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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.
forget DesignTechnica -- look, if you *really* want to know what the hardcore insiders are doing, you go to AVS Forum's HTPC forum.
The other "insider" resource to check is Home Theater Forum.
DesignTechnica or other "PC Enthusiasts" sites can't even scratch the surface of what a true HTPC needs to have, and the varied solutions, etc. that go along with it. Not flaming, just telling the truth.
I've just bought a new house (previously we rented), and I'd like to the use the TV-out on my GeForce (MX 'cos I also wanted DualHead), SoundBlaster Audigy 5.1 Surround Sound (just above middle of the line), and Hauppauge WinTV Go (the bottom of that line) to provide music and video downstairs. The PC is (PCs are) in the back upstairs room; I have everything except the cables and downstairs speakers.
Now, I'm not an audiophile, just a nerd; I was just a tiny little bit shocked when I saw that audiophiles are willing to pay (presumably) EUR 400 per metre of cabling (those are the prices asked second hand in NL! Gold links, silver wire sure, but still!).
My question: the multimedia components I have are not too expensive and replaceable if they aren't good enough. What to go for as far as cables and speakers are concerned is harder, the sites for audiophiles recommend somewhat too expensive stuff.... Suggestions please!
some people can't afford a HDTV, a DVD player and an assload of speakers.
/.'ers use a "stand-alone" CD-player these days, I for one don't.
Other see more in their PC than just a PC (let's admit it, I do a whole lot more on my PC today than I did 5 years ago, watching a movie decently was pure fiction back then)
Still others don't care about TV's and DVD player and will only invest in their PC(s). (I for one don't intend to buy a TV, ever...)
The PC is becoming a central entertainment device, on which you can communicate with others, listen to music, watch TV or movies, read, code and other fun stuff. So why not enhance the experience?
besides, you're a nerd for something...
I wonder how many
"The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
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Hi guys. I've been wondering something for a bit. Would someone tell me why people dumb huge wads of cash on these big plasma screen displays when they could spend a coupld of grand on a decent digital XGA projector and project the picture onto a screen/wall at 9 feet by 6 or something like that?
Just curious... That's what I'd do if I had any money.
Being a fan of no-hassle embedded solutions myself, I'd have to agree. The place in home theater that a PC does belong, though, is for playing all those movies we've been collecting in DIVX formats and such. I'm sure everyone, especially college students, has amassed a large collection of movies (and TV shows, etc) in formats friendly to the computer but not the home theater. Some day, we may want to watch them in the family room.
What I'd like is a more embedded-like solution to this problem. Say a minimalist PC. Give it no/little local storage (preferably net-boot, though a solid state disk would work too), have it boot almost instantly, and make it mount network shares (samba/NFS/etc) and/or CDs for all the video content. Then have a simple menu-selector app running that lets you chose/play movies. The back-end OS could be anything. Preferably an x86 'nix (FreeBSD, Linux, etc.), for network interoperability and managability. However, the back-end should be mostly invisible when you're actually using it.
Time spent putting it together and tweaking the hardware: 20 or so hours.
Am I happy/satisfied? Fuck yeah.
There are rumours that Apple's next digital device will, in fact, be some sort of home theatre device:
http://www.macosrumors.com
You can choose to believe what you want (and these rumours sites are notoriously unreliable), but it has been pretty well documented that Apple is working on something along these lines.
This would not be the company's first foray into the market. Apple history buffs out there will remember the ill-fated MacTV:
http://www.lowendmac.com/500/mactv.shtml
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Noise is easy to solve if you dont have high requirements such as with this system. Ie a P3 / P4 is by standard quite quiet, just use a 'quiet psu' (power supply) and some quiet fans, and you shouldnt have a problem. Also there are a lot of very quiet hdd's out there from people like Seagate and Maxtor..
:(
This system being mainly for video / dvd, etc wouldnt need much more than the entry level cpu (think 1.1ghz - 1.4ghz even that's overkill).
Noise comes from needing an Athlon with some monstrous 6000rpm fan to keep it cool!