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Home Theatre PC Guide
Greg Ridder writes "For those of you who are interested in possibly putting together a Home Theatre or Media PC, I stumbled upon an excellent guide. It discusses basic hardware requirements, four software choices (BeyondTV, SageTV, MCE2005 and MythTV), controlling your cable or satellite set-top box and much more. Based on the research that I've done in the past, this is the most comprehensive guide that I've seen to date."
Build Your Own PVR and DVBn are also good resources if you are looking to build an HTPC
There is a guide much like this already, and that has been around for some time and is still updated regularly that is Linux oriented (The Linux HTPC Howto). The information regarding how DD/DTS work and what soundcard to pick and how to get HDTV working quickly was very useful to me.
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Here is my personal final thoughts on MythTV vs BeyondTV.
MythTV != Novice.
I could never get a season pass to work, never did record "quite right", never got the thing to run smooth, never got the parsing of the xml guides fully automated, Hardware problems with ATI AIW cards. Fix was available, but messy.
BeyondTV = Simply Works.
It worked out of the box, I could access it anywhere in the world via web and record at home, had "season pass", no messing with xml converters, scripts etc. It just works on my hardware (ATI9700 AIW)smooth and simple. I can stream out the shows all over my network and have never regretted purchasing it.
So? In the end I paid the $50.00 to get a TIVO like service on my PC via Snapstream's BeyondTV. It's not as flexible or customizable as MythTV, but for it's specific purpose it wins hands down.
Don't get me wrong, while the 4 weeks spent aggrivated with MythTV was worth it just for the fun, I'm just not enough of a Nerd to keep at it and I paid to have something that was reasonable priced, and worked.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
I'm working on CenterStage, and I think the parent is not as "Interesting" as the mods would have us believe. His media center itself would be "interesting", because we haven't implemented anything but the most basic of functions in CenterStage yet, and it's currently still in alpha 0.1. So unless you'd like to just be able to watch movies full-screen, which it can do, you might want to wait a while.
Help a college student
I also did a comparison, and since I am too goddam busy reviewing copy machines at the moment, I will just weigh in:
Best computer for the job: an intel with a cool-running CPU and fan. Dell 400SC's, if you can find them, are whisper quiet and perfect for the job.
Best card for the job: ATI or Nvidia, yada, yada. The TV card is what you care about. Hauppauge is the rage, and they just came out with a dual-tuner card (ostensibly only for MCE, but if you believe that I've got a Mac to sell you)
Best remote for the job: Snapstream's Firefly. Yeah, $50 is pricy, but, let's admit it: we're trying to make somethings as good as Tivo and this remote is the only one that does it. Remember that awesome Tivo IR blaster? Firefly is RF, baby, and you can edit XML to set up functions.
Best software for the job: BeyondTV. I tried Sage, Myth, even GB-PVR (don't get me started...it's good and free, but man is that shit finicky - release the SOURCE!!!). Anyway, BeyondTV is incredible, bullet-proof, supports two tuners out of the box, integrates with Firefly, and I got it for $50. Almost Tivo.
Best keyboard for the job: Definitely, definitely, the BTC 9019URF. It has a built-in joystick, handles, etc., and killer range.
There you have it!
A friend and I priced it out once.
It is VERY difficult to make a PC for less than $500. We were, of course, using Shuttles or Shuttle clones (Aopen XC Cubes, actually). Anything bigger does not fit in an entertainment center.
Case/mobo = $200
CPU = $100
RAM = $50
CD/DVD = $50
120gb hard drive = $100
Add another $150 for a PVR card and you've broken most budgets. Consumers won't pay $800 for a VCR.
We did offer to turn old PCs into VCRs for some friends. Basicly, they were upgrading and we took the old shit and dropped in a PVR and Linux. These went OK, but still took a LOT of tweaking.
On top of all that, MythTV is a bear ro set up. We are on an unlisted cable network unwilling to provide listings in XML format. It was impossible to make MythTV just record evert Thursday at 9pm. That's basic functionality in my book. Sorely lacking.
I've been assured that Myth works flawless on listed networks.
In any event, you're looking at $800~$1000 per MythTV box. No way to make a good model around that.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Actually I've seen pre-built mythtv boxes around for a while now...
Here are some examples...The pre-built ones that I've seen are a little too expensive for my taste. You can get a Tivo and a lifetime subscription as well as have a bunch of money left over for the price of some of the pre-built mythtv boxes. I built my own mythtv for the following reasons:
a) I wanted a PVR
b) I wanted to learn more about the inner workings of the linux Os.
c) For the sheer pleasure of saying that I built it myself.
Granted, it took me months before I had a stable box with all of the features that I wanted, but I learned A LOT. If you are only looking for reason a, then save yourself a bunch of time/headaches and buy a Tivo.
What are the best HDTV capture cards, for Over the Air or for backside-of-the-cable/satelite-box? The article only touches on this, but it will be of greater concern for the home enthusiast/hacker in the next two years.
"Best" depends on what you're using to watch TV. For MCE, the FusionHD or ATI HDTV Wonder work equally well (if you want QAM tuning of non-encrypted cable signals, you want a FusionHD). For "backside of the cable box" you may as well just do firewire capture - providing a box that supports this is an FCC requirement now; your cable provider has to give you one if you ask.
Keep in mind you have to also have an analog tuner for MCE, even if you don't use it. (Most people will want one, though, unless they want to be stuck with only 12 or 13 channels, some of which don't even broadcast all the time.)
If you're not using MCE, then the MyHD line of cards is probably best - they do hardware MPEG2 decoding (note I said decoding - unlike analog capture cards, all an HDTV card needs to do when capturing is stream the digital TV signal to the hard drive). They can be finnicky to set up, though, and you don't want to buy one if you have MCE because hardware decoding is not supported in MCE.
Well an Asus Pundit would work very well. it includes TV out. A microATX system can be used as well. There are many microATX boxes that are about the size of a Stereo Receiver.
Here is one specced out with a Pundit for $463. A Different one with MicroATX and an Athlon64 for $508. The Pundit is actually $10 more expensive but the other system has higher end features. Add $10 for a Serial IR receiver/Transmitter if you need that. Some TV capture cards have remotes that work in Linux and some don't. Cheaper than your estimates- about the same as a Tivo+DVDrecorder. If you build yourself.
If someone really wants me to build them a MythTV box, email me and we can work something out.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
When I first started building my own back in '95 I always used a grounding strap. It's been 9 years since I've used one, I've build about three systems are year, and I've not had one problem.
I equate the grounding strap to be more of a lucky charm than utilitarian.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
For those that haven't seen it, Anand Lal Shimpi tried the Mac Mini as an HTPC and wrote an article about it: The Mac mini as a Media Computer. (16 Feb 2005)
My summary of the article: The Mini is very nice for importing HD video via FireWire and HD video editing with iMovie HD. However, HD playback is unacceptable with current OS X software and DVD image quality (using Apple's DVD decoder) is not up to par. The Mini has potential as an SD DVR, but DVR software with "media-centric interface" is currently lacking for OS X.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
No. All in Wonder cards are horrible for HTPC setups. First, it does not do hardware encoding. Second, its image quality is trash compared to a PVR-250 (or similar) card. Third, they aren't as compatible with PVR software. Check out the forums at any of the big PVR software sites and you will find thread after thread of people with AIW cards complaining about problems. Ask any web savvy person what search engine they use. 9 out of 10 will say Google, and there is a good reason why. Ask any HTPC savvy person what capture card they use. 9 out of 10 will say a PVR-250 (some 150 or 350), and there is a good reason why. Try using an AIW with a HTPC and I bet you'll upgrade to a 250 within the first 6 months. --Jon