwed up, preventing proper display of many scenes. Furthermore, the AIW is a somewhat inferior capture card.
If you really want to know what cooks, check out the Granddaddy of A/V Forums and look in their Home Theater Computers Forum. There are two threads in particular of interest:
HTPC FAQ
Best in Class HTPC Component Listing
FWIW, ATI has given a prerelease driver to one of the AVS Forum's most prominent members for testing and he claims the gamma correction problem is fixed in that driver. Who knows when the drivier will be released and if it will be even remotely stable...many of their most recent drivers are pure, unadulterated fecal matter.
ATI's linux support used to suck massively though lately I think they have been better. Besides, I still recommend that people get seperate tv tuner cards as they can live a good bit longer then one computer, and video cards are, for the gamer at least, about the most commonly upgraded piece of equipment. Also you can leverage the fact that WinXP killed a lot of TV tuner cards that work fine, but don't have WinXP drivers, in many cases these will work just as well if not better under linux.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
They mention HDTV in the article, but only in the context of HDTV output of a lo-res source. The DVD's are 480p at best. So, you can scale them up to 720p or 1080i, but it's not full HD.
Slap an HDTV PCI card in there, and get true 1080i (1920x1080) HDTV. They also HD PVR functions, and some even do DVD decoding & scaling in hardware.
Check out the MyHD Card, the HiPix, or the AccessDTV cards for options.
Unfortunately, none of these (that I know of) support Linux. The MyHD is the newest, and the HiPix has an open source effort to enhance their Windows software.
If you live in an area that has digital TV broadcasts (most major cities do), HDTV is the way to go.. there is a LOT of HD Programming available.
Depends on several factors. The most important ones are the pipe bandwidth, the amout of data to transfer, the amount of ram available on the server, the amount of ram needed per process, and the server time needed to complete a dynamic page creation.
There are two ways to slashdot a site. Either it has too little bandwidth to handle the rush of visitors, in which case it slows down to the point where most attempts fail before a connection can be made. Or the server, due to a large quantity of dynamic processes takes too long to run the individual processes and runs out of available physical ram and starts thrashing, which just slows it down more, until the point that the box is useless. Of course, both issues can contribute to the problem.
There are several ways to avoid these problems. More bandwidth always helps, but reducing the amount of data per page to send is cheaper and easier. Stipping down the images and gzipping the html source helps immensely. Use static pages wherever possible, especially for the homepage. Limit the total number of connections so that a fully loaded server won't exceed your ram limits. Better to deny access to some and let others through, rather than destroy it for everyone. Keep your dynamic processes fast. Mod them into the server if possible. The less time they run, the less time they allocate ram.
All that being said, if you're going to submit your site to slashdot, you better be ready for the slashdot effect. None of this is new to anyone who visits here on a regular basis. WE all know what happens, so should they. They could have loadtested their server beforehand.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I've been wondering this myself.
The problem is, with digital projectors, they are noisy (big fan to cool the lightbulbs in em) and the bulbs tend to be expensive when they burn out.
Of course, you would also need a big flat, matte white painted wall to project onto, etc.
There are major Home theatre heads who do have such setups, but usually the project is in a projection room, with a double layer of optical class to project through.
Also, don't forget, that with a projector behind you, you would have to change your entire cabling setup (because everything was in front, plugged into your TV, remember?) so everything is behind you. After someone has dropped a few hundred (thousand at times) on cables, getting the speakers setup JUST right, its a pain to move everything around. A Plasma TV is something you can put in place of your TV, get an image just like from your projector, but without the hassle of having to setup a projector.
(and then there is an entire other issue of which tvs can provide true "blacks" etc.)
Another consideration is that some of these projectors do not work well in lit rooms or sunlight. Secondly, there is a cost in new bulbs and stuff. I'm not sure exactly, but I've heard that bulbs don't last that long and are quite expensive.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
For those looking for a cheap home theater PC upgrade, the Creative Audigy sound card provides Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and an integrated IEEE 1394 Firewire port. I was surprised how easy it was to capture video from my Sony Camcorder through the 1394 port and burn it to a Video CD. PriceWatch has several companies listing it for under $60.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
One thing that I was interested in after reading the description was the case they are using... Since the article is /.'ed, I did a little searching around and found more information on the case itself:
I believe they are referring to the Cooler Master ATC-600 Series. That site doesn't mention anything about it being available in black though.
There is a review and pictures of it at http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review=281
Now imagine if Gateway or Philips or Apple or Toshiba just pre-built an HTPC system, with workarounds for the most annoying compromises that enthusiasts now have to make. These compromises include: Inappropriate cases, noisy fans, terrible RF interferance from badly shielded D/A converters stuck inside the case... and worst of all, terrible, incoherent controls.
It seems dead obvious to me that since there are RF remote controls and also RF optical mice, there should be an RF remote control/mouse. You know, laser on the bottom, buttons on the top, plus two big "click" buttons at the front and a mouse wheel. Doesn't it just seem like an obvious step? So why isn't it out yet?
Next, there needs to be a universal media player which plays by default in "full screen" mode and has the same controls for TV play, PVR playback and the playback of other video media (either on the hard drive or elsewhere on the LAN). Every feature of the media player would be controlled by the remote. For example, the "Pause" button would pause whatever was playing, be it a DVD, live TV or a video file. Next, there would need to be a flexible file browser which is actually usable at the very low resolutions available on a TV. Its default setting would be to show only playable media files (and it would be able to scan the entire network, not just the living room HD).
There. That's it. Everything else is already available. Granted, to design the remote might cost a bit, but all the technology in it is already very mature. It's basically a mouse/remote frankenstein--not terribly fanciful. Making an appropriate case would not be hard. Finding a manufacturer for the right graphics card would not be hard. Shielding the audio D/A converter to meet audiophile standards would not be hard (at worst, you'd have a break-out box). Writing a pretty interface for a file browser would not be terribly labor intensive, especially if you basically just skinned Konqueror. God damn. I wish I owned a hardware company. I'd make them rich!
Somebody, please hurry and do this before the CPTCBATOA or whatever bill passes, rendering this sort of thing illegal.