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What's the Point of Building a Home Theater PC?
An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has written Building a Basic HTPC. They discuss why Building a HTPC only makes sense if it can do something better than any other commercially available solution, as well as why HTPC should integrate act like a component not a computer. They also go into upsampling of DVDs to HDTV."
Building a Basic HTPC
February 03, 2004
Summary: You've read about building no-budget Dual Opteron workstations, and RAID-less storage servers and even air filters at FiringSquad. Today we'll be looking at Building a Basic Home Theater PC. If you're thinking Small Form Factor ATX, you haven't learned anything from our previous articles. This HTPC is designed for two purposes only: high-definition upsampling of DVD video and personal video recording. If you ever wondered how DVD's can look better when brought to HDTV resolutions even though the source is the same, read inside.
Introduction Page:: ( 1 / 10 )
The HTPC or "Home Theater PC" is a popular but often nebulous concept. Everyone would agree that a fundamental component is that the pc be connected to a television but what the HTPC is used for is something to debate. Some people use a HTPC to play games on the big screen, while others see it as a way to enjoy high-quality DVD, others see it as a music/video/image jukebox, and still others see it as a way to get a low-cost HDTV by using a desktop monitor rather than TV.
The problem with having a HTPC doing multiple tasks is that it becomes more difficult to integrate the software and yet your wallet gets thinner and thinner. Instead of starting off with a full-fledged HTPC, we're going to start with a very introductory approach to the HTPC and then through follow-up articles, add more features.
For this introductory HTPC article, we have two very specific tasks: DVD upsampled to HDTV resolutions, and a personal TV recorder. Since we're "lazy," our HTPC needs to perform like a real piece of home theater equipment as much as possible. The system should integrate itself seamlessly, and shouldn't force the user to think about it as a computer. The HTPC also has to have an advantage over a similar dedicated component ? there's no point in reinventing the wheel unless you can make it faster, smaller, and cheaper.
Why these two tasks?
We've designed this system as an ideal starting point for anyone with a "HDTV ready" television.
Having a PC-based TIVO is ideal for a number of reasons. The most important factor is cost. Both TIVO and ReplayTV charge a subscription fee and ridiculous premiums for larger hard drives. With a PC, you can add and replace IDE hard drives on a whim and also enjoy free TV listings. In addition, it is possible to enjoy higher quality video through a PC-based system through improved video scaling than would otherwise be possible with a standard unit.
Finally, ATI and other third-party software applications have media server applications that will allow their multimedia products to stream video to client systems on your desktop, and NVIDIA is expected to add this capability to its Personal Cinema line in the near future.
The upsampled DVD is the more important feature in our HTPC today. Even if cost is no object, the HTPC approach to DVD can offer better picture quality than any stand-alone unit. DVDs are recorded with 480 lines of resolution, however it turns out that upsampling the video to a 720p or 1080i resolution for HDTV and HDTV-ready televisions will offer the best quality.
It's a real phenomenon
One of the most often confused concepts is the idea that upsampling DVDs to HDTV resolutions will make DVDs look as good as HDTV. It doesn't seem as if this is possible -- the data is not present to begin with. The real answer is that while an upsampled DVD isn't as good as true HDTV, it will look better than a straight 480 progressive lines of resolution. Here's why?
HDTV-ready CRT
Like a CRT PC monitor, an HDTV-ready CRT can sync at multiple resolutions. The catch is that the electron beam is not designed to change in size depending on the resolution (it changes but not by design). Suppose you have a 19" monitor running at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. While reading this webpage, look at the white background. Get as close to the screen as you can to study the white. dy
Building a HTPC only makes sense if it can do something better than any other commercially available solution...
Two words: Half Life.
The point, Taco, is price. Why should I pay $2000 when I can have it for $200 in parts. Plus, there are plenty to people who get more enjoyment out of building something themselves.
If you have the computer experience, why not build a Home Theater PC? It's fun to do (if that sort of thing is fun to you), and it *can* cost less than a commercial model with the same features, especially if you equip a lot of features into the system. Besides, if the PC can also serve as a PVR or other cool functions, then it's a doubly-good deal.
stuff |
Building a Basic HTPC
February 03, 2004
Summary: You've read about building no-budget Dual Opteron workstations, and RAID-less storage servers and even air filters at FiringSquad. Today we'll be looking at Building a Basic Home Theater PC. If you're thinking Small Form Factor ATX, you haven't learned anything from our previous articles. This HTPC is designed for two purposes only: high-definition upsampling of DVD video and personal video recording. If you ever wondered how DVD's can look better when brought to HDTV resolutions even though the source is the same, read inside.
IntroductionPage:: ( 1 / 10 )
The HTPC or "Home Theater PC" is a popular but often nebulous concept. Everyone would agree that a fundamental component is that the pc be connected to a television but what the HTPC is used for is something to debate. Some people use a HTPC to play games on the big screen, while others see it as a way to enjoy high-quality DVD, others see it as a music/video/image jukebox, and still others see it as a way to get a low-cost HDTV by using a desktop monitor rather than TV.
The problem with having a HTPC doing multiple tasks is that it becomes more difficult to integrate the software and yet your wallet gets thinner and thinner. Instead of starting off with a full-fledged HTPC, we're going to start with a very introductory approach to the HTPC and then through follow-up articles, add more features.
For this introductory HTPC article, we have two very specific tasks: DVD upsampled to HDTV resolutions, and a personal TV recorder. Since we're "lazy," our HTPC needs to perform like a real piece of home theater equipment as much as possible. The system should integrate itself seamlessly, and shouldn't force the user to think about it as a computer. The HTPC also has to have an advantage over a similar dedicated component ** there's no point in reinventing the wheel unless you can make it faster, smaller, and cheaper.
Why these two tasks?
We've designed this system as an ideal starting point for anyone with a "HDTV ready" television.
Having a PC-based TIVO is ideal for a number of reasons. The most important factor is cost. Both TIVO and ReplayTV charge a subscription fee and ridiculous premiums for larger hard drives. With a PC, you can add and replace IDE hard drives on a whim and also enjoy free TV listings. In addition, it is possible to enjoy higher quality video through a PC-based system through improved video scaling than would otherwise be possible with a standard unit.
Finally, ATI and other third-party software applications have media server applications that will allow their multimedia products to stream video to client systems on your desktop, and NVIDIA is expected to add this capability to its Personal Cinema line in the near future.
The upsampled DVD is the more important feature in our HTPC today. Even if cost is no object, the HTPC approach to DVD can offer better picture quality than any stand-alone unit. DVDs are recorded with 480 lines of resolution, however it turns out that upsampling the video to a 720p or 1080i resolution for HDTV and HDTV-ready televisions will offer the best quality.
It's a real phenomenon
One of the most often confused concepts is the idea that upsampling DVDs to HDTV resolutions will make DVDs look as good as HDTV. It doesn't seem as if this is possible -- the data is not present to begin with. The real answer is that while an upsampled DVD isn't as good as true HDTV, it will look better than a straight 480 progressive lines of resolution. Here's why**
HDTV-ready CRT
Like a CRT PC monitor, an HDTV-ready CRT can sync at multiple resolutions. The catch is that the electron beam is not designed to change in size depending on the resolution (it changes but not by design). Suppose you have a 19" monitor running at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. While reading this webpage, look at the white background. Get as close to the screen as you can to study the white. Now, change your monito
Porn.
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
What's the point? 480P is converted to either 540P or 1080i in most HDTVs anyway.
I do it for the challenges.
Things like:
"Build a HTPC into a VCR, and keep the original funcionality of the VCR"
"Build a HTPC in my receiver, and make sure everything works" (Side note: That one was only sort of successful - had to remove the amp and use an external one, to much EMI)
I do it because I like having choices, I do it because I like to be able to stream show X to TV Y or burn it to DVD.
I do it because I'm a geek and a tinkerer, and it's in my nature.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Most of the DVR units out there come as part of a Satellite system or come with a subscription fee.
.MOV files well and are vary limited.
You can make your own system with an on-screen guide, time shifting and the ability to play DIVX movies and games for rather cheap now.
The retail units still don't play DIVX or Apple
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
wHY install Linux on an x-Box?
WHY install Linux on a toaster?
WHY make a cell phone so small that only an ant can use it?
"Why" is such a great question, but unfortunately the only answer here seems to be "Because I can". Didn't science have a purpose once upon a time?
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
1) Play DVDs. More advanced features than standalone players, such as bookmarking (that allows you to skip that pesky 'forced' content), multiregion playback etc.
2) Play games on a big TV with decent 5.1 sound.
3) Play MP3s from a central server through your stereo.
4) Used by people with high end projectors to deinterlace video signals.
5) Confirm your geekiness.
I got the idea into my head a while back that my PC would do everything. I'd have every piece of electronic and entertainment equipment in one box. I would be able to watch DVDs, TV, play CDs and MP3s, fake Tivo, Fax machine, answering machine all from my PC. All controlled via remote and piped to my TV.
It would be incredible.
Then I realized that I already had all of that stuff and it all worked perfectly. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
Why build your own PC?
Why build your own car?
Why build your own house?
Why do any of the above when you can just purchase the finished product outright which might be better than what you could build? Because we can.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
wife!??! not on slashdot...
Posters here seem to have demonstrated pretty clearly that even that's not close to cost-effective, unless you have almost all parts already and don't care about much of Tivo's functionality.
You do this stuff for fun, not to save money.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
All the other functions of a HTPC aside, the PowerMac G3 I'm using does one thing I can't replicate with a one-box solution: it records HDTV over FireWire. A DVHS deck would cost me way more than the $100 + $75 FireWire/USB card I paid for the G3. Even then, the DVHS deck uses tape opposed to random access hard drive.
It's not exactly a TiVo, but it time-shifts HDTV just fine. Since there is so little HD content anyway, I have no need for an HD TiVo anyway.
this is my sig
I'm sure given more time I could think of a few more, but that covers the majors. It wasn't any cheaper than a standalone unit for some of these functions, and it isn't quite as easy to deal with, but it was fun to build and tweak on. Plus it has the added benefit of being upgradeable.
One thing that this article doesn't seem to touch on is noise. When I first built mine the noise was intolerable. I ended up having to replace the PS, CPU fan and case fans with quiet models, and lining the case with Dynamat to cut the noise down to where it didn't bother me.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
Why? Obviously, if one has the know-how to build such a system, they probably won't find it inconvenient to use it like a computer. I know that I'm like the fact that me "HTPC" doesn't act like a component -- and I appreciate the flexibility that a computer offers me. Anybody who needs their "HTPC" to act like a component is probably better off saving time and money by just buying a component in the first place.
-Turkey
Perhaps they didn't mean for this to be spotlighted on
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
Seems your average user doesn't care about any of this integrated pc stuff.
They want their tivo, their dvd player, their vcr, etc.
But the biggest problem, imo, (which some will say these pcs address cause of upgradeability) is that once you buy a combo setup system--tivo/dvd player/vcr/whathaveyou, you're "locked in" to that system for a while....people (such as myself) don't want to spend a gang of money constantly upgrading, or sitting there wondering how quickly the entertainment center will become obsolete.
Once the tech gets figured out, I think integrated all in one systems will take off....anyway, my $.00000000000019
Sent from your iPad.
This will only to appeal to a small segment of the population, but I speak from experience with anime (this could apply to any foreign works, though). There are times DVDs are released without subtitles in a language you can read or dialogue in a language you can understand. There are people out there (fans) who will go through the trouble of created timed subtitle scripts. So, if you have a PC and a region-compatible or region-free DVD player, you can enjoy this new video (which you payed for) with working subtitles!
This becomes more interesting when you learn that a lot of entertainment goes through a localization process when they are being brought over to foreign markets. One prime example is how virtually every Hong Kong movie must have gangster rap in it... >_< So, sometimes people want to watch the original version.
That's one advantage I can think of for HTPC.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
It was little more then 50 years ago that people could easily build their own cars.
There's also a very strong community of personal aircraft builders. (I know one, it impresses the hell out of me that he's building this thing and intends to fly it.)
I enjoy building my own PCs because I can pick and choose to my taste.
Where do people think innovation comes from? Big corporations paying for new designs? The majority comes from people PLAYING with ideas and creating new things!
I decided one day to build a machine that could do laundry, make be breakfast, clean the house, and give me a blow job... then I realized I already had a wife!
- HTPC should integrate act like a component not a computer.
I don't understand this. You have a fully functional computer. Why not use it like one?The attraction of a HTPC for me is that it can do a reasonably good job playing DVDs and recording TV (replacing a dedicated DVD player and TiVo) and also function as a full computer, allowing me to browse the web, read e-mail, work, and play games. In particular, playing PC games on a huge 80" projection screen with a surround sound system is pretty sweet.
Last year I found myself with an old AMD 800mhz PC, missing just the monitor (total value probably $100). I also have lots of divx movies. Converting the movies to MPEG, splitting them, and burning them to CDs so that I could watch them in my DVD player was a pain. Watching them on a computer was even worse. So, I hooked up my PC to the TV, put the PC on my wireless network, and now I have a "HTPC". Total cost to me -- $40 for a wireless network card.
Now I'm in the process of installing MythTV on that PC (total cost $200 for a encoder/decoder card), and I'll have an awesome PVR without having to pay any monthly fees.
There's no reason that your wallet needs to get thinner and thinner. If you are interested in a PVR (ie. Tivo), then you actually save piles of money by not having to pay the monthly Tivo fee.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
The Antec case is too big, it falls off the back of your other home theater components. And why use a Radeon? Who wants to *only* upscale DVDs to HD resolution? Isn't the point of watching HD being able to receive HD broadcasts too?
Alternative configuration:
Mini-ITX system (the case will fit on top of the TV) like those from casetronic.com, with a VIA 800 or better.
MyHD HD Tunerboard (will upscale DVDs and tune HD/SD broadcasts).
VGA to component breakout cable connected from the MyHD's output directly to your set.
Install XP or 2K, put the MyHD IR control app in the winblows startup folder, and never look at the windows desktop again, since the MyHD has an OSD on the HD output.
With this config you can tune HD broadcasts and upscale DVDs for less.
Are you going to watch DVDs on a 17" monitor?
Are you going to use your $50 3-piece Altecs as a sound system?
The fact remains that the components of a home theatre that CAN'T be integrated into an affordable PC are going to be the majority of the system's cost anyway. So then the question remains: Why?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I think the way it works is, when you buy a set-top box, it's a pretty standard piece of kit. When you buys one, you calls up your satellite provider, having plugged it in, read them off the serial number, and the number of your LNB unit, and they authorize it in their system.
Well, get a card, plug it into your pc, call them up, give them the serial number, and you're off to the races.
I think. Not sure.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I seriously doubt if anybody has a monitor bigger than my 42" HDTV-ready projection TV... plus, using a computer as a platform usually means you have to put up with fan noise; it should be possible to build a consumer electronics device that silent (although Sony seems to insist on putting fans in theirs).
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Why build your own PC?
Why build your own car?
Why build your own house?
Why do any of the above when you can just purchase the finished product outright which might be better than what you could build? Because we can.
For you, the resolute do-it-yourselfer, may I recommend the Dentist in a box
You thought I was joking? its for real, folks
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
I own a Power Mac G4 MDD 2-processor system connected to an Apple 17-inch digital LCD display. On it, I have the TiVo-like device EyeTV, which allows me to watch conventional cable or antenna TV, and record any show, allowing me to save the programs later, burning them to DVD, as a QuickTime movie, or as a Video CD.
So, I've been waiting for video cards with HD tuners to arrive. It's inevitable. For one, getting this for me will be cheaper than getting a full HDTV for the time being, because I will not want to skimp on the type and size of TV I want for the household. Another reason is that my computer's screen, while not perfect as Apple's 23-in HD Cinema Display, is suitable enough for a clear, digital signal.
I suspect that El Gato or other companies will make and sell HD tuner video cards that also support conventional stuff (VGA, conventional TV tuners, etc.) just for the geeks. Most normals will simply drop into Best Buy, buy a TV, and be done with it. For me, however, I want all the mods, baby, and the ability to burn, burn, burn. A conventional HDTV, no matter how nice it looks, can't do it, and I don't want to add yet another computer connected to it to try to get recordings. I'm a one-computer kind of guy in daily use (though I collect plenty of them for nostalgia).
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
So i've been running an htpc for a bit, and i love it.
In fact, even my wife loves it.. which is a feat
I used it for mp3 playback, streaming mp3's, dvd upsampling and playback and television watching. I use a 100 hour directtivo for pvr stuff.
It's an athlon 1800+, 512 megs of ram, radeon 9000, guillemot soundcard with hacked drivers running optical out to the receiver
It's in an antec sonata, and is using zalman cooling stuff for everything.. the vidcard has no fan.. That machine is quieter than the tivo.
It's all running vga straight back to an infocus x1 projector showing on a 92" vutec silverstar screen
I control it all with a gyration ultra mouse/kbd combo
Software wise, i use zoomplayer with the cinemaster video codecs going through ffdshow for dvd playback and dscaler for tv watching. It's all running xp professional because i'm not particluarly linux savvy.
That setup has replaced my television completely. dscaler does a wonderful job of managing the tv signal, and zoomplayer is just phenomenal.
When we did LOTR:TT extended cut, i ripped both discs to the hard drive, added in trailers on the front end, psa's from the 60's, and spliced in a 10 minute dancing candy intermission in the middle.
Just hit play, and it goes magically.
The only complaint i have is the lack of useful hdtv cards. You can receive ota signals, with minimal pvr support, but that's it. Nobody supports signal over cable lines, or anything fancy.
I assume i'll need some sort of gray market hardware in the future to do that..
Oh yeah.. the total cost of all of this was less than a decent lcd hdtv set.. and you get a whole lot more..
If you can't convince you're wife/significant other with the raw windows/linux interface, look at some of the frontends. I used myhtpc (myhtpc.net) for a bit, and it was first rate..
I abandoned it since my wife is savvy enough to figure it out herself..
For more info, go to avsforum.com and read their htpc forums.. or linux htpc forums as you desire..
Highly recommended.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The article is a good primer on why to use an HTPC. I just finished putting together a Home Theater mainly for watching DVDs. The PC is outputting to a Sanyo Z1 projector which is 960x540 native to a 95" diag screen. With an HTPC I can make sure that the PCs output is EXACTLY the right resolution and refresh rate, completely bypassing any resolution scaling that the Projector will do. With anamorphic DVDs and using Powerstrip, Zoomplayer and FFDShow (under Windows, sorry *nix guys!), I can upsample DVDs to play in 960x540 and tweak the image so that my HTPC outputs a picture that will rival $2000 pro-level DVD players. An HTPC will also allow for outputting true 1080p (mainly through WM9, ugh...). Its not trivial to set up, so a complete newbie may be better served with a nice set top DVD player. But if you want excellent output for cheap, go HTPC!
BTW, I'd love to do this under Linux, but havn't found a player that has the crazed level of customization that Zoomplayer/FFDShow has. Any suggestions?
Link: "Media Ready 4000"
They are calling it an "interactive convergence product...hmmm - All I'm looking for is a way to centralize the media functions (i.e. DVD, MP3, etc) so I don't have to blow the speakers in the den to listen to a song while I'm in the pool...
In all honesty, I think it has 95% of the features most /.ers are looking for, albeit it lacks the DIY aspect.
The website says it was scheduled for Release in Dec 2003, but I've yet to see where I could buy one... Anyone know where I can pick one up?
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You can get a quiet PC, you can find one here
Why build your own PC?
I built my HTPC with an Athlon 2600, 1 gig ram, 240 gig of drives, ATI 9600 (HD Output), Hauppauge vid capture for under $1,000. I got to rewind and pause Janet's boob all I wanted and Tivo never knew.
Why build my own car?
Ummm, exactly how many people are doing this? I haven't seen that many home built ones on the road. Restored yes, home built no.
Why build my own house?
So I can configure room layout, ceiling heights, carpets, windows and all the extras that don't cost much to change *before the house is built*
Why do any of the above? Because I just ain't average enough for the prebuilt stuff
1) Time-shifting rented DVD's is nice (I don't always watch them right away).
2) Time-shifting TV is the ONLY way to go.
3) Music ripper/jukebox with fancy visuals is nice.
4) Mplayer compatible video player works out great for viewing new episodes of Red vs. Blue.
5) Web browsing.
6) DVD burning.
7) Expandable.
8) Upgradeable.
9) Skinnable.
There are certainly a couple of trade-offs, like those times you realize xmltv needs to be upgraded AFTER you've missed recording your favorite program. But if your a Slashdot geek these problems should be right up your alley. Anyone belly aching about the cost or convenience of a HTPC is probably not up for it. But for those of us who are, the additional features and flexibility will trump any store bought PVR any day (and if it doesn't, well just write the extra software!).
Note to potential HTPC do-it-yourself article writers: Use either Mandrake, Gentoo or Debian (if your new to Linux or don't like configuring things yourself: Mandrake). You'll save a lot of time because you can install all the neccisary packages to run MythTV from a single command (ie 'urpmi MythTV' if you've set up PLF or Thacs rpm archive). Its REALLY not that difficult, but if you don't enjoy this sort of project (challenge?) why waste your time. Btw, Hauppauge's WinTV-250 is the way to go (at least for the MythTV project).
Quack, quack.
Finally, I settled on buying a computer to do all of this. I had quite a few of the parts I needed; the only thing I was missing was an OTA tuner card, the DVD software, and the sound card. I already had decided on Windows XP (which I will explain below), so I was set.
The DVD software I went with was called TheaterTek and the benefits it had over a standard player are numerous:
- Ability to resize any move to any resolution including 1080i
- Ability to expand the movie to get rid of the black bars around the edge (i.e. anamorphic widescreen)
- Ability to save these changes for each individual movie
- Using Windows to further enhance the output using various filters (i.e. fdshow filters)
The output from this setup was incredible. Watching DVDs at 1080i with the image cleaned up is so much better than 480p. I highly recommend it.The other problem was getting the actual HD content from the main networks. Locally in Omaha, NE ABC, CBS, and NBC have been broadcasting in HD for a while, so an OTA tuner was the way to go. A stand alone box was going for $600 locally, and I had found a card that does it for $200, the MyHD OTA Tuner Card. The picture quality is incredible and the performance was great on my 850 Duron. It gave me everything the set top box would have done and also Tivo like functionality out of the box, something that still isn't available for HD yet.
As I mentioned before, I went with Windows XP as everything mentioned above is only available for that platform. Also, due to the mature video drivers on Win32 vs. Linux for the ATI card I went with, I was able to tweak more aspects of the output to the HD monitor through a program called Powerstrip. I tried DVD playback on Linux (mplayer), but it had no where near the functionality of the Theatertek software. Also, I did look into the pcHDTV card available, but it isn't nearly has mature as it should be for a commercial HD tuner card (the only user fiendly app I have found, MythTV, has very limited integration with the pcHDTV card. That is changing quickly, though).
All in all, I highly recommend making a HTPC if you have the time. Plus, you don't need that Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition crap to make it work, just plain old XP will do you fine.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
The author says this HTPC does what Tivo does, but it cannot. It does not have software to download television listings and intelligently parse them based on user preferences. This elaborate P.C. setup cannot be told to even do basic Tivo tasks such as "record all showings of my favorite show".
This is not an equivalent device.
The number one reason for me to build my own Linux-based PVR is privacy.
Did you know that Tivo tracks not only what shows you watch, but exaclty what parts of shows you replay or skip over?
Now, I know it's *supposed* to be anonymous. And I do believe them when they say they aren't selling the data *at the moment*.
I also know they have systems in place to anonymize the data.
But can you (or Tivo) guarentee that they will *never* be bought out be someone less ethical?
Can you guarentee that Tivo won't get a new CEO who decides selling your viewing habits to direct mail advertisers is more lucrative? (Imagine if Darl McBride went to Tivo instead of SCO).
That's my biggest reason for me to put together my own PVR.
Of course, there's also flexibility. I get to decide exactly what capabilities I want, not the marketing department of a profit-motivated company.
Since this was posted A.C., it doesn't appear to be a case of Karma whoring, and even if it where, I would gladly give up the mod points to view the article.
Chances are the moderator(s) who marked the parent to this post redundant, will not see this comment of mine. But I for one appreciate the effort to include the text so all can see. Perhaps the moderator(s) thought the text had already been posted in full (it hadn't). Even so, this was a very early post and should have been given the benefit of the doubt that earlier article text postings hadn't shown up yet.
Save negative mods for when they are really needed.
Like the guidelines say, focus on modding up.
Thankfully, most moderators modded this up informative, not redundant.
Letter To Iran
Just barely. An HTPC really is a good deal, depending on what you're trying to do.
It depends entirely on what you want to do. Consider my situation-- I had an HD-ready set, and wanted an OTA tuner and the ability to record HD broadcasts digitally.
Like a lot of people around here, I had an old PC laying around doing nothing. I bought an HDTV tuner card for $120 (used, new would have been $199) and stuck it in. Now I can record 10 hours of HDTV, and tune my local stations. A standalone tuner box would have been a minimum of $300, and the ability to record (maybe with a digital VCR) would have been another $300.
The MyHD MDP-100 tuner card has the nice side effect of being able to play back DVDs, and upscale the output to 1080i or 720p digitally. And because it's a hardware MPEG card, it doesn't need much of a system to run it. A PIII and 128MB of PC100 is well more than it really needs.
It wasn't $700 or $200, though-- it was $120. Aesthetically, it fits entirely behind the TV, and the one case fan isn't too noisy. Because I only use it for 2 or 3 shows a week, it's off the rest of the time and noise is not an issue.
Down the road, I'll build a better system-- but heck, even at $700, it beats out a 1080i DVD player (or standalone scaler and normal DVD), OTA HD tuner, and HD recording solution price-wise. A $30 ATI dongle lets me play PC games on the big screen in HD, too, so add an XBox with a component kit to that list.
They really can be price-competitive with a lot of other things, and a good quiet case and heatsink with underclocked CPU can really give you some advantages you can't get without spending a TON of money to do it another way.
When the HD Tivo is $300, *then* I'll have something to switch to. (but it still won't do the games, DVD scaling, or archive the HD shows to Xvid or WM9-- so my HTPC will probably soldier on.)
Here is my DVR system. Actually, it's two systems. My DVR has a 1.4 Athlon, 256 megs of RAM, 10 gig HD for apps and OS, 80 gig for MP3s, 160 RAID-0 partition for recording, 120 HD for video storage/playback, and an ATI All-in-Wonder 8500DV. It's connected under the floor to the TV/receiver in my living room. Thus, you cannot hear it from the living room.
My second system is a cheap PIII 550 with an 80 gig HD. It too holds my MP3 collection and is primarily for playing music. However, it too is connected to the living room TV and reciever and can play previously recorded content via the network. Thus, when the DVR is recording something, I can still play music or watch shows.
Also, the music computer has two soundcards. Winamp uses my Audigy2 and everything else uses a cheap Hercules card. Thus, I can even listen to music while someone else is watching a recorded show!!!
Also, that music computer is wired to nearly every receiver to the house, so I can listen not only from the living room, but from the kitchen, bedroom, etc. (I'm working on getting the bathroom's wired with speakers.) And I should point out that ATI's Remote Wonder works throughout my huge two-story farm house.
With my homebuilt DVR systems, I can do the following:
1. Record shows, edit out the commercials, and burn them to DVD.
2. Pause, rewind, and fast-forward live TV.
3. Know what's currently on TV and what's coming up. (With ATI's Guideplus/EasyView software, included with its All-in Wonder cards.)
4. Access my entire 900+ CD collection in MP3 format from nearly every room in the house. (Via TightVNC.)
5. Create a playlist of ALL my favorite songs, which I can access with one button from my Remote Wonder. That playlist is over four days long; it's like having my own radio station!
5. Normalize the volume of my CD/MP3 collection via my Audigy 2 card. That's important. A roommate had one of those 200 disc CD players, but considering that nearly every CD has a different volume, I considered it worthless.
6. Rip my DVD collection so I can play them back without all the FBI crap, from nearly every room in the house.
7. And most importantly, I do not have to pay a monthy service, or have it randomly record shows it feels I might want to watch.
Sure, my system probably cost a lot, (I built them both out of mostly spare parts) but considering it does exactly what I want and there is no commercially available alternative, I find it extremely valuable. Heck, even my wife can use it!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Plain and simple, tuning and recording HDTV is still freaking expensive. A $500 computer and $200 HD tuner card gets you all the functionality of:
1. HD tuner (standalone cost, $300+)
2. HD recorder/PVR (standalone cost, $400+)
3. 1080i/720p DVD player (standalone cost, $250)
4. PC games in HD on big screen (closest comparison is an XBox with an HD kit-- $200)
5. A high-end scaler/filter box for HD video. ($500+)
Your setup is very similar to mine. I use a MyHD card to output to the set as well.
But I wanted the desktop, too. So I bought a couple of VGA->Component RCA breakout cables and set things up like this:
Radeon HD Component Dongle -> Component RCA to VGA breakout cable -> MyHD VGA input
and
MyHD VGA output -> VGA to Component RCA breakout cable #2 (just like your current setup.
All this does is allow you to use the handy source switching built in to your MyHD card to toggle between 1080i desktop from the Radeon, and 1080i video from your MyHD card. Works like a charm.
Cables available here:
Short cable for connecting your Radeon to your MyHD
Long cable for connecting your MyHD to your HDTV's component input
With a few cables, you can do what the above poster did AND still have your desktop. Pressing the "HD" button on your MyHD remote will toggle between desktop and video.
If you only have component inputs, ATI's cards can output component HD with a $30 dongle you can order on their website. MMmmmm... giant HD video games.
HD tuner cards with VGA outputs can be connected with a VGA->Component breakout cable, as long as your HD card supports YPrPb (normal VGA is RGB). All the ones I've seen that have their own outputs support this.
My combo uses both, and connects the output of the radeon to the loopback input of the HD card (kinda like an old voodoo 3d accelerator) with another VGA->Component cable.
I use a MyHD MDP-100, which they no longer make. But the MDP-120 will do the same. You don't need one of these at all to get desktop/game output, though-- just that ATI adapter. (which only works with ATI cards-- the reason it's cheap is that the card already supports component out. It's just a pin rearranger.)
Rather than computer. I did try though...in a quest for superior picture quality. I assumed that the computer would provide a better picture quality than my non-progressive scan DVD using the onboard iDCD Farjuoda de-interlacer chip set in my InFocus X1 projector. I was wrong. I did hook up my iBook to my MOTU 828 interface I use for music recording this was to get 5.1 audio out of the iBook. The MOTU has 24 bit decoders and optical out which went in nicely to the Sony amp. Anyway....from studying deinterlacers and how exactly DVD's are played back, mastered and what the aspect ratios and frame rate of film I concluded the quality of the DVD image resides in 1. the mastering technique, i.e. Film to digital transfer method used 2. The quality of the print used in the mastering 3. And the sophistication of the de-interlacing. Most progressive DVD players have deinterlacing chipsets that take the information from the DVD produce a progressive scan image. The quality and sophistication of these chipset varies greatly. Do some googles on "deinterlacing chipset". In addition they also provide proprietary functions to reduce and eliminate digital artifacts that are the result of image processing. When I used my iBook to play back the image I did get a higher resolution image but it was harsh and very non-film like. The deinterlacer built into the projector is designed to produce a "film like" quality to the image. Taking great pains to reduce the rainbow effect and other artifacts like pixelation, jaggies and chroma abberations that result form the hardware and convertsion. So keep in mind watching films on DVD's is a much different activity than watching HDTV. Film is an art is for the most part is still an analog process (barring the increasing number of digitally shot movies like 28 Days Later that was later converted to film) So having seprately engineered components to produce the appropriate signal is inherently going to be better. A DVD player to watch movies, HDTV tuner to watch HDTV and a monitor capable of producing quality images from a variety of sources is the way to go. That is if you are really picky about what hits the back of your eyeball.
I'm building one as we speak, so I know a little more than most hearsay going on right now.
For not much more money, you can have the same exact performance, plus the added bonus of _burning_ recorded tv to dvd/vcd..
People saying it's expensive forget that as long as you have a hardware decoder, you're processor could literally be a pII.. hardware decoders do all the number crunching you need. the biggest requirement in this whole thing being a HUGE HDD.
on to my setup, i'm using my actual PC for now, slowly gathering all the parts.
heres why someone would do this insttead of tivo: (ms already knows this, hence MCE.)
It's a tivo... it's a jukebox... it's a game console... it's A COMPUTER.
sure, if you think of it as just a tivo replacement, it's one hell of an expense.. but if you think of it as a PC with about $100 exta dollas wrapped up in it, it's one hell of a deal. Plus its very cool imho
So what if you already have a home server PC? This was my situation when I started to consider a tivo box. I thought it silly to have essentially two equivilant computers systems up 24/7. So I added the PVR function and TV video out to the PC.
Asthetics are not an issue as the PC sits in a closet. I pass remote control commands to it via a IR->RF->IR remote extender. The system is *almost* headless except for the TV. I run a long s-video cable from the PC to the TV for display and run MythTV for the PVR function. All up, the cost of adding PVR capability to the system was about $200 -- which included a cheap tuner/capture card and a 180 GB disk. Myth gives me free schedule updates and a very cool web based interface for programming the recordings. Even my wife is happy!
To do this from scratch is tougher. A budget for the system would be upwards of $800 or even $1000 to get a reasonable machine. Off the shelf may be better unless you already have a server. Take a gander at Here for pix of my *unfinished* HTPC.
Sure you can buy a ready made solution, but what happens when the new tech comes out? Is it upgradeable? I had a spare box sitting around, threw Linux on it, got a $10 GeForce2 with TV-out off of eBay and made a pretty damn cool digital movie player that I can ssh into and sftp movies to and from. Not only that, but I can run picture slideshows or fire up Mozilla and hit Bit Torrent sites on a 27 inch TV. I haven't messed with MythTV or Freevo yet. I'm looking to get a WinTV PVR card and set up HD recording, but my drive is only 20 gig (It's what I had laying around)
;) It's Linux! I'm now looking to upgrade the CPU because the movies are getting bigger and putting strain on my AMD 500. I fear that if I went with a proprietary solution, I'd be locked in. With this, I can build a cool case and keep upgrading here and there as I desire. I highly recommend it as a cool project that can be done at a very low cost.
It's a great solution. My girlfriend and I watch tons of movies on it every weekend. We usually have 5 or 6 downloads going at the same time. I know its expandable for new formats and new means of acquiring media. Plus it never crashes
Sig? No thanks man, I'm tring to quit.
Get a video capture card with onboard MPEG-2 encoding and you could build a MythTV box with a Pentium I ($130 for a Hauppauge-250 on ebay). Or better yet, get a video capture card with onboard MPEG-2 encoding and decoding ($180 for a Hauppauge-350 on ebay).
Still think you don't have the spare parts lying around? You don't need much CPU power or RAM (256MB is plenty) if all the encoding/decoding is on the capture card. Grab a PCI IDE controller for $10 and a 200GB drive (I've seen 'em as cheap as $100) and yer' set.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent