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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.
No mention of noise, or rather the lack of it, in the article? Pretty important IMHO, unless you're just gonna watch Top Gun over and over again. Those jet eng^D^D^D^D^D^D^D fans make me crazy!
Here's the article copy-n-pasted...
/Memory Stick /Secure Digital reader connectors (optional). Other required parts would be the processor, hard drive and memory. I would also recommend a black DVD-RW/CD-RW drive from either Toshiba or Pioneer.
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Ever wondered if you could integrate your computer into your home theater system? Well it might be easier than you think. Come join us as we attempt to build an HTPC. From choosing the parts to building the actual system and reviewing it through a series of articles. Stage one of the HTPC (home theater PC) project explores the advantages of building a HTPC, which parts we would pick at a first glance and why.
I have often toyed with the idea of putting a computer into my family room and hooking it up to my home theater, but due to the lack of parts and an acceptable chassis design, I have repeatedly chosen to pass up this opportunity.
Computer cases are large, bulky and usually lacking in colors, while my home theater equipment is all black in color and match a rack-style size format. Computer DVD playback has been marginal at best often sporting an s-video output. With HDTV on the market and most new televisions sporting HDTV capability, why use a computers DVD playback with S-video resolution when you can buy a progressive scan stand alone DVD player which would support the televisions capabilities?
What we're talking about here is integrating a special PC computer into your current home theater, in effect, a Home Theater PC (HTPC). Similar to a stand alone DVD player, this computer will use your current receiver's decoder as well as other components of your home theater like your television and speakers. This is not a system review, just a project we are working on here in the labs. Build at your own risk especially as we've not yet completed our own. Look for a full review on our HTPC soon. We will let you know just how well everything works, whether it's worth the price and whether or not the technology is here or too ahead of its time.
atc600gx1 While I was looking at Trendetronics web site I noticed that they had a computer case that looked very similar in style to that of a home receiver. It is made out of black anodized aluminum, had round legs on it with a strip of gold, a fold down front panel that could hide any drives and front USB and FireWire ports. MAde by Cooler Master, this was the perfect HTPC case. Priced at $249, you still needed to purchase the computer components. The Cooler Master case requires a Micro ATX motherboard which could be tough to find with a full sized AGP graphics port. There are various Micro ATX motherboard on the market at the time of this article the motherboards that stood out to me where the ABIT BG7m Intel 845G chip set P4 478 Micro ATX motherboard, ASUS P4B533-VM Motherboard for Intel P4 478 with optional SPDIF and 5.1 channel AC3 sound and Smart Card
This was the base system of our HTPC system and there was some hardware upgrades that still had to be done. In order for this computer to play DVD movies in progressive scan format using HDTV signals, a video card with these abilities had to be found.
The first company that came to mind was ATI Technologies, famous for their All-In-Wonder (AIW) series. The newest incarnation, the AIW Radeon 8500DV recently came to market. This new video card is simply amazing in its feature set and performance. It has 64mb of video memory and uses the new Radeon chip for excellent graphics, and is a great foundation from which to base a full-featured multimedia video card.
All-in-wonder
While NVIDIA sells chips to be used in "Personal Cinema" product lines, they are not as full-featured as the offering from ATI. The AIW Radeon has hardware DVD decoding, Dolby 5.1 output using your receivers decoder, an RF remote control, Component video out put for HDTV support, two IEEE 1394 Fire wire ports, TV tuner, Hardware IDCT Acceleration for DVD its feature-set is complete down to the RF remote. If you want to download movies via camcorder, use the fire wire port. If you want to record your favorite TV show each week, use the built in Digital Video recorder software. Want to watch progressive scan DVD movies in HDTV format? No problem. You can even monitor your home using the security software and by hooking up extra cameras to this system. So after installing the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon card, I stillLogitech Freedom needed to install a FireWire/USB 2.0 Combo card. Iogear makes a FireWire/USB 2.0 combo card with two FireWire and USB ports in the front and one internal port for each format on the back of the card allowing you to run a cable to the front USB/FireWire ports on our HTPC case. Depending on which MicroATX motherboard you go with, you could also run an internal USB cable to one of the front USB port on our HTPC case.
To finish off this HTPC I need to find a good Wireless keyboard and optical mouse. I quickly headed over to Logitech and found my answer, the cordless freedom optical. This keyboard was larger than what I was looking for, but had all the controls on the keyboard I needed so I would have to compromise. One touch buttons that controlled e-mail, media player, internet browser, volume. The mouse was both wireless and optical so I did not have to worry about having to clean out the mouse ball and using it on a mouse pad. The great thing about the Logitech Freedom keyboard and mouse is the fact that it uses an RF technology. So even at a good 10 feet away, the keybaord and mouse still work. Remember that the ATI All-In-Wonder has a remote control as well, so I am not restricted to a keyboard and mouse for controlling the movie playback.
There are many other benefits of having a computer integrated into the home theater. Music and MP3 storage and playback through your home theater, surfing the internet with your family on the family room television set, streaming videos and media content for everyone to see on the television, streaming internet audio through your home theater is pure Digital sound.
So let's break down the features and benefits of this system:
- Industry-leading DVD playback with AC-3 Digital Audio output to enable Dolby® 5.1 surround sound
- DVD recording with the included DVD-RW/CD-RW drive
- HDTV support
- Dolby® digital stereo audio output (S/PDIF)
- Two external IEEE 1394/iLink(TM)/FireWire® ports, one internal
- Hydravision(TM) software enables you to display information on a TV and monitor at the same time
- RF remote Control
- Stereo TV tuner with 125 channels
- TV-ON-DEMAND
o Pause live TV or record live broadcasts and watch them later
o Get instant replays of favorite programs
o Click through the transparent live TV window to access your desktop - no more moving the TV window to get to your work!
- Use the integrated Gemstar GUIDE Plus+(TM) Interactive Program Guide1 to view and search TV listings by category, actor/performer, or date. Schedule and record programs at the click of a mouse - all the benefits of a Personal Video Recorder without the monthly fees
- Amazing TV features including:
o TV Magazine* - images and text from TV programs allowing you to read and archive TV programs
o Hot Words* - real-time notification when selected words are detected in programming
o Zoom & pan - zoom in on the action on-screen and choose your own close-ups
o Intelligent Teletext on your PC**
- Digital and analog video capture & editing
- MP3 storage and playback through home computer
- Wireless Keyboard and Mouse with one touch controls
- Streaming internet music through your home theater
- Surf the web using your television, for the whole family to enjoy
- Play state of the art videogames using the 64mb Radeon video processor
So in conclusion, if you are interested in integrating your computer into the home theater, you will have many options to choose from. The hardware and software are there and there are a number of case colors, sizes and designs to choose from. We simply chose what we felt was a sleek system for those that care about design. While I would price the system we built at just under two-thousand dollars (about $1900) the advantages are enormous. You would have one unit to replace your stand alone DVD player, VCR, DVR, and home computer. The advantages to this include future expansion. Want a newer video card? Simply replace the one in there. Want a larger hard drive, augment or replace the current one.
In my opinion, the HTPC will soon be the new trend in computing. Upgradeablility adds enormous benefits over pre-built systems and with a plethora of parts to choose from on the market, why wouldn't you build a top of the line HTPC system?
If you are interested in purchasing a system like this, I have included links to the manufacturers and their products for further information.
ATI Technologies
Trendetronics
Logitech
By Ian Bell
Staff Writer, Designtechnica.com
January 15, 2002
A jet engine? Here's something close. A quick high performance mod you should consider to your cooling fan is the 30,000rpm enhancement. What you need is a typical power supply cooling fan and a 30,000rpm dremel tool. You know where this is going...
Take the power supply fan and remove the c-clip holding the shaft. This clamp is hidden behind the manufacturer's sticker and can be removed with a pick. Pull the fan from the motor and note that the shaft fits right into the dremel tool. Good for +100mph blasts. The pull is very strong, so it might be a good idea to mount the beast securely.
If *that* wasn't enough, the jet speed mod is to increase the fan speed far above 30,000rpm's. Simply weaken the field current to the dremel's motor. This increases the motor's magnetic slip; even though available torque is reduced, its speed can be increased to the point of self destruction. Since its air cooled, why worry about the motor overheating?
I forgot to mention, its a good idea to remove the heavy magenet from the fan. If the assembly breaks due to forces generated, there may be significant property damage and bodily injury.
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
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.
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/
Time spent putting it together and tweaking the hardware: 20 or so hours.
Am I happy/satisfied? Fuck yeah.
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.
> IMHO, a Windows based PC is *not* a real HTPC
Uh, why not? Because of your OS dogmatism? Sorry, but not liking an OS for philosophical reasons is one thing, and perfectly understandable. But saying it can't be made into an HTPC when it clearly and demonstrably can is ludicrous.
I don't have a dedicated HTPC, but I use my PC for all purposes, including as an HTPC. It uses an All-in-Wonder series card under WindowsXP, and is rock-solid stable. I use it not just for playback of DVD, VCD, DivX, Quicktime, and older video files in a variety of codecs not even explicitly supported by Crossover on Linux, but also for TiVo-like MPEG and MPEG-2 video capture and Guide+ functionality. It flawlessly plays back all these formats on my TV. The fact that it does so using WindowsXP does not disqualify it from performing--well, from performing the dfunctions of a "real" HTPC and many more.
The fact that it runs under WindowsXP is something I consider to be an advantage because it handles old and obscure video formats and codecs which Linux is unlikely to, and new video formats which are likely to have Windows and Mac support long before they have Linux support. That is unfortunate, but it is just the way things are and likely will be for several years to come.
Another great advantage of using WinXP as the basis of a HTPC is that complete, functional, no-command-line-needed playback and recording software is available from a variety of vendors. This is important because, when I finally get around to building a second PC dedicated to HTPC/TiVo functionality, I won't have a keyboard connected to it like I do my present jack-of-all-trades box. A true HTPC should work seamlessly like any other multimedia component, and should therefore be fully controllable by remote. This precludes using many Linux packages, many of which are unusable without keyboard access. In contrast, many companies offer polished Windows software which is easily controlled by remote.
This is especially true of the software that comes with the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500 series cards--which also come with the best PC remote control ever, which is integrated well with their software. Seriously, nothing exists for Linux which is in the same league as this software and hardware combo. That is unfortunate, but it is a fact. Indeed, nothing else in the Windows world comes close either. But don't take my word for it; see for yourself here:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1609 fine. But I'm a pragmatist who just wants to se his damn movies without any fuss, and I do.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus