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Home Entertainment PC Mod
Hughesey writes "With PC's beginning to enter the Home Entertainment scene, OC-Melbourne have come up with the perfect way to integrate a PC into your Home Theater setup. The OC-Melbourne HEPC. Quote From the Article: 'So now we have a PC that is capable of replacing many separate devices (such as a DVD player, and consoles), but lets admit it, that big beige case probably looks far worse than the hardware its replacing. Some people have gotten around this by using specialised cases such as those from Shuttle, or fancy aluminium cases such as those from LianLi. These cases, however, still don't integrate seamlessly into modern home theater systems, as they still maintain their "PC" look. Enter the OC-Melbourne HEPC...'"
Check it out
2 posts (first posts no less, already slashdotted. slap a mirror up will ya?
I'm sure they are quite cool mods
Sent from your iPad.
that big beige case probably looks far worse than the hardware its replacing...
No problems for me, i never close my case anyway...
A couple years back when Intel had the guys in the anti-static suits doing their advertising I remember catching some pictures of some really awesome cases at some Intel show in Japan. There were a couple round ones in colors like bright orange and pink. Overall they were really great, but of course they were never mass produced. I'd love to get my hands on one, it at least pictures.
Am I the only one that remembers these?
sig.
The box can be hidden. It's the poor integration of various bits of software that is the problem with integrating into a home theatre system.
Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things, poor flexibility in IR remotes for PCs (and their integration to software), having to reboot Windows when it gets grumpy, and so forth, are the reasons why it's painful to get a PC as a regular part of your home theatre. The box color or size is trivial as compared to those issues.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
How do we ditch the fan?
Even the quiet fan on a PS2 is clearly audible in quiet points of a DVD or CD. No audiophile will tolerate this sort of interference
The last time there was a story on cases someone posted a link to some gorgeously designed cases by some company in Japan. I was at work and was unable to bookmark it... Enermax and Lian-Li make decent-looking cases but there must be other manufacturers who use interesting design in their PC cases? Oh, and windows are overrated =P
I wouldn't mind having one of these next to my TV.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
There's something about these 'Home Entertainment' systems that is deeply disturbing. They sit in a corner of your living space like a modern shrine, exciting in their adherents the same passivity and receptiveness as the old places of worship.
The worshipper sits before them slackjawed, Pringles are the Body of Christ and Sunny Delight their communion wine. The worshipper becomes the holy consumer, contributing nothing but willing to pay, and pay again for his 'entertainment' to any creature that can make them forget themselves for a while longer.
There is a strange social aspect to these systems, too. The size of your television is important to men. Self-loathing eats away like a cancer at the man who cannot afford a television at least as large as his friends; why, he is not only willing but eager to go into debt to avoid this Terrible Shame. And the man who buys his first DVD player knows he is someone.
Yes, someone who will be paying inflated prices for 'entertainment' on DVD from now on. For just like the Old Religions, there is a coinslot built into the edifice.
It doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to build it into your life day by day.
(Sure, the images load fast--it's the unnecessary shtml that's /.ed...when will they learn?)
This sort of integration is a good thing, though it really needs to be done commercially (not as a case mod hack.) At some point in the future I hope to see ubiqutous computing--people should just be able to do what they want without having to sit in front of "the computer" like a supplicant in a shrine. That sort of approach changes the design of computers out of necessity--a distinct keyboard and monitor just don't make any sense in that environment. And human nature being what it is, people are going to want machines that blend into their homes, not stick out like ugly distractions the way they do now.
But somehow I can't see it topping this in the aesthetic computer department :).
How about letting someone know when they are going to make the slashdot site. They could make websites without the encumbersome banner ads, obligatory BIG images on every page. Then just maybe, I, with my T1 could actually see there page. Very unfortunate as I am truly interested in this piece.
a computer will allways be a computer, and a television will allways be a television, you can take some of the features of a computer and add it to a television, and maybe improve it, like maybe one of those new 200 gig harddrives would replace a VCR for recording & replaying shows, etc...etc...
but to try to add a desktop computer to a TV/Stereo combo in the living will only complicate things, what do you do of a family member wants to piddle with the computer while you want to watch TV, i can see the feuds now over something like this...
keep computers & TV/stereos seperate, but it does not hurt to add features from one to the other...
...which has actually been done before. I have also seen PC's crammed into old CD Player cases. While a fairly nifty hack it is by no means what a home entertainment PC system should look like.
/. headlines becoming more and more full of hyperbole?
This is what a PC disguised as a cruddy VCR looks like.
Is it just me or are
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
Here's a great resource for those wanting to buy or to build a Home Theater PC, complete with sleek, black cases for the do-it-yourselfers and some ultra-quiet pre-fab models:
http://www.digitalconnection.com/
Friends help you move... Real friends help you move bodies...
How about a "Heat Pipe"?
m in ipc-07.html
m in ipc-09.html
I don't mean a peltier,
I refer to Tom's hardware review of the Shuttle mini-pc:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/02q3/020710/
and
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/02q3/020710/
(it does have a fan, but it's rotation can be controlled)
Personally, (if I had the money) I'd either get a brand new computer and UNDERclock it so it doesn't heat up while I disconnect the fans,
OR I'd get one of those "Sigma Designs" MPEG1,2,4 hardware decoders so I would'nt have to use a new noisy computer.
Another thought:
Anyone have an idea how much noise these 115V oversize fans make?
at
http://davedina.apestaart.org
we're trying to make a linux-box that seamlessly integrates every bit of software needed for a multimedia box.
Development has been slowing down lately. But we HAVE a working model in our living room.
So give us a bit incentive to keep working on this project: subscribe to our sourceforge mailing-list and give us your comments/ideas.
Thanks!
On the topic of PCs and home entertainment, could anybody out there point out some decent (and yet preferably free) linux voice command software?
The only thing I can spot via google is some shareware app called MP3VoiceCommand which seems to not even be available any more.
Although some sort of daemon which monitors the microphone and can do anything whatsoever would be nice, I'd settle for something which can only control music... I have a computer which pumps music to speakers outside by my hot tub, I'd love to be able to run a microphone out to it and change the songs and/or volume just by speaking. It would be nifty, oh yes.
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
I keep an old PC hidden behind the couch, wired to my stereo. It's running Andromeda, which manages and serves MP3 collection. I remote control it via my laptop over Wi-Fi. It's pretty neat, actually...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Its also slim and sexy. They should base their designs on this sort of thing.
My laptop, along with 802.11 setup, makes a decent entertainment system in EVERY room in the house (and the garden, although I do have problems with sunlight [when I don't have problems with rain :-) ] ).
It's handy (obviously), attractive (small black thing with sexy flat panel display), and does most things pretty well (Radeon is OK for 3D games, and there's an inbuilt DVD and CD-RW.)
Plus, it has SVGA out for those occasions where you do want to use the big TV - and when you are doing that, the Clie solves the problem of multiple remote controls. I am lacking a wireless keyboard and mouse, because the range on most of them is only a couple of metres which isn't quite enough in a big Victorian house.
Integration of all the software is of course a nightmare, under both of the installed operating systems.
Zack
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
There are heads of HTPC cases out there, if you look hard enough. All the shuttle cases still look like PCs, just PCs with plastic "chrome" on them. I managed to hunt down a case that came in Gold and more or less matches my Marantz 6200 AV Amp (a beast of a machine). Sure it costs a heap and has to be imported from Korea but check out the pictures...
p c_board&y_number=65 p c_board&y_number=70&nnew=2 p c_board&y_number=79&nnew=2
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=ht
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=ht
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=ht
http://www.moddin.net/review.asp?ReviewID=45
I found it via the "Home Theater Computers" forum at:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/
Take the hint - look to Korea for cool cases.
0daymeme.com: Great stuff.
I finally broke down and built a TV machine last summer.. I mainly used it to play Divx movies--both ones I ripped from my DVDs myself and ones I downloaded from Morpheus.
Remote Control:
- I bought an IRman and got it working with Winamp's VidAmp..
- At first, I kept no mouse or keyboard on the box. I opted instead to use the remote,
Case:TweakUI-configured auto-login, and VNC (from my laptop already wired-up in the living room.
This eliminated any inherent case rattle.
to try to keep the AthlonXP 1700+ and three Maxtor drives (one 30GB and two 80GB) cool.
What have I learned?
hard-earned movies in the event of failure.
What will I do differently next time?
nasty, tricked-out, noisy system to handle all of the grunt-work in another room.
On-Screen Display menus and things.. One of the bottom lines of my experience is that Windows/FAT32
*kills* drives.
have one DVB card in the
STB to add pause-live-TV functionality. For the setup and recording of other scheduled TV programs and movies, the "big box" in the other room that will have somewhere in the
neighborhood of 4 or 5 DVB cards. This is fine for Digital Cable.. If I had a dish, it would
likely be very different.
I really didn't do all *that* bad.. I had ripped somewhere around 60 of the DVDs myself.
I've really got to say this--AVI-archived DVDs beats the friggin bug juice out of any multi-DVD player.
Here are some more related links..
LinuxDVB
VDR
Currently, computers cannot, and will not, simply fit in with home entertainment setups. There are several reasons why:
1. Inconvenient input devices. Though wireless keyboards and mice (and integrated wireless keyboard/trackball) are all very well, what you're after most of the time is simply a remote control. There was a device made by Animax called the Multimedia Magic, which was perfect for the job - it even allowed you to control the mouse and type addresses into IE - but it doesn't have W2K drivers at the moment, and it relies on an external IR receiver. Perhaps some universal IR input device standard should be made, so that you can have an IR input port on the front of your PC, and use any input device you wish with it. Difficult to set up, I know, but it's an idea.
2. Appearance - whilst there are many nice PC cases around at the moment, getting one small enough that looks nice is difficult. That said, the Dell Optiplex GX150 is a sleek little thing - I can't get on with its laptop-style drives though. Also, it's not configured for home entertainment.
3. Graphics systems - some PCs don't come with TV-out, which is pretty much a necessity, unless you want to buy a very big monitor and shove a standalone TV tuner in.
4. Noise - covered by previous posters, getting a silent PC is nigh on impossible. It would be possible in theory, but you'd need some hefty heatsinks sticking out of the back, which could compromise the appearance.
5. Squeezing it all in the box - for a decent HEPC, you'll be wanting 5.1 sound output, a decent graphics card with S-Video out, a reasonable processor, large hard drive to store your (il)legal MP3s and DivXs, DVD reader, decent processor, etc etc etc... the Shuttle SS51 looks good for this, but again, it's only one system and it's not ideal. It does look quiet though...
6. Not many people want one - whilst I feel I am making a circular argument here, there must be little demand for HEPCs because there aren't any ideal devices.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
So your home entertainment systems looks like either a pc or a pile of stereo equipment. At least with a pc you have plenty of case options to match the room. It may still look like a pc, but as long as the feng shui is good, it works. Standards in pc hardware shape make adding and upgrading easier than a home stereo too. Try mixing and match different pieces of home entertainment equipment from different manufacturers. Sure most is a standard width and made to be somewhat stackable, but the front bezel's usually have designs that only match there particular manufacturers line. That is, if you go with black, the universal home stereo color. If not, your really in trouble. With a pc, just buy a case with front door. Then it doesn't matter that the dvd drive is a different color. It's also all in one clean, easy to manage, box. :-)
a solution to the noise would be to run keyboard/mouse/ir/svideo extensions to the room the Home theatre is in an keeping the pc elsewhere
main prob then would be drives... what's the max length of a firewire cable?
If you need something sleek looking and space-saving, get a rackmount case like this one I'm not recommending this particular case actually - I'm late for work and I just ran to partspc.com for the first pic I could find ;)
And did anyone else vomit over their hardware choices (let alone their OS choice)?/.ed again! And not a Chance to see it, eigther!
Somebody fire up the Way Back Machine to, say yesterday and post a link, please?
Thanks!
God damn, those ads really happened?!? I thought they were just a side effect of the drugs me and all my dotcom buddies were doing at my apartment.
Man, I miss the 90's!
I had my entertainment-system pc case painted shiny black at a local auto paint shop. It cost about $40, and looks awesome.
I'd much rather have entertainment gear that *works like* my PC. That is, I can reprogram it to suit my needs; various data sources are multiplexed onto a data bus and can be routed concurrently to various sinks; I can plug a card into the bus and add new ports or other capabilities; I can just copy losslessly from old to new media as storage technology changes.
Think about *that*, media moguls!
I would buy the Coolmaster case if I had the money. There is a good review here..
www.hexus.net
This is the case I wanna get, its about £170. I'll put in a 200Gig HD, DVD etc. Lan connection back to my ADSL.
The old IBM Ispiratis were classic examples of VCR Computers. They were sleek, black, had a dvd, and one Christmas they were selling (w/o a monitor) for $499CAN.
:-)
They don't sell Ispiratis anymore, but their netvistas still have the potential (with a few case mods) to be sleek, black, cool little VCR computers for your home entertainment system.
(Or if you cold find an Ispirati case and install a better board and memory in it, it would work as well.)
~ kjrose
The audiophiles I know are exclusively vinyl-based, with turntables so solid (and finely balanced) that my bathwater goes down the plughole the other way round when they switch their kit on.
Wow, a turntable that reverses the earth's magnetic poles!! Where can I get one of those!?!? Imagine all the fun that can be had with one of those, not to mention the awesome breakbeats oozing out of my speakers while I wreak havoc on the world's compasses!! :-)) (--insert megalomanic grin here)
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
I see a lot on what case to use to minimize the eye carnage when you web a PC and your living room, and also I've read on what OSes to use. But what I have not seen is a comiplation of software to use.
I want to be able to:
* Have TIVO functionality
* Play my MP3s
* RIP CDs
* Download multimedia files via broadband inernet
* Manage my downloaded and existing media
* Be able to copy a CD without having to use my PC
* Play DVDs
* Listen to the radio
* Record radio shows (I like talk radio and Art Bell)
* Be able to transfer files to and from my PC
* And most of all, BE SO EASY TO USE MY PC-ILLITERATE WIFE CAN USE IT!
I think I have the remote control problem licked. I have a Philips Pronto T-1000. Probably the best remote control you can have, but I know newer versions with RF exist. Mine is IR only, but that is fine, I want my HEPC for one room, for now.
I can build the PC, I know how to install Linux perfectly, but want software will let me do all of the above and probably more in one cohesive GUI that can be controlled with a remote control. Keep in mind, again, that I can do A LOT with my Pronto remote control including creating macros.
for all us people to whom fashion is more important that function.
Here in Europe we had this. It was called Olivetti Envision. I was working in a department store by the time, and the first time I saw it I thought it was REALLY cool, but there was no actual reaction from people, and Technical Service sucked. But had the most sleek wireles keyboard w/ integrated trackball i had seen. We are talking year 1996 ya know!
This guys inspiration for doing this was to have it look like an integral part of his home entertainment setup. Have you looked at the pictures? He could have put a full tower server case there and it wouldn't look any worse than the cheap OSB modular TV stand or the sheet covering something in the background. The mod is cool, I'll admit, but he probably doesn't have a wife telling him he can't have a computer in the living room. So why confine yourself to a system limited to the insides of a VCR. BTW, what pc mod'er doesn't own a Dremel????
-- Probability does not dismiss possibility --
1. I use Zapstream remote control. I never even touch my keyboard/mouse. (http://www.streamzap.com/)
2. cases are easy to find, I have one that insulates the noise
3. Hmm, I have a Nividia MX 4400 card that outputs 1024X768 to my tv will no problem. Even booting and bios is displayed on screen,
4. I have case fans, cpu fans, and an an enermax powersupply and my sound is muffled by insulation padding. The PC is quieter than my Sony VHS VCR..
5. They have many mini-atx case and custom boxes , even some rack mounts that fit well in a home entertainment system.
6. I sure want one. everyone I show my system seems to want one.. I have over 60 gigs of mp3, tons of ripped dvd movies, dolby 5.1 surround sound, games like Max payne, Allied Assault, GTA3 that I could play on my big screen.
The problem I have is my reliance on Microsoft. All the cool HTPC stuff like 5.1 sound. games, remote control is dependent on MS.
I hate to admit this but using XP, I dont have this problem. The machine boots up in 6 seconds fast (from Bios to desktop). I use a remote control, streamzap and it has hot keys for all my major apps -- Windows Media Player,TV, WinAmp, PowerDVD, WinDVD.
When I stick a DVD in, the automatically fires up and I can control it from the remote. There is no windows' desktop. I use Talisman and have about 4 icons Bug buttons) that I use to navigate my hot key apps.
I hate to admit this but Windows XP does a good job. I've tried several remotes and girder. It can be programmed/customized to the point where you don't need to use a keyboard/mouse for your regulat activites. Only time I use those input devices is to play games.
Attention windows lovers! Our old buddy Bill has anticipated your needs and is hard at work on EXACTLY what you want! Yes, this Chritma$, for ONLY $1500-$3000 you too can own a Windows Media Center PC, which incorporates the oh-so user-friendly Windows XP Media Center Edition OS in a TV-based PC that is "specifically designed for use with a remote control" and includes a "Digital Video Recorder" integrated with the OS!!!! This integrated program breaks new ground just like your old favorite monopolistic application, Internet Explorer! Manufacturers rushing to market with this breakthrough consumer-oriented device include Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, and NEC. Integrated Copy Protection, anyone?
e view.asp
Waiting to be slashdotted: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/freestyle_pr
I recently took on this pc-to-tv project, thought I'd share my experience.
I purchased a 42" mitsubishi hdtv.. after adding all the usual suspect components (progressive scan dvd/dts receiver/surround speakers) I looked at hooking up an existing pc to the system for listening to mp3's/having a cool winamp visual screen on the tv, as well as having icq and aim from the living room. I purchased a wireless keyboard/mouse combo off ebay for about $30 which works very nice from up to a 15-20 foot range. overall, it worked wonderfully with the exception of resolution (for hdtv standards). my goal was to get 1024 res on the 42". I found a cool VGA to component (Y-Pb-Pr) converter for $119. This is where I'm at now.. my next project will be a wireless video transmitter from the computer to the tv, since the fans do get kind of noisy, not to mention the issue of heat.
While I find this to be an amusing case mod, it doesn't really fit the bill of a true home entertainment pc. Visit http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s= &forumid=26 for the real thing. Don't forget to read the FAQ! It takes a lot more than a unobtrusive case to make a useful HTPC.
Yeah, this will solve all my digital hub needs.
Run Linux, *BSD, or some other traditional server OS on there. Storage should be RAID5 with huge/cheap ATA drives, and just assume they're going to fail, so make sure you monitor the RAID's status and replace drives as necessary. (Maxtor is ok, because they're cheap. Remember: you're already resigned to occasional drive failure. If you buy quality drives because you can't stand the thought of a drive going out, then you've already lost. Look at it merely in terms of yearly equipment cost, where time and dataloss cost should be about zero if you do things right.) Speed isn't a major factor: you're mostly going to be doing sequential reads, requested at less than one megabyte per second. Hard disks are almost overkill, but that's where the price/size winner is today. What you need is capacity and redundancy. ATA combined with RAID5, delivers.
(I wish someone made cheap/huge ATA drives that spun at only 3600 RPM, or even slower. I want big energy-efficient and cool-running drives for my server, and I'm willing to trade transfer speed for it.)
Then multimedia stuff can be done on a separate machine which doesn't have its own storage, and instead, relies on the network. Lighter and more RT-ish OSes such as QNX, BeOS, etc. should theoretically work a lot better, but I'm starting to think Linux is good enough, provided you have a fast CPU (or two ;-). And multimedia is something where openness is very important. You don't want to be using closed codecs or have your playback application(s) not be tweakable, or have to be limited by someone else's imagination of how you're going to be doing things. I think that at the highest levels, the app should be in a high-level scripting language (e.g. Python) so that it's easy to diddle with. Python+PyOgg(and related libraries)+lcdproc+libirman has turned out to be a major winner for my music playback; I hope to use a similar approach for video, someday.
IMHO, this is premature unless you're keeping the DVD's encoding instead of transcoding. I don't think today's super-compressed video codecs (e.g. DiVX) are good enough, yet. At least not for action and special-effects movies; if it has Jet Li or a spaceship in it, I don't want to watch a DiVX. But you're right: movies need to get onto always-accessible media, not removable media. I want to be picking an entry from a menu, not physically juggling/finding shiney disks. Like CDs have become, DVDs should be for distribution, not playback.As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Not only can it play games, but there is already a mod to allow us tp play DivX movies streamed over our lan. Linux support is just around the corner, who could ask for anyting more for $200?
Let's all say it, Thanks Microsoft!
--Chris
Isn't it kind of the point to have a PC next to your entertainment center so when someone asks 'What is that?' you can brag about how you have Gb's of mp3's and 100's of divx on there? Did I miss something here? Since when did the /. community not want to have a bit of 'nerd' in every room of the house?
g
15 seconds?? I get annoyed at my DVD player
taking 2 seconds to announce "Welcome to DVD World!!" whenever I turn it on.
There's nothing like blurting out religious metaphors about home theater enthusiasts to score a little karma! You know our geek community is getting bad when there are sociology majors trolling in our forums.
You're a very poetic troll indeed, but a troll is a troll and it's unfortunate you weren't moderated as such.
People just want to replicate the movie experience at home, nothing more, nothing less. It's a money pit, a dubious one at that, but what hobby isn't?
Cheers.
Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things
Yeah? Even if some open-source project manages to make a set-top Linux distribution that manages to move almost everything to the numeric keypad (for binding to IR remotes), how do you enter a URI into a set top box's web browser? Or to compose e-mail? Or to enter the name of a CD that isn't up on freedb yet?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I am looking into the home pc entertainment and i saw this card that came out for sigma designs. http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/xcard.htm
:)
It is a great card with component out 5.1, able to display a full screen movie while browsing internet on your computer with a separate monitor. Includes a remote control as well and supports a dedicated processor for divx movies as well as the decoder for most popular dvds.
Works great and my case is a all black case to match my black entertainment system, and going to install a clear panel with a blue neon light
So, I bought one of these and it's sitting in pieces on top of my current 'puter. But after move-in, it will have a tremendous job ahead of it:
It will serve as one of these HEPC or whatever you call it. It has S-video out, decent sound (my standalone DVD player will take care of good sound requirements), and best of all, it has 2 fans... nothing else. No hard drive, no floppy, no cd-rom. Nothing.
That said, it is quite obvious that it will be functioning as a diskless client, booting off a server. This server will provide everything via NFS (yes, I'm behind a firewall, so don't bother trying to hack). Hopefully, in time I will produce some software that is basically an OSD similar to that of the TV guide with Time Warner's digital cable. That way, there is no need to move a pseudo-mouse with the numbers on the remote. The last step of the project will be to create a CD-archiver that mechanically loads/unloads CDs remotely. mmmm, laziness
Call your senator! I did
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
I went to their main home page and got re-directed to the system control panel. Not the smartest re-direct I've ever seen. Has anyone else been able to get to anything?
-Z
"With enough memory and hard drive space, anything in life is possible!"
What about underclocking? Reduce the core voltage and lower the frequency your CPU is running on. Both will reduce the power consumption, and thus reduce heat and this might make it possible to not use a fan at all! You have to find out yourself which values actually work, I am still overclocking mine... Paul
Can't see if this has already been posted, but I found this at Trendetronics. It has that home theatre piece of equipment look that most people desire for HTPCs, but it only accepts MicroATX. (Doh!)
Tape is a pretty iffy answer as well, as there aren't any affordable tape drives with that capacity. Last I checked, the biggest tapes were 33GB (fraudulently advertised as 66GB, of course), so it a backup would take multiple volumes. Multiple volumes means it doesn't get done.
*clickity-click* Hmm.. it looks like bigger tape drives have come along. 100 Gig tapes are available at $3000 for a drive and $100 per tape. Ugh, that's not the way to go.
Backing up to other hard disk(s), as you mentioned, may be the best way to go.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Oh yes, the projector is the way to go with DVD's. I have the Plus 1100 and its great. I get a 20 foot screen. Its just like being at the movies.
Your right about the light. I can only use it at night. We have "Movie Night" about three times a week. For the rest of the time I have a TV that someone gave me. Next year I'm going to build a theater in my back yard. No windows.
The above is not worth reading.
Thats a nice anecdote, but I prefer actual statistics. When I was last shopping for HDD, the Maxtor 7200rmp disk had a better mean time between failures than either the WD or IBM drives.
Since I have not had any trouble with my Maxtor drives, I think that the guy is probably correct in supposing that the deaths were heat related.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
It depresses me that because I don't have an account, most poeple will never see this case. I won't, however, make an account.
Case fits an ATX motherboard, 600W PSU, and the facade has an IR port as well as a place for a DVD drive.
AV Computer Case
the link in the story is dead.
"Beginning to enter the Home Entertainment scene"?!?
Some PCs, such as the Commodore Amiga CDTV have been integrated seamlessly into modern home theater systems for over a decade now.
The CDTV was expressly designed to not look like an intimidating computer; rather it was supposed to look like a friendly, familiar stereo or home video component. It didn't help much; CDTV was an expensive failure for Commodore, much like the similar Philips CDi system.
"5. Almost no matter what, a TV PC is going to be too loud to enjoy having in the living room. "
:)
:( Personally the best results I got was a Thermaltake Volcano7 with the 80cm fan replaced with a fan from www.quietpc.com. Of course this does not compare with the virtually-FANLESS operation of my new PentiumIV 2.26Ghz! That heatsink is big enough that with the fan removed and a nice 90cm quiet fan (Zalman fan less than 20db) mounted above it is enough! Only one case intake fan is required to keep the system temp average 30deg, and at most 48deg celcius.
:( )..
;)
There is so much that can be done here, I can see you have put a little effort into reducing noise, (duct-tape case joints, etc) but you made some fatal mistakes.. I have just completed my quiet pc project, and i'll tell you it went from 6 months ago unbearable to silent today! Now I cannot hear the sound of my pc over the static from the dodgy speakers when idle.
Quick tips:
Firstly get rid of that Athlon! Sorry it is a lost hope, I went through so many differnt fans and heatsinks before I realised my Athlon1.33 was a dead end. Thermaltake are very good fans but even the 'quite' ones will vary in noise, ie when it heats up it goes from 'quiet' 22db to jet engine 43db!
Next the harddisk, get rid of them, go for a Seagate Barracuda IV, these things run almost silent and very cool. Only use one HD in the system aswell. With the DVD-ROM, I highly recommend SONY, next to replacing the CPU my best move was junking a Pioneer 16x (noisy bastard!) with a SONY 16x DVD, that thing is the quietest DVD/CD I have heard in many years!
Lastly the powersupply again many quiet alternatives are available, www.quietpc.com is a good place, Just Cooler make a very quiet PSU which I love (sorry no link
It is so possible to make a quite pc, you would quickly learn this like I did when I started working on some Dell and Compaq corporate desktop's Optiplex's, etc.. Those things run silent, like all pc's should be!
there is a mirror available at
http://www.grabualsa.net/hepc_mirror/
thanks to the grabualsa.net team!
--SileNceR (OC-Melbourne)
Sorry guys, our host didnt like the amount of data transfer that was going on and suspended our account :(.
I dont like it any more than you guys.
Suffice to say we are looking for a new host!
OpenPVR -- an open *nix video recorder project.
[insert witty comment here]
There just a bunch of suites, be a real Geek, gotta love the beige case.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit